Search Engine Optimization - Just forget it

How do you get a high ranking on search engines? Well, here is a story of how you don't.

A friend of mine runs an online shop, one of those you can buy ready-made. Just add your products and you are off. Her site is very popular and things are going well. Then one day, the hosting company offered her a "search engine optimization pack". Pay $3 a month, and get a high ranking on sites like Google. She took it, thinking that was a good deal.

But, after 6 months Google sent her an email to notify her that her site had been banned from their index. They had notice that she was using doorway pages (page that only the search engine sees - containing a lot of key phrases).

What she got was not a "$3/months SEO pack", but a "$3 get-me-banned-from-any-search-engine pack".

So here is my advice to you. If you are considering improving you ranking - Just don't. It always hurts you in the long run.

Hey! What about the good SEO companies?

Easy, none exists. The entire concept of good SEO companies is a hoax. The point of search engine optimization is purely to make you site look better than it really is. No matter how you look at this, to a search engine that is cheating. They do not want to index the best side of you, that want to index the real you.

If a SEO company calls you and offer you a high ranking. I suggest that you say 7-8 really bad things about them and then hang up. Then treat yourself $3/month worth of something you like (chocolate, a special cup of coffee at Starbucks, a short film from iTunes or whatever).

Focus on people ranking

If you spend your time focusing on getting a higher ranking on search engines you will most likely not be successful. It is a very ineffective strategy.

Instead focus on making your site better for people. This involves:

Write interesting content
Use a clear language
Don't clutter you site with junk

As an example: This article's title is "Search Engine Optimization - Just forget it", instead of fuzzy titles like "Banned for $3 a month".

When you do this people will eventually start to notice you. They will tell their friends and post links to your site.

This is something the search engines like to see. It is a sign of relevancy. Google is designed look for this, but MSN Search and Yahoo likes it too.

Looking at the technical aspect the same rules apply:

Use clear code (headline for tags for headlines, paragraph tags for text - no table layout)
Don't clutter you code with tag-soup or a mix of elements.

This definitely helps, but far less than what you think. In my experience, organizing your code in a specific way makes for a very little difference.

Google also want you to sign up to Google Sitemaps. I did this a long time ago, and although it has probably had positive effect, I have not noticed any real change.

So, focus on writing clear and concise content that people can use. It helps to make your site technically simple and structured. And above all, just forget about search engine optimization.

Comments

Thomas Baekdal - Jul. 12, 2006

Funny, Google Adsense showing ads of SEO companies :)

Yuri - Jul. 13, 2006

Actually, doing everything for your visitors involves keyword research to know which words your visitors use to describe your product or services. You can do that by asking them directly, doing surveys or anything else. But if anything, that'll be keyword research and it'll make it all or nothing in terms of SEO.

And nowadays it takes a good SEO company to advise people to write unique, quality content, forget free irrelevant links and provide value to their potential customers.

It is just you get what you pay for. Want #1 position on all the search engines for $3 a month? You got it.

Want a steady stream of targeted traffic without specific guarantees for several thousand bucks? You got it.

The more you put into your business, the more you get (or just don't get penalized at all, for that matter). It is up to you to make decisions, though.

Dang. Rename the comment to Part II? =)

Kevin Johnson - Jul. 17, 2006

Thomas, you hit the nail on the head.

Keep up the good work!

Aleksandersen - Jul. 25, 2006

One good thing that have come with SEO recently is the new interest for Web standards and the full use of HTML!

ern0 - Jul. 26, 2006

If SEO only means using white or black magic on your webpage, like writing white keywords on white background, or setting up linkfarms, etc., this article is true.

But - in my view - SEO covers much wider area.

During a SEO project we first

- collecting all the keywords/terms describes the partner's business (and not only the top 5, but sometimes more thousand of terms!),

- collecting the list of competitors: all the sites, which appear good position in Google for our keywords/terms.

Then we are making a survey. The most important result of this survey is the "presence" value, which shows your site's appereance % for your keyword/term list in Google query results (e.g. how many % of queries leads to "good result", so where your site appears on the first page). Also, we calculate this value for all the competitors in order to set up a "site toplist", we can calculate it for a subset of keywords in order to examine "fragments" of our business, and also we can calculate this value again and again to see changes in time.

So, the site change request list (the core SEO) is only a small part of the project.

If our partner has made all the changes we required, we can repeat the survey and we can see, if it was succesfull, then we can see the weak points etc. etc., we can compare it to visitor statistics (e.g. top keyword entrances), etc. etc.

Anyway, this method requires:

- partner's heavy co-operation,

- more human work of SEO company,

- software to make statistics,

- longer project time period, maintenance.

Also, it's not $3/month. But the partner gets objective and clear picture of the result.

I hope, this is not the kind of SEO you are don't like, but the one which you do like :-)

Thomas Baekdal - Jul. 26, 2006

Well, I admit that does sound better, but it really does change my point of view. I think you what have descripe is a lot of work that could be better spent on making quality content.

I think many companies would be better off if they tried to create value for their visitors instead.

But, the approach you write about would be very useful for planning and maintaining advertising campaigns - like adwords.

ern0 - Jul. 27, 2006

Making quality content is "only" one of the SEO techniques. It's very important, but I should not say that it's the most important, because _all_ techniques are important, even ones, which has no effect today, but will be effective in the future. (Just remember, some years ago meta keywords were important and linking was not... world changes.)

Which is the more important part of a car? The engine or the key? If the car has no engine, you will never go with it, but if you have no key, ditto, and it does not matter, that the key is even less complex/expensive than the engine. If one is missing, you fail to start the car.

So, if you have brilliant content, but - say - you don't put the title= of the articles into the caption (in html term: title=), your page will not appear as search results (today) as often as it should be with correct captions. If you have spent lot (of energy, time and money) on quality content, spend a bit on "marketing" of it. Buy a key to start your car. (Also, if you have a car without engine, it sounds bad that "buy an engine to your car".)

SEO is the part of marketing (not advertising). When you trace your keywords' positions, watching your competitors, and taking reactions to changes, you're doing some kind of marketing task. At not least, this monitoring is a good feedback source. It's worth to spend some money (and time and energy) on this form of marketing.

Joey Livingston - Aug. 13, 2006

You've proposed some interesting ideas that revolve around some notions that have been churning in the back of my head for quite some time. I've read a few articles that promote the same concepts you have here, in favor of interesting and relevant content, but you're the first I've read to do anything more than imply that SEO is bad. I suppose it could be the same thing to say "SEO is bad", or say "be sure to do SEO the right way". Keeping your site updated with interesting relevant content definitely does optimize it for search engines, after all. Nevertheless, I appreciate your statement; sometimes we need a shocker to wake the masses up.

Anonymous - Aug. 23, 2006

Follow web standards, be sure the site validates as valid HTML/XHTML and CSS.

Make it accessible to people to disable people. Use title=/alt= attributes on img tags. Use title= attribute on hyperlinks.

Douglas d{sQ}{sQ}Aquino - Aug. 23, 2006

Excellent article... but I must disagree in one point. There is good SEO... good SEO consists in doing what you just did... counseling. It's a consultant service that should be included in any job, without further costs.

The Real SEO is just to tell your prospects that they need to create quality content in order to achieve high rankings.

The others SEO's are just known as "Black Hat SEO's" and their wonderfull "ban-me-of-the-index magic"

Thomas Baekdal - Aug. 23, 2006

Douglas, Yes, I agree.

For instance, Gerry McGovern would be a perfect SEO :)

Mr. E - Aug. 26, 2006

SEO = Follow the standards. You would be really amazed at how many sites are designed 100% in flash or are designed in such a way that nothing but IE can figure it out.

I have yet to seen a professionally created site that wouldn't benefit from a few solid days of SEO during the design phase. Clients are willing to pay for it in some cases, but marketing almost always wins over usefulness.

cmircea - Aug. 31, 2006

There a alot of phantom seo companies. The key to SEO is good, quality content and relevant backlinks.

I agree with all that is said, and... - Oct. 5, 2006

... seo is a long term activity, and you are best to do it yourself. If seo companies were so good at doing seo then they wouldnt be bothering with client management seo and publishing their own sites. The whole thing stinks

gudipudi - Apr. 22, 2007

"So here is my advice to you. If you are considering improving you ranking - Just don't. It always hurts you in the long run."

I dnt know you name ...bt dear Friend

As this has happened to your friend you just cant say those NO to SEO ....after all your friend could have thought is it really possible to rank better for just 3 dollars per month .......

then what about the rest of the world where they are investing thousands of dollars for SEO ????????? :)

so i humbly request you and your friend to wisely choose an professional SEO organization ..(nt just for 3 dollars ...which are peanuts)

and you mentioned about Door away pages ....which every body knows that it is illegal ....unfortunately your friend didnt know that and i guess your friend might have commited a biggest blunder by not asking those hosting people if what were they doing to optimize her site

i advice you all to have a report every week before anything bad happens

if you have any doubts you can mail me

cheers

ramakrishna

ramakrishna.gudipudi@gmail.com

Tom Garrison - Apr. 24, 2007

There IS such thing as SEO, and quality SEO. SEO, in brief, as only "one" person mentioned, is the code that designs your pages "and" the quality content. You can't have one without the other.

If you expect the search engines to place your site in the top 10 search results you'll have to give them reason. Proper heading tags; proper html type declaration; links "within" your own pages using keywords; keywords used in content; alt= tags properly used; properly listed keywords in valid tags; every page of the site "validates" to the html declared; etc.

If you don't have all of this (and more), a Web site will not tell the search engines that it is "relevant" the keywords describing the page(s).

So, you need content, valid code, and code that describes your content. If this isn't done in the correct order using proper tags, the search engines will score "against" your page(s) for each error.

Therefore, SEO "does" exist - albeit there are few of use who know how to do it "naturally" so that the search engines "like" what they see and reward your page(s) for conforming to W3 Consortium recommendations.

L.T. Creations has many client's sites in the top 10 search results that were obtained "naturally" and have retained the positions for years.

There is "always" a right way and a wrong way to do something.

ahmous - Jun. 29, 2007

thanks a lot for all of you .i really enjoyed these articles

gabriel bear - Dec. 4, 2007

Real SEO work is a constantly changing multiple of factors. At some point, valuable content is a perception by others. so yeah, gee, backlinks. it's right there in the gooogle patent ap, along with how their value is calculated.

Where we would agree is that real SEO isn't cheap. There are softwares that assist, if used for analysis and tuning, not bombardment. There are reliable companies that do quality work--and charge for it.

So far as doorway pages are concerned, BMW of germany got banned for doing the same thing...and i'm very sure they weren't using some $3 a month service.

Doorway pages are their own art.

Landers are their own art.

Every bit of SEO is its own art. but software and automation have a role there as well.

i get a number 1 google rank for any term my client needs. Determining the actual need is also part of SEO. Something mom&pop shops rarely want to pay for, and as a result get bit, and blame SEO.

gabriel bear - Dec. 4, 2007

So far as doorway pages are concerned, BMW of germany got banned for doing the same thing...and i'm very sure they weren't using some $3 a month service.

Doorway pages are their own art.

Landers are their own art.

Every bit of SEO is its own art. but software and automation have a role there as well.

i get a number 1 google rank for any term my client needs. Determining the actual need is also part of SEO. Something mom&pop shops rarely want to pay for, and as a result get bit, and blame SEO.

concord - Apr. 24, 2008

Doorway pages are specially created to fool the search engines algorithm and

draw search engine visitors to a website. Doorway pages are Web pages

designed and built specifically to draw search engine visitors to your

website. They are standalone pages designed only to act as entry or door to

your websites. Usually these pages are theme based. They are also known as

portal pages, jump pages, gateway pages, and entry pages

Doorway pages are considered to be part of black hat and should not be used,

although many of seo companies use these pages for gaining more traffic.