As a New Media Agency specialising in Search Engine Optimisation and Search Engine Marketing, one question that is often asked, is "Why has Google removed my website from their Search Engine Rankings?". This can be very difficult for an experienced search engine marketeer to work out, never mind a novice, so E-Gain New Media have compiled a list of the most common reasons for your site disappearing from a Search Engines index.
Due to the fact that the symptoms of being removed from Googles Search Engine Rankings are not immediately obvious, it can take some time before anyone notices what is wrong (unless your search engine optimisation consultant offers this as part of their service - which E-Gain New Media offer as part of their search engine optimisation service), except for the steady drop in traffic and conversions to your site. If your site has been banned, take the first step to increasing the ROI of your website, with an online marketing solution from E-Gain New Media.
What is Googles Viewpoint on what is right and what is wrong?
Quality Guidelines - Basic principles:
# Make pages for users, not for search engines. Do not deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as "cloaking."
# Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you would feel comfortable explaining what you have done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
# Do not participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
# Do not use unauthorised computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.
Quality Guidelines - Specific recommendations:
# Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
# Do not employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
# Do not send automated queries to Google.
# Do not load pages with irrelevant words.
# Do not create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
# Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
"These quality guidelines cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative behaviour, but Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here (e.g. tricking users by registering misspellings of well-known websites). It is not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique is not included on this page, Google approves of it. Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles listed above will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit. "
Source: Google
1) Cloaking
Using an extract from Googles website:
"The term "cloaking" is used to describe a website that returns altered web pages to search engines crawling the site. In other words, the web server is programmed to return different content to Google than it returns to regular users, usually in an attempt to distort search engine rankings. This can mislead users about what they'll find when they click on a search result. To preserve the accuracy and quality of our search results, Google may permanently ban from our index any sites or site authors that engage in cloaking to distort their search rankings."
Cloaking can take on a multitude of guises, from hidden text in your pages, to more sinister redirects utilizing keyword-laden doorway pages for search engines, and well presented user friendly pages to users. Cloaking can be a very effective way of getting short term success, however in the long run, these tend to be removed from the search engines resultset fairly quickly.
2) Robots and Meta-Tags
Robots.txt files are often used to guide search engine robots, and tell them what they can and cannot index. Whilst a well set out robots.txt file can be an effective way of guiding search engine robots round your website, a incorrectly formatted one can have catastrophic results, and result in your websites pages either not being found or not indexed.
You can also include robot friendly information in your meta-tags. An initial starting point should be to ensure that all pages you wish to be indexed DO NOT include the following:
3) Duplicate Content
Many an experienced search engine marketeer has fallen foul of this (whether intentional or not). Google loves unique content and as such rewards unique content, however having too many copies of the same content can result in completely the opposite. If you offer content out via feeds or press releases, try and use snippets of the article and link back to yours for further information.
To find out more about protecting your content, click here
4) Keyword Spamming
Rule of thumb for writing your content for your site - "Use everything in moderation". This is very apt with regards to search engine optimisation and to writing copy for your website with seo in mind in particular.
"Search Engine Optimisation is useful for optimising keywords for search engines, and search engine optimisation can also increase traffic from search engines as a result of search engine optimisation"
Extra points awarded to those who guessed the targetted keyword, however this can be a dangerous past time when optimising your site. If the word or phrase is repeated too often Google can place a filter to reduce the site's rankings or simply ban the site.
Getting the keyword density of your page right can be akward however, E-Gain New Media generally keep density between 4% to 11% per page on targetted keywords.
5) Buying Links
Whilst the purchase of incoming links probably wont get you banned, it can result in your search engine rankings being affected. Whilst the purchase of links every now and then probably wont do anything, the mass purchase of links into your site, in one go will affect your rankings, and not neccesarily in a positive way.
Resources
# Google Guidelines
# Yahoo Guidelines
# Google Webmasters Guide
Notes to editors:
E-Gain New Media is based in Burnley, Lancashire and was founded by Peter Young, John Hill and Paul Greaves.
The new media company specialises in web development, search engine marketing, online brand protection and traffic analysis .
Further information can be found at http://www.e-gain.co.uk or by contacting Peter Young on 01282 718259.
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