SEO has been around for a couple of decades now. The popular method of driving free, organic traffic from search engines is so effective and cost-friendly that it isn\u2019t going away anytime soon.<\/p>\n
However, it doesn\u2019t mean that SEO hasn\u2019t seen its share of changes over the years.<\/span><\/p>\n In the early days, SEO used to be very different than what it is now. The search engine optimisation techniques \u2014 both on-page and off-page \u2014 used to be fairly different. As a matter of fact, now Google recommends not using many of the techniques that once worked in ranking a website to the top of search engine result pages (SERPs).<\/span><\/p>\n The problem, however, is that many SEO professionals still strongly follow the out-dated SEO techniques and methods. And they end up hurting their website search engine rankings instead of improving it.<\/span><\/p>\n In this blog post, we highlight 5 SEO techniques that \u2014 despite working great at one time \u2014 Google hates now. It would be in your best interest to avoid these out-dated SEO techniques when optimising your website.<\/span><\/p>\n Content marketing forms a crucial pillar of any SEO campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n At one time, keyword stuffing used to be an important part of creating content, but that is no longer the case.<\/span><\/p>\n As a matter of fact, Google now actively searches for shallow and thin content that uses the out-dated technique of keyword stuffing. And when Google\u2019s algorithms find such content, they may penalise the entire website because of it.<\/span><\/p>\n Many internet marketers and online entrepreneurs often end up doing keyword stuffing unintentionally. So what does it look like?<\/span><\/p>\n Here is an example of how keyword stuffing looks like.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s not readable; it\u2019s not user-friendly. The content is clearly meant to stuff keywords and Google can see it. Once it does, the content will be penalised.<\/span><\/p>\n How to solve this problem?<\/span><\/p>\n Just don\u2019t do keyword stuffing. Take the \u201creader first\u201d approach. Google itself recommends creating content for human readers, and not search engines. Also, when you find a keyword that you want to rank for, use it sparingly. The overall percentage should not exceed 2-3%.<\/span><\/p>\n Use LSI keywords<\/span><\/a> and other related keyword phrases to avoid stuffing the same keyword over and over again.<\/span><\/p>\n Website footers are important and serve an important purpose, i.e., to provide an easy website navigation experience to website visitors and provide useful information to them.<\/span><\/p>\n However, SEO professionals used to use website footers for spamming links and boosting search engine rankings. And although it worked years ago, Google hates this technique now.<\/span><\/p>\n Don\u2019t stuff keywords and links to pages with keyword-rich anchor texts in your website\u2019s footer. Google can see what you\u2019re trying to do, and it will hurt your website search rankings.<\/span><\/p>\n How to solve the spammy website footer problem?<\/span><\/p>\n Use the footer of your website the way it\u2019s meant to, i.e., to simplify website navigation and create a user-friendly experience for your visitors.<\/span><\/p>\n Internal links are cool. They help search engine crawlers properly crawl and index your website. Creating internal links within your website\u2019s contents is a highly recommended SEO practice. But it\u2019s also very easy to abuse, which many SEO professionals routinely do.<\/span><\/p>\n The key is to pay attention to the anchor text of the internal links. If you consistently use the same keyword phrase just because you want to rank for that keyword phrase, Google may slap you with a penalty.<\/span><\/p>\n Over-optimisation is a big no. Here\u2019s why.<\/span><\/p>\n These links are supposedly on 3 different pages and point to the same piece of content. It\u2019s clear that the author wants to rank the target page for the keyword \u201cawesome blog\u201d. However, it\u2019s not going to work anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n Social bookmarking websites, such as Digg<\/span><\/a>, StumblUpon<\/span><\/a>, Delicious<\/span><\/a>, etc. were all the craze a few years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n And for good reasons, too.<\/span><\/p>\n Google used to treat shares on those social bookmarking websites pretty much the same as backlinks. Whenever a piece of content used to get shared on those social bookmarking websites, chances of it getting ranked high in SERPs were very good. After all, these social links were being treated as natural, organic links by search engines.<\/span><\/p>\n How to solve this problem?<\/span><\/p>\n Don\u2019t share content on these websites thinking you\u2019d get backlinks that would propel your website to the top of search engine results. It doesn\u2019t work like that anymore. Instead of wasting your time in efforts that will have your website killed in search engines, focus on building links the natural way, i.e., by creating and sharing high-quality content.<\/span><\/p>\n Creation of microsites and PBNs (private blog networks) is a tempting SEO method. However, I\u2019d highly suggest that you don\u2019t take that route.<\/span><\/p>\n So, here\u2019s what SEOs used to do.<\/span><\/p>\n As backlinks have always been important, they used to start their own private blog networks and other microsites to create links to their main website and pages they want to optimize.<\/span><\/p>\n Some of the noticeable perks of PBNs and user-owned microsites were:<\/span><\/p>\n Google can now easily detect spam. Google Penguin actively hunts PBNs and websites that are PBNs support.<\/span><\/p>\n You are bound to get a penalty with this out-dated SEO technique sooner rather than later.<\/span><\/p>\n Like everything else in this world, SEO was also bound to change too.<\/span><\/p>\n The techniques mentioned above used to work with great efficiency. However, these are out-dated now, and they don\u2019t work anymore. In fact, using these SEO methods can get you into hot water \u2014 search engine penalty water.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SEO has been around for a couple of decades now. The popular method of driving free, organic traffic from search engines is so effective and cost-friendly that it isn\u2019t going away anytime soon. However, it doesn\u2019t mean that SEO hasn\u2019t seen its share of changes over the years. In the early days, SEO used to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oct_exclude_from_cache":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"categories":[33,35],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n1. Mindless Keyword Stuffing<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n
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2. Spammy Website Footers<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n
3. Keyword-Rich Anchor Texts for Internal Links<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n
4. Spamming Social Bookmarking Websites<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n
5. Microsites and PBNs<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n
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Final Words<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n