Robin Good: If you are wondering how your web site can be easily penalized by Google, here is a great review of the most popular and frequent types of penalizations.
Sujan Patel, co-founder of Single Grain, a SEO agency based in San Francisco, has put together this useful annotated list of search engine penalities which brings together both the recent new algorithm updates Google has introduced as well as classical troublemakers.
From the original article: "Have you seen a recent drop in your website’s traffic levels? Perhaps you’ve received a notification of unnatural SEO practices in your Google Webmaster Tools account?
Unfortunately, SEO penalties can happen to any website, at any time. While it is possible to repair the damage incurred by these negative effects, it’s ultimately much more effective to take a proactive stance on penalty prevention by avoiding the following known penalty causes:..."
"...keep in mind that things change all the time in the SEO world – so this list shouldn’t be construed as the “end all, be all” of penalties your site might experience in 2012."
Useful reminder. 7/10
Full article: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/25-ways-to-get-penalized-in-2012/47245/
Google has just updated its official guidelines for "Link Schemes" extending further the perimeter outside of which content with links incoming to and outgoing from your site will be considered outright spam worth of filtering or penalization.
Specifically, as Tom Forenski reports here:
"Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site's ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site."
He writes: "If you repeat the use of a word in your press release, Google will think you are trying to stuff it with keywords and try to trick its index. Repeated words are a big red flag."
On the Google official page these other situations are listed as not OK:
- Paul
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Mycomment: You shouldn't have any more doubts now. You must link out only to provide extra info on a specific topic, that your readers would benefit from and you don't exchange, barter or buy unnatural links from anyone if you want to avoid Google penalties. safe solution is to apply by default a rel="nofollow" attribute to the <a> tag for all your outgoing links and to switch it off where inappropriate.
Official new Google Guidelines on Link Schemes: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en
Check also "Did Google just kill PR agencies?" by Tom Forenski: http://www.zdnet.com/did-google-just-kill-pr-agencies-7000019182/
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