Chapter 9: Violations & search engine spam penalties

So far, we’ve discussed the positive signals that make up the Periodic Table Of SEO Success Factors. But there are also some negative factors to avoid.

A word of reassurance: Very few people who believe they’ve spammed a search engine have actually done so. It’s hard to accidentally spam and search engines look at a variety of signals before deciding if someone deserves a harsh penalty.

That said, let’s talk about things not to do!

Vt: ‘Thin’ or ‘shallow’ content

Responding to a drumbeat of complaints about poor search results, Google rolled out its “Panda” update in February 2011. Panda targets what is described as “thin” or “shallow” content or content that is lacking in substance.

This domain-level penalty targets sites with a predominant amount of so-so content and essentially treats it similarly to the way it treats overt spam techniques.

Today, it’s no longer a question of whether the content is simply relevant, but also whether it is valuable to the user.

Vc: Cloaking

Let’s talk sophisticated hiding. How about rigging your site so that search engines are shown a completely different version from the one humans see?

That’s called cloaking. Search engines really don’t like it. It’s one of the worst things you could do. Heck, Google’s even banned itself for cloaking. Seriously.

While most people are unlikely to accidentally spam a search engine, the opposite is true when it comes to cloaking. That’s why there’s such a heavy penalty if you’re caught doing it. It’s a bait-and-switch, and it’s seen as a deliberate attempt to manipulate search results.

Vs: Keyword stuffing

It’s one of the oldest spam tactics on the books, yet it’s still being used, and the search engines still don’t like it. Search engines say to use words you want to be found for on your pages. OK, I’ll give them those words over and over again! How about 100 times. In a row? That work for you, Google?

Actually, no, it doesn’t. That’s “keyword stuffing,” and it could get you penalized.

How often is too often? There’s no correct answer here, but you’d really have to go to extremes to cause this penalty to kick in. It’s most likely to happen to non-SEOs who just don’t know better and might decide to paste a word many times in a row, typically at the bottom of a web page.

Vh: Hidden text

Once you decide to keyword stuff, your next thought will probably be “Why don’t I hide all this text that no human wants to see?” You might make the text white, so it blends with a page’s background. In doing so, you will have spammed a search engine.

Search engines don’t like anything hidden. They want to see everything that a user sees. Don’t hide text, whether by using styles, fonts, display:none or any other means that so a typical user can’t see it.

Vd: Piracy/DMCA takedowns

The “Pirate” update targeted sites infringing on copyright law. Under pressure from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Hollywood powerhouses and governments, Google began to penalize sites that received a large number of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) “takedown” requests.

It’s unlikely that most sites will have to deal with these issues, but you should handle any DMCA takedown notifications that show up in your Google Search Console account.

Va: Ads/Top Heavy layout

Have you ever been on a site and found it hard to find the actual content amid a slew of ads? Where’s the beef!

That’s what the Page Layout algorithm was meant to address. Often referred to as Top Heavy, this penalty is reserved for sites that frustrate the user experience by placing an overabundance of ads before content. So don’t make your users search for the content.

Vp: Paid links

Speaking of Google banning itself, it also banned Google Japan when that division was found to be buying links. For 11 months.

That’s longer than J.C. Penney was penalized (three months) in 2011. But J.C. Penney suffered another penalty after having its paid link purchase splashed across a giant New York Times article. So did several large online florists. And Overstock got hammered via a Wall Street Journal article.

The debate over whether Google should act so aggressively against those who buy and sell links has gone on for years. The bottom line is that to rank on Google, you have to follow Google’s rules — and the rules say no buying or selling links in a way that passes on search engine ranking credit.

If you choose to ignore Google’s rules, be prepared for little mercy if caught. And don’t believe programs that tell you their paid links are undetectable. They’re not, especially when so many of the cold-call ones are run by idiots.

As for Bing, officially, it doesn’t penalize for paid links, but it frowns on the practice.