You might know that your business can make a lot of money with the help of Google’s search engine. But did you know that Google can remove your blog from its results page?
Getting banned or blacklisted from a search engine happens when users practice unethical SEO tactics or also known as black hat marketing techniques. Penalties can range from attaching a warning to your listing to as far as removing your site from Google’s index entirely.
The term “black hat” comes from classic Westerns where villains commonly wore black hats as a form of distinguishing the bad guy from heroes in the white hats. However, Bonanza’s Adam Cartwright broke the stereotype by strictly dressing in a black hat yet remaining one of the “good guys”.
In the case of black hat marketing, the negative association isn’t so easily broken. While you may be desperate to win at local SEO, turning to unethical black hat methods is not the answer. Be sure to avoid common SEO mistakes!
Why Does Google Blacklist?
Google blacklists for various reasons, the key of which being their constantly evolving process. Remember – Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
If Google provided users with low-quality content, nobody would use Google as their premier search engine to find what they are looking for when searching.
Make sure to avoid these mistakes that could lead to Google blacklisting you.
Buying Links
You should NEVER purchase links (or sell) links!
It can seem like a quick win, but trust me when I say this: It’s never the solution. Websites promoting ‘link pyramids’ or ‘link wheels’ try to trick Google’s current algorithm into trusting your content.
Buying links may help slightly boost traffic in the short term, but eventually, Google will adapt and catch on. That means all those temporary traffic gains will be gone, and you’ll be left standing at ‘Ground Zero.’
Keyword Stuffing
Google defines keyword stuffing as
“repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural, for example: We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact or custom cigar humidor specialists at [email protected].”
Overloading a page with repetitive content is a dangerous optimization mistake even skilled marketers can make because it is certainly tempting to sprinkle your long-tail keywords into content.
With keyword stuffing, you risk damaging the value of your content as well as the readability! And Google will penalize you as a result.
Broken Links
Maybe it doesn’t seem like a fair reason for blacklisting but just think for a moment about the way Google sees content. From Google’s perspective, a page with four broken links is less trustworthy than a page with zero.
A page that is frequently updated and checked for broken links is more likely to be a trusted source. Therefore, Google reflects that value in its algorithm, meaning pages with broken links will be penalized.
Instead of using trick and gimmicks to bump up site traffic, trust that providing thoughtful, remarkable content will result in the most ROI for your business.
All in all, risking Google’s blacklist and losing established trust with potential leads is never worth the short-term reward that can be bought in black hat marketing.
Fear your guilty of committing one of these mistakes or need help fixing your current SEO? We can help get you unblacklisted from Google and correct errors to prevent any future penalties.
New to SEO? Don’t stress if you know nothing about SEO and aren’t trying to rig Google, you should be OK. Contact us at HeadsUp Marketing to find out how to improve your search engine marketing.