How Over-Optimization Can Be Detrimental to a Website’s Ranking
Competition for higher rankings in search engine results is a brutal affair. With almost constant changes in technology, rules and regulations and not to mention websites resorting to a tactic called “Black Hat SEO” which if a certain website is discovered to be using, will immediately have their website banned. Still, this illegal tactic is still being used widespread but mostly by scam websites. This is due to the fact the search engines are not able to keep track of all these websites and by the time they are discovered, well, damage done. While some tactics in optimization may not be considered illegal, search engines have continually become tougher to figure out and their judging criteria of SEOs on website has become stricter. Over optimizing your website can lead to some unwanted effects such as a drop in ratings, a considerable drop. Over optimizing content will result in unrelated search results to online users and this is the main reason this is frowned upon by search engines.
A method that can land your website in hot water is a technique called keyword stuffing. Normally, keywords in a content or text body should not go above 7%. Anymore and your website will start looking shady to search engines. Going above 7% of keyword use will look to be a convoluted and poorly constructed content as it will be littered by the same words over and over again which will make no sense grammatically. Actually search engines have already started banning websites that use keywords stuffing so webmasters beware.
Then there are the two techniques that can result in over optimizing a website, doorway links and hidden texts. While not used quite commonly today, these two methods are still some of the sneakiest ways to generate some traffic into a website. Hidden text revolves around using the same colors on text as well as on the background. This will somewhat hide these keywords to avoid the webpage looking like it is stuffing its content. The doorway link makes use of trap pages in order to send the visitor into another website just by clicking anywhere on the page.
The use of duplicate content is an irritating tactic used by some websites. The chances of having your website banned due to the search engine finding you have a duplicate content even though you were the original source is surprisingly high. If you somehow wake up and you find your website dropping down the ratings without any reason then this might be the root of your problem. Search engines enforce these rules with an iron fist. Always review the search engines rules and regulations thoroughly, and moderate your website for any inaccuracies that can produce negative effects on your website. Optimization of your website has indeed become a tricky affair, but with proper conduct online you won’t need to fear anything. If done right, search engine optimization can open up new opportunities for business, and get a lead on the competitions who still try to sneak their way to the top using unscrupulous methods.
About the author:
James Anderson is an SEO Specialist in New Jersey. Some of his writing includes few notes about Eric Schiffer.
