10 Common Bad SEO Practices and How to Avoid Them
It's a well-established fact that doing SEO is a must for your website to get as much organic traffic as possible. To get this result, SEO practitioners adopt various tactics. However, not all tactics are going to take you to the rescue!
It's as though you were playing a soccer game.
You can score goals with the pre-set terms and conditions and if you do foul the referee is all set to penalize you.
The same thing happens here too! If you do SEO in a bad way that is not consistent with the guidelines of Google then your website is very likely to get hurt badly – for instance – losing the ranking position in the SERPs or getting banned from the search engines.
To survive in the digital marketing world, you should abide by the principles of the Search Engines. In this post, we are going to guide you what are the bad SEO practices and how to avoid them.
10 Bad SEO Practices and How to Avoid Them
The bad SEO practices, we should avoid, generally belong to the black hat SEO method. If you are unaware, black hat SEO rules do not follow the guidelines of the search engines. A white hat SEO, on the other hand, abides by the search engine guidelines and is safe to apply.
Here are the top bad SEO tactics that should be avoided right away:
- Black Hat SEO Advocates
- Keyword Stuffing
- Using Invisible/Hidden Text
- Exchanging Links Instantly & from Irrelevant Sites
- Posting Artificially Spun Articles
- Spamming in Social Networking Sites
- Cloaking
- Creating Doorway or Gateway Pages
- Applying Unrelated Keywords
- Turning the Contents to Link Baits
Now let's get into the details!
1. Black Hat SEO Advocates
Black Hat SEO involves using sneaky tactics to trick search engines into ranking your site higher. These can include things like keyword stuffing, cloaking, and buying links. While these methods might give you a quick boost, they can also get your site penalized or even banned from search engines.
To avoid this, always stick to ethical, “white hat” SEO practices like creating quality content, optimizing your site for speed, and earning links naturally. It's all about playing the long game and building a solid, trustworthy online presence.
2. Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is when you use the keywords too often in your content. This is a black hat SEO method that worked like a magic spell in the past (nearly 15 years ago). However, this method is now considered to be a black hat SEO technique by Google and other popular search engines.
Fortunately, you can still use keywords extensively provided that those keywords are coming naturally in your content. Google's search crawlers or robots are artificially intelligent enough to determine whether those keywords were implemented naturally or forcibly.
Moving forward, if you can ensure adding those keywords naturally in your content then chances are pretty high that your content is going to rank all the way up on the SERPs.
Here is an example of keyword stuffing:
Business automation software can really boost your business's automation process with the power of business automation philosophy.
Really irritating, right?
Here, the “business automation” keyword is implemented too frequently and unnaturally and so this is an instance of keyword stuffing.
3. Using Invisible/Hidden Text
What we see on the web page is not everything that the search engine can see. In fact, through programs, it is possible to hide some contents that a user can not see but the search engine robots can.
For example, you can implement keyword stuffing with this technique but can hide this keyword stuffing and only show the content that is readable to the user. Years ago, this method was a lifesaver for some people.
Other examples can be when you want to hide the keywords by making the font size zero, use CSS properties to keep those keywords away from the viewable portion of the web page to the user, or you can use keyword texts above a black background or place the keyword stuffed texts beneath an HTML element so that the user can't see but the crawlers can.
Sadly, you can not use this method today as crawlers will penalize you considering the fact that you are optimizing your content illegally.
Now you may ask if you should use the alt-text for your images. Yes, you can use it. Search engines will rather encourage you to do so as alt text helps the users to see what an image is about when it is not loaded properly or when the reader uses screen readers.
However, as search engine bots are becoming smarter with time, they can actually detect this black hat technique. And if the search engine can detect it imagine how many penalties your website will have to undergo.
4. Exchanging Links Instantly & from Irrelevant Sites
One-way or even three-way link building can be great if done properly but you need to be very cautious while you are linking back and forth between two sites. That's because this type of link exchange can be deemed as link buying and if you do so the search engine will penalize both of the sites with a bad ranking.
Luckily, you can exchange links between two sites after 20 or 30 days so that the search engine can not think that you are exchanging links unnaturally.
Another thing is that when you are linking, you should only link to the sites that are consistent with your website. And if you have already got some toxic backlinks, you should immediately disavow those backlinks for a better performance.
5. Posting Artificially Spun Articles
There was once a time when some people used the article-spinning software to create fresh content from existing content. A number of people who even can't read and write in English properly got even Google Adsense for their site using these tools.
But as the search engine is evolving with time, it can now detect these artificially written articles which are part of the black hat SEO strategies.
Even if your article passes the scrutiny of the search engine you will get a higher amount of bounce rate as these write-ups are often terribly written. And nobody likes terribly written texts.
6. Spamming in Social Networking Sites
It's ok to send people links mentioning appropriate information. But if you want to send too many messages or comments without proper information, the search engine will consider it as spam.
And the search engine really abhors it! So, don't dare to do it.
However, you can share your content in your group or pages with relevant information which is pretty good practice to proliferate the organic traffic.
7. Cloaking
Cloaking is like putting on a disguise to trick search engines. It involves showing one piece of content to search engines and a completely different one to your visitors.
For example, you might show search engines a keyword-rich page to boost rankings, but real users see something else entirely. This sneaky practice is a big no-no in SEO. Search engines want to provide the best experience for users, and cloaking disrupts that.
If you're caught cloaking, your site could be penalized or banned. Always ensure your content is the same for both search engines and visitors to keep your SEO clean and honest.
8. Creating Doorway or Gateway Pages
Creating doorway or gateway pages is another shady SEO tactic to avoid. These are low-quality pages stuffed with keywords, designed solely to rank high in search results and funnel visitors to a different page. They don't offer real value to users and can make your site look spammy.
Search engines frown upon this practice because it manipulates search results and frustrates users. Instead, focus on building high-quality, relevant content that directly addresses your audience's needs and interests. This will help you rank better in the long run without risking penalties.
9. Applying Unrelated Keywords
You may think that you may fool the search engine algorithm using keywords that are completely unrelated to your business.
For example, if your products are on groceries then you can use texts like “Mr. Donald Trump likes our grocery items to his heart's content”. Here the keyword “Donald Trump” is unrelated but your content will still rank just because it has a huge search volume.
10. Turning the Contents to Link Baits
Turning content into link bait means creating material designed solely to attract a large number of backlinks, often through sensational or misleading headlines.
For example, you might write an article titled “10 Shocking Secrets About Celebrities,” but the content inside is either exaggerated or completely unrelated to the headline. This tactic can drive traffic in the short term but damages your site's credibility and user trust in the long run.
Instead, create genuinely valuable content that naturally earns links because it's informative, engaging, or entertaining. High-quality content builds trust and authority, leading to sustainable SEO success.
Wrapping up the Bad SEO Practices
Avoiding bad SEO practices is crucial for the long-term success of your website. Focus on ethical SEO practices that prioritize quality content, user experience, and genuine engagement.
By building a trustworthy and valuable online presence, you'll not only improve your search engine rankings but also earn the trust and loyalty of your audience. Remember, good SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. Stay honest, stay committed, and watch your site thrive.
If you have just launched your WordPress site, you can check our blog on SEO for new websites. And if you are looking for the best plugin for SEO, you should check our best SEO plugin list.
