Stay distant from these Unethical SEO practices if you do not want to be penalized by Google
In our previous articles we have explained goals and mistakes to avoid when you are planning to hire a SEO firm.
Now when you have finalized a SEO firm, what next? Next comes the practices the SEO firm follows and will implement to your business. But the big question here is:
Are these SEO practices ethical/good?
As it always is; the bad is always easy to work on BUT dies quick too. So is true in the SEO world also.
Bad SEO practices are very easy to adapt and use, but gets caught easily by Google which will penalize it by de-indexing your website as a punishment.
Before you ask them to start the SEO for your firm, do not forget to question them about what plan do they have for your firm. And just as they explain their strategy to you, make a note that it should not include the following practices.
Unethical SEO Practice #1: Website Audit is not for you
Myth – The website looks just perfect aesthetically and it requires no assessment
Fact – The first step for any SEO campaign necessarily has to begin with Website inspection. If your SEO company is suggesting you to skip it, then either just run or its time for you to interrupt. Introduce them to your basic knowledge of the steps for SEO and save yourself from being conned.
Unethical SEO Practice #2: We can trick Google
Myth – Some of the SEO companies, large and small, think that they can fool Google with their shallow tricks. And the worst part is that they think that Google, with its highly technical team of engineers, cannot catch them. Pity!
Fact – It may take some time, but Google will definitely catch the tricks used to fool it. And when it does, it will de-index or devalue your business from search results. To re-index your business is a very difficult process with no assurance of indexing again.
Unethical SEO Practice #3: Pay us only on getting Top Rank
Myth – Some SEO companies claim that they can get your business on the top of the organic search results in short span. And to gain your confidence they will quote “Pay us only when you see your business on the top”.
Fact – This is a trap. SEO is a process, and it takes time to show results if you are doing it ethically. If someone is guaranteeing you top organic results in short time then they ought to be using Black hat or unethical SEO practices.
They can also trick you by showing you results for very unclear search terms that have very little or rather no value to engage conversions or traffic to your website.
Such SEO companies indulge in spam methods to get you on the top which lasts just after you have made the payment. Hence you will be left with a site worse than before. And if you question them with what went wrong; they have a masterpiece for you; “Oh! Google keeps changing its algorithm.”
Unethical SEO Practice #4: Doorway or Bridge Pages
As per Google; Doorways are sites or pages created to rank highly for specific search queries. They are bad for users because they can lead to multiple similar pages in user search results, where each result ends up taking the user to essentially the same destination. They can also lead users to intermediate pages that are not as useful as the final destination.
Here are some examples of doorways:
- Having multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page
- Pages generated to funnel visitors into the actual usable or relevant portion of your site(s)
- Substantially similar pages that are closer to search results than a clearly defined, browseable hierarchy
Myth –Some SEO companies create web pages for spamdexing. They spam the index of the search engine by inserting results for particular phrases with the purpose of sending visitors to a different page. By doing this they think they have played yet another trick and fooled the search engine.
Fact – God bless those who think they can fool Google by creating doorway pages. Google hates such practices which are designed to influence search engines and cheat users by leading them to sites other than the one they selected. Google may take such doorway sites down for making use of these misleading practices and black hat strategies.
Unethical SEO Practice #5: Irrelevant Guest Blogging
Myth –Engage in lots of Guest blogging in “n” number of directories to get high rankings
Fact – Guest Blogging in unrelated and low quality sites can be troublesome for your business. If you write guests blogs for the sole purpose of gaining links, then be prepared for a big loss over time.
Unethical SEO Practice #6: Article Writing @$20
Myth –Articles means stuffing the keywords into sentences – at least this is what some SEO companies think. They offer the article writing in rates as low as $20 per article.
Fact – For a well-researched article it will take at least 5-6 hours for a professional to complete it. This comes to $4 an hour. Do you think any quality writer will come down to this price? NO.
Unethical SEO Practice #7: Submissions to Directories
Myth –The more the merrier. This approach is followed by some SEO companies to submit as many as possible links to submission directories to gain backlinks.
Fact – As they say excess of everything is harmful. And it surely will harm you if you blindly submit links to low quality directories. There are a few software which submits link to many directories in a click. The chances of spam submission is very high and instead of gaining links you may end up losing website rank.
Warning: these low quality submissions are extremely difficult nearly impossible to remove.
Unethical SEO Practice #8: Article Spinning
Myth –Certain black hat SEO companies use programs to convert a single article into its many derivatives. They make their customers believe that they will write unique 10-15 articles each week to increase their search engine rankings.
This way they can submit these article in directories or in your business’s blog bluffing you with number and quality.
Fact – Such SEO companies just use their spam software to spin the articles by just using synonyms and replacing the original words with them. Such articles neither make any sense as a whole nor do they have any value.
Yes Time is Money. But sometimes spending more time returns more money. So now when you meet your SEO service provider company, go prepared with a list of questions about what techniques they plan to get your website high ranks and higher ROI.
Contact a SEO company in New Delhi which uses ethical SEO practices to gain top results and high ROI.