Submitted by Nik on
It’s no surprise that Google and friends “move the goalposts” quite frequently to keep a rein on certain search engine optimisation techniques. What is considered a perfectly legitimate way of getting web traffic one month, may be a complete no-no the next.
So it’s important to keep on top of which techniques are still going to help, and even more so, which ones could be harming your site’s progress. Last year, several ways of gaining traffic – some, years old – were crushed.
A recent article from Copybrighter outlined seven of those now defunct SEO techniques.
I know for a fact that at least two of them have been used by my clients in the past, in response to advice from SEO companies. Specifically (quoted from that article):
Reciprocal links. In May of 2007, [site owners] who relied heavily on reciprocal links started to sob as [penalties] were dished out by Google, harming their business. It became clear that the decade-old tradition of reciprocal links programs was over. Done. Finished. Time to get one way links.
Directory links. Buying directory links is another decade-old SEO tradition that Google took a pretty big swipe at when it devalued the PageRank of hundreds of lower-quality, made-for-webmasters directories this year.
The first of these is a method that I’ve always thought a little odd. If you have something, and give it away, surely you’re left with nothing (ie Google “link juice”)? I don’t see the stomping of this one as a real hardship, though others may disagree.
The second should not be confused with authority directories; for instance, buying a Yahoo! directory submission isn’t really the same as … lesser directories. Best thing to do is consult an expert! Maybe we can help you with SEO for your business website.
Blog Tags: BusinessSEOInternet Marketing