Filed Under: SEO
I came across this post where this guy provides a “black-and-white map of ethical and unethical SEO practices”. While I guess the intention is good, Rob Goodlatte obviously doesnt have a much of clue about what search engine optimization is all about.
I am just amazed at Rob Goodlatte’s lack of insight on search engine optimization. Surely there are a few useful tips in there, but it’s so basic that there’s not a chance in hell anyone would be able to rank for any even remotely competitive terms.
“I’ve never thought much of so-called “SEO experts” – for the most part they’re hawking snake oil solutions and “gaming” search engines to acquire un-merited rankings.”
Yes! Generalizations are always accurate and awesome. Two thumbs up, buddy! Now, let’s spend a few minutes and analyze his rules.
Ethical
Meta tagging
The keyword and description meta tags are the proper location to designate the search engine keywords you want to target.
Wrong
Meta keywords only plays a minor role, if any, in the search engine algorithms nowadays. They can be used for establishing an overall theme, but far from a vital part in a SEO strategy.
Same goes for Meta description, although if written properly using the targeted keywords and using under 156 characters, it will make your listing look nicer in Google and possibly also increase your CTR.
Page title formatting
Page titles should reflect the content on the current page, with less emphasis on the name of the site.
Meh…This is where you put your keywords - and make sure your page is about those keywords. If you try to rank for poker, then write about poker and make sure poker related terms are included in your title as well as copy. Also make sure your titles are 66 characters or less to make your listing look nice in Google.
Alt tags
Provide descriptive alt tags for your images. This is a great practice, as it aids blind users, text-only users, and search engines alike. Do not abuse alt tags by jamming them with keywords.
Certainly, but plays only a minor role in SEO - unless you are a stock photo site or run another site that’s…umm…heavy on the images. My experience is that the surrounding text plays a bigger role in ranking in image search than the alt and image file name itself. But sure - good practice and good for blind people.
Proper use of h1 - h6 tags
Use the h1 - h6 tags to organize your pages and documents by section. Do not jam keywords into your headers.
Meh…Use as described above, but over all site structure and interlinking strategies are way more important than this.
Build a site map
A complete site helps users find your content and helps search engines relate content on your site. Do not litter your site with multiple cross-linking maps.
Dude! Are you on glue? Main sitemaps linking so sub section site maps is the recommended best practice for larger sites. And provides the users with far easier navigation than putting links to all 20K + pages on a single page.
“If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.”
Provide relevant “cross-links” and quality navigation
It is acceptable and appropriate to provide links to related articles at the bottom of your content and to use breadcrumbs and other navigational techniques to help users and search engines find other content. Do not abuse this by littering pages with irrelevant cross-link spam.
You’re starting to get it now. People that do use cross link spam weaken their internal linking strategy.
Web Standards
Separate content and style/structure using well-formed (X)HTML and CSS. This aids both accessibility and search engine spidering.
Umm…ever tried validating any of the top ranking sites in the gambling industry? There are good reasons to validate your site, but this is not one of them.
Unethical
Re-writing content to match keyword preferences
NEVER edit your content to include higher keyword concentrations.
Put down the glue! Don’t expect to rank for a word or phrase if that word or phrase doesn’t exist in the copy. Unless you’re George W Bush, of course.
Keyword “loading” of any kind
NEVER jam keywords into alt tags, link text, or use CSS to hide blocks of keyword text.
Sure. Good point
Link-farming and “Doorway Pages”
NEVER generate link-infested sites designed to boost the ranking of your site, and NEVER pay an SEO firm to increase your rank by linking to your site from “Doorway Pages”.
Depends how you do it. Do not put these doorway pages on your own site, though. That’s - just - stupid.
This garbage pollutes the web and the results of many search engine queries. You will be penalized by search engines if they find you using this tactic.
Like I said - stupid
Buying Your Rank
NEVER pay for inclusion in a text-link Pagerank-boosting ring. If you use advertising, the links to your site should include the ‘rel=”nofollow”‘ attribute, which informs Google and other engines to not associate the linking page to yours in the calculation of rank. Indiscriminately paying sites to link to yours without including ‘rel=”nofollow”‘ on the links is not only wrong (you are attempting to boost your rank above other, more deserving pages), you also risk being penalized by search engines. If a known spam site links to your site, you risk losing your ranking or being “black-holed”.
Nuts. If link buying/bartering/baiting is done correctly, there’s not a chance in hell you’ll lose ranks. Worst case scenario, your server goes down because you get too much traffic. To do it correctly, you hire a SEO specialist.
So Rob - who’s the “so called SEO Expert”? Stick to what you’re good at and don’t try to provide definitive standards about what’s right and what’s wrong - unless you really are a specialist in the field. Please.
Sverre Sjøthun
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Great analysis, Sverre. I was especially shocked to read Rob’s astonishing advice that you should always nofollow out purchased text links, and I agree 100% that, properly implemented, paid text links are virtually undectable.
Furthermore if, as Rob says, you “risk losing your ranking” by employing “spam” links, then I guess we should all get on Viagra-spam guestbooks and start pointing links at our competitors!
Cheers!
By Aaron Bradley on 02.28.07 10:59 pm | Permalink
Haha, nice one Aaron - you totally missed out on SES in London by the way 
By Sverre Sjothun on 03.01.07 9:02 am | Permalink
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