What if you wake up one day and discover your website’s ranking crashing to the ground- with years of SEO effort invalidated by Google’s algorithm update?

Your website might have been involved in a black hat SEO practice called ‘SEO spam.’ Here is everything you need to know about it and how to act against it in 2023.

What is SEO Spam?

SEO Spam, also known as Spamdexing, is an SEO practice that involves unethical practices such as spamming other unmoderated websites to boost website ranking and promote faster web page indexing. This controversial approach comes in many forms- popular ones being keyword stuffing, link spamming, private blog networks, cloaking, and hidden texts and links.

With the persistent malpractice of SEO still apparent all over the internet, Google has been more aggressive in addressing it. This was especially evident in their release of the October 2022 spam algorithm update that shook the world of black hat SEO practitioners a day after its release.

Signs You’ve Been Practicing SEO Spam

One of the telltale signs that your website’s been affected by an algorithm update would be a drop in rankings. You’ll notice negative changes in impressions, clicks and overall traffic coming into your website- with some penalties completely de-indexing some of your pages.

But what you need to worry about are the penalties from a spam algorithm update that tends to provide worse results in search ranking. Not only will your rankings dramatically drop, but it could result in Google de-indexing your whole website. So what can you do to prevent this?

6 Ways To Win Against SEO Spam

Avoid Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing refers to spamming your target keyword all over your content. This is the practice of over-implementing your keywords to the point that it appears unnatural and out of context.

Here’s a painful example of keyword stuffing:

“What is instant coffee? Instant coffee is a ready-to-mix coffee that serves as a low-cost solution to caffeine intake. Instant coffee nowadays comes in different flavors. There are white chocolate-flavored instant coffee, mocha-flavored instant coffee, and even plain black instant coffee. This instant mix drink also serves as a health solution for some consumers. Some instant coffee shops sell slimming coffee in the form of instant coffee.”

This technique of SEO Spam is one of the most common malpractices of any aspiring SEO practitioner. Increased keyword usage does not equate to a higher ranking. A healthy ceiling for keywords written in the body of your content is 1%.

Use AI-generated Content as a Guide, Not as an Article

With algorithm updates favoring topical authority, the popularity of AI-generated content has been growing more and more popular in 2022. Digital marketers all over the internet have been publishing articles that are purely written by technology. This causes frustration for some search users regarding the accuracy of the information they’re looking for and has been catching Google’s attention for quite some time now.

The best way to exploit AI-generated content is to use it as the basis for content writing. You can start by analyzing the points presented in the generated copy. Then utilize that as a means to write your own unique content- publishing an article that’s relatable, relevant to your target market, and most of all, human.

Defer from Cloaking

Cloaking refers to presenting a search result that doesn’t match the expectation of the users. Imagine a user searching for the term ‘medicine for cough’. After searching they chose to click a particular result that they believe best represents the answer they are looking for (because a loved one or they themselves are suffering from cough) then they unwillingly find themselves on a web page that’s making them apply for a gym membership. What the?!

The content and meta tags you set in your pages must always be relevant to the search term you’re targeting. Not only does this prevent unintentionally practicing ‘cloaking’, but it even improves your overall website ranking.

Use Appropriate Hidden Content

Hidden content is sometimes stuffed in a website to manipulate rankings. This is done in a way that the text or link involved in increasing the rankings is stuffed within the HTML of the web page but not appearing (or minimally appearing) in the actual display. It can appear as the following:

• White text on white background
• Underneath an element (images, videos, and other forms of media)
• Placed off-screen
• Setting opacity to 0

It is also important to note that there are particular exemptions when implementing hidden content. These exceptions are the ones that are centric on improving user experience. Such as the following:

• Accordion elements
  
• Slideshow/Carousel web page elements
• Tooltips
  
  source: https://userguiding.com/blog/tooltip-examples-best-practices/

Keep Your Redirects In Check

Google only considers a redirect as SEO Spam whenever a user is directed to an unexpected web page. For example, a user clicking on a link text writing ‘SEO strategies’ was directed to a page about ‘farm animals.’ They fell trap in what we call a Sneaky redirect. Sneaky redirects are originally intended to build traffic to a website unrelated to the anchor text or search query.

As one of the SEO factors that can easily be ignored, issues with redirects can accumulate the older a website gets. This is why it’s essential to regularly check your redirect paths- apply the appropriate redirect and make the anchor text relevant to your links. To get the full list of redirects on your website, check out my favorite tool, Screaming Frog.

Avoid Link Spamming

With backlinks being an essential ranking factor, it is important to keep your website safe from link spamming opportunities.

A lot of people nowadays see their authoritative pages as opportunities to make money. They choose to sell the convenience of creating backlinks in a website to boost others. These are exactly the kind of opportunities you should avoid. Google’s purposely improving its algorithm updates to address these types of issues.

Other forms of link spamming include excessive link exchanges between webmasters, automated link-building methods, and widely distributed links within the footers of varied questionable websites.

You must always be cautious about any form of ‘easy’ generation of backlinks. To this day, it’s still best to practice the traditional ways of reaching out to webmasters to build guest posts and diligently creating good-quality backlinks.

Learn more about the SEO malpractices of link building and how to fix them!

Key Takeaway

A famous writer once said, “Tradition is a guide, not a jailer.” What early practices of SEO teach us, is that search engines should service the users. It’s all about bringing them the relevant information that they need. As SEO professionals, we are obligated to fulfill this duty through appropriate practices in digital marketing. We should resort to being more creative in our craft and abstain from the tempting boost in rankings that the SEO spam methods offer.

If you want to learn more about how to recover from Google Penalizing your website, try checking out our guide on How to Fix Google Penalties.

The post Google’s Punishment on Spammy SEO Strategies and How to Win Against It In 2023 appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Have you seen a website that posted the exact same article, from top to bottom, of a recent article you published? It can be infuriating knowing that other people are trying to benefit from the content that you worked hard on without your permission at all.

If you own a high-quality website that is getting a good amount of traffic, then you are most likely a victim of content scrapers. Content scraping is the illegal process of copying content from high-quality sources and publishes them as their own.

Content scraping is not something new and this is not uncommon either. In fact, I discover websites scraping from SEO Hacker from time to time. Check out this website that completely copied the guide I published a few weeks ago about Google News.

And if you scroll to the bottom of the webpage, you’ll see a line indicating the article was “originally” by Video and Marketing blog.

In this article, I will discuss if content scrapers have an effect on your SEO and what should you do about them.

How does Content Scraping Work?

The way people scrape content out of other websites varies. They can do it manually or they use software that automatically crawls websites for new content and creates a copy of it. If you come across a software that does this, I highly recommend staying away from it.

The goal of content scrapers varies as well. Some who scrape content may just want to increase the number of pages of their website. They would usually link back to your website and give you credit for publishing it and in some cases, they would use a canonical tag pointing to the same page on your website.

Other content scrapers would blatantly rip off your content. Similar to the example I showed earlier, they would take the credit for writing the article and confuse users. They would usually do it to get more ad revenue for their website.

Can Content Scrapers Hurt your Website?

Scraped content is black hat SEO and it is strictly against Google’s guidelines. Not only does it constitute copyright infringement in some cases but it is also duplicate content. If you are using scraped content on your website, then you are most likely going to be penalized or if not, is penalized already. 

Google does a great job of weeding out these websites. Most websites that rely on scraped content does not rank at all and does not receive any traffic. 

The good news is if people are scraping content from your website, you shouldn’t be worried at all. Google always rewards websites that publish original high-quality content. So in cases where people copy your content, you can be sure that Google is going to ignore those and give the rewards to you.

Google’s algorithm is able to identify who is the original publisher of an article even though it is unlinked or there is no mention of the original publisher in the copied article. That is why you shouldn’t worry that Google will penalize your website if many websites are scraping your content.

Should you Disavow Links from Content Scrapers?

As I’ve mentioned, some content scrapers would link to your website. Usually, they link to the website of origin just to avoid being penalized by Google. I’ve seen people ask around if they should disavow links from these websites since most, if not all, of them, are low-quality websites. 

In my opinion, disavowing links from these websites is not necessary because sometimes, it can help your website, even just for a little. You may consider disavowing links from content scrapers if there are red flags like bad anchor texts, extremely poor website quality, adult content, etc. I highly recommend reading this disavow guide I wrote to properly judge if you should disavow a link or not.

Key Takeaway

As long as you publish original content on your website, you could sleep better at night knowing that your website is not going to be affected by those that copy you. Think of Google as your personal guardian. They will protect you from these content scrapers.

Always avoid copying content from other websites, whether it’s one article, a paragraph, or a sentence illegally through content scraping. You can always cite other websites as part of an original article you are writing. And remember to properly cite them by linking to them and giving them credits.

The post Content Scraping and SEO: Is Your Website at Risk? appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Should I buy backlinks for SEO?

Quick Answer: While buying backlinks for your website can theoretically boost your rankings, there are many cons to buying links, with the biggest one being the risk of penalization by Google (as it goes against their Webmaster Guidelines). It is a risky strategy, and I suggest only buying links with the goal of promoting or advertising your website in mind.

Overview

Buying backlinks for SEO has been around ever since search engines used links as a ranking factor, especially Google’s PageRank algorithm. Google has always said that they are against buying and selling links for ranking purposes and they have done a better job in identifying links that are bought.

However, buying links is still a common practice.  This is because many say that they have experienced success using this strategy and it is one of the quickest ways to increase their website’s authority. But of course, it comes with risks.

Just to be clear, this post is not to promote buying of links or condone those who are using this strategy. This post is created to talk about the practice of buying links and the pros and cons of it to help people decide if they should do it or not. 

So what exactly is link buying?

Buying links (or paid links) is the process of paying another website to insert a link to your website in one of their pages. Usually, the goal is to buy as many links as they can to further boost their rankings in the Google search results.

Buying links can come in different forms:

• Paid directory listings
• Paid guest posts
• Paid link placements
• Private Blog Networks

It is considered to be a form of black hat or gray hat SEO technique since it is against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. According to the guidelines, buying and selling of links are a form of Link Schemes as it intends to manipulate the PageRank algorithm. Buying links is also misleading for users.

Why Do People Buy Links?

There are two main reasons why people buy links for SEO; first is that it saves a lot of time and second, the results are fast. Conventional link building takes a lot of time and effort. There are a lot of different strategies but the most common ones are content-driven.

You need to build great content first on your website to make it trustworthy. Then, you either wait for other webmasters to take notice of your content so they link to you as a resource or you can reach out to other webmasters. This process can take months of effort and you might not even achieve the number of links you are aiming for.

However, for those who buy links, things are a lot easier. They allot a budget, contact websites, send their payment, and it’s done! The bigger budget they have, the more links they can buy. It also offers a lot of flexibility since webmasters allow people who buy links from them to decide what content to publish, where the links are placed, the anchor text, and so on.

At first, glance, buying links is an easy win but there are a lot of cons to it. It is expensive and it gets more expensive should you want to get links from higher quality websites.

But money isn’t the only dues that you pay. As mentioned, it is a black hat SEO technique, and techniques that are against Google’s guidelines don’t come without a price.

What Happens if Google Caught You?

Whether you are buying links to boost your SEO or you are a website that is selling links as a form of monetization for your website, there is a high risk of getting penalized by Google. This is the biggest downside of using this strategy. Once you get hit by a penalty, it’s almost impossible to recover.

If Google noticed that you are buying links, they will issue a ‘Manual Action’ that can be seen under the Manual Action tab in Google Search Console labeled as ‘Unnatural Links to Your Site’. Once you get slapped with this penalty, your only course of action is to use the disavow tool and disavow all the links that you bought making all the money that you spent go down the drain. The worse part is, disavowing your links doesn’t guarantee that your website is going to recover.

Is there a proper way of buying links?

When you read between the lines of Google’s definition of Link Schemes above, it specifically talks about links that aim to manipulate the PageRank algorithm. Meaning, it is talking about ‘dofollow links’. Dofollow links pass on PageRank that may help increase the rankings of a webpage. If you are buying links for this purpose, this is dangerous.

However, Google is not against monetizing websites. It’s just a matter of properly labeling sponsored and affiliate links. Last year, Google announced new link attributes and one of them is the rel=”sponsored’ tag. Google highly recommends that you use this tag for all paid links on your website to avoid being penalized. Prior to that, the nofollow tag was recommended to be used so paid links won’t pass on PageRank. Using one of these tags is fine.

Search Engine Round Table wrote a short article highlighting John Mueller’s advice on affiliate links in a Twitter thread:

It is also important to note that paid links are bad if they are misleading users. If you plan on sponsoring links on other websites, take note that it should be clear to users that this link is sponsored and paid for by your website. Affiliate links should follow the same.

I would still avoid some link buying techniques such as paid guest posts, directories, and private blog networks. If you plan on buying links, keep in mind that your goal should be to promote or advertise your website on another person’s website visitors not to get links and increase your rankings.

Key Takeaway

Buying links is a dangerous strategy and could get you in a lot of trouble if done wrong. While it is an easy way to get links and increase your rankings instantly, the risks are too high and in my opinion, it’s not worth it. Though if you still plan on buying links on other websites, make sure that they are properly labeled and it comes through the form of advertisements or promotions, not for ranking purposes.

Here at SEO Hacker, we do not use the practice of buying links and we only use white-hat SEO techniques for our clients. We create great content and use different outreach strategies for our link building. While different SEOs could argue all day which hat of SEO is better, I personally believe that white-hat is the best. SEO is a long game. Strategies that take time will win in the end against strategies that aim to climb the search results in a short span of time may have repercussions.

The post Buying Backlinks for SEO in 2020: Should You Still Do It? appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

The recent Google algorithm updates of Panda and Penguin were the latest interventions in a long history of combating unethical link building and spam content sites.

Webmaster’s Note: This is a Guest Post by Thomas Bagshaw

The early Google algorithm was a less sophisticated creature. In the wake of the search engine’s birth in September 1998, the development of search keywords and pay per click advertising by the year 2000, the black hat SEO industry soon followed.

The following are brief examples of some of the black-hat tactics, against which Google sent out named algorithm dates over the last ten years:

Hidden Text

An early tactic that gained popularity with black-hat practitioners was the hiding of text or links – especially the over use of keywords – intended only to be picked up by Google bots, and not visible to human readers.

Methods included concealing colored text behind a background of identical color ( usually white) or an image, using CSS to hide text by creating tiny hyperlinks ( such as a hyphen) or even setting the font size to zero.

In January 2004, Google sent out the ‘Austin’ algorithm, which aimed to penalize the use of hidden text as a way of keyword stuffing not only in the body of page text (by as much as 50 per cent in some instances), but also within meta-tags too.

The main casualties were sites weighted down with “on the page” keywords and those containing exchange links with unrelated content sites. Some of the larger brand retailer sites and directories appeared to be unscathed.

Link Spam

Link spam, whereby keywords are inserted within a page of text completely unrelated to the subject on the page or on the site itself is, of course, a major enduring plank to black-hat techniques. The creation of large scale link farms and the consequential volume of spam back-links connected to suspect sites of questionable quality and ranking have come to dominate the increasing attention from Google in recent years.

Between September and November 2005, Google released a series of three updates, known collectively as ‘Jagger’, which were mostly aimed at dealing with the growing problem of low-quality links and the use of paid links, reciprocal links and link farms in black-hat practice.

However, as seems to be the way with Google algorithm changes, which can confuse site owners and webmasters because the reasons why sites are penalized are not always clearly defined, universal and uniform.

Observations mentioned the removal of duplicate content from same-owner sites with identical subjects/themes, disappearance of main revenue earning keywords and page-rank reduced to zero. Elsewhere, site owners decided they should remove affiliate page content supplied entirely by affiliate scheme vendors before making a  ‘re-inclusion’ request with Google. However, the problem of link spam has been an enduring constant on the web to this day.

In February and March 2006, Google sent out “Big Daddy” – a change in Google’s data center infrastructure, which contained new code for increasing capacity to evaluate and index web pages. By seeking to deal with potential spam problems such as 302 redirects or canonical URLs more efficiently, it would be looking at the  abuse of ‘redirects’, which would also involve ‘doorway pages’ and the black-hat practice of ‘cloaking’:

Redirects

This tactic would display ‘keyword-stuffed’ landing pages, which quickly ‘redirect’ to the required actual page. They invariably do not contain content of relevance but are for the sole purpose of gaining a high position in search engine results pages.

Generally set up in groups to target similar and related keywords or phrases, the links on these pages connect to other pages in the same group aimed at creating a set of a false linking relationship. The redirect can occur  by movement of the mouse while on the redirect page, by command or even automatically.

Doorway Pages

Another popular black-hat tactic, where site pages are created, sometimes by using software to generate ‘orphaned’ pages, i.e. not belonging to the site’s regular navigation, where most of the content is duplicated from other site pages.

Cloaking

 A widely used black-hat tactic of creating web pages, which display a completely different set of content to a human reader than it shows to a search engine. The aim is to try and deceive the search engines to display the page. Inevitably, the ‘cloaked’ or concealed page is ‘stuffed’ with keywords for the purpose of obtaining high ranking.

The Big Daddy structural overhaul once again affected those sites employing black hat tactics by making unscrupulous use of another site’s content with 302 redirects and the removal of spam sites and link farms, stuffed with purchased keywords and phrases.

Shift towards content quality…

Google now modifies its search algorithm by over 500 times per year, and updates which were originally infrequent since 2007, have been more apparent. And according to Google, updates have been happening in an average of “more than once per day”.

From 2011 onwards, the Panda and then the Penguin updates have stepped up Google’s determination to deal with unnatural links and unrelated or ‘thin’ content.

In doing so, Google has crucially indicated a shift away from user interface changes and user experience improvements towards content search quality. Former algorithm indexing of ‘meta keyword and description tags’ is considered almost irrelevant compared to the quality of page content and integral keywords.

The growth of social networking sites and the imperatives of fresh, credible and human-based content are the prevailing indicators of site page relevance and site authority.

While Google is still in the business of evaluating traffic to determine ranking, the simplistic mechanics of optimization have been re-calibrated to the more relational semantic indexing and social signals governing today’s site authority and web presence.

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I personally like Rand Fishkin’s answer. Very profitable. But that’s just me. The 50 different SEO practitioners in this video have very interesting answers.

Enjoy!

The post What should we do with the Black Hats? appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.