View Full Version : The Worst thing for your site
lovemark
11-06-2007, 07:43 PM
What is worse for a website for search engines?
1- Dead links on your page to pages that no longer exist.
2- Duplicate content
3- Meaningless subdirectories, such as mydomain/m-sec-pg.html
instead of mydomain/my-second-page.html
4- No keywords in <meta>
5- Bad choice of <tittle>
6- Not submitting sitemap to google
7- Something else
Please feel free to comment on any of the above.
Any tips you may give will be appreciated by me and other members too, I am sure.
Thanks!
Hi,
The best thing for your site is fresh relevant content. I guess the opposite of that is the worst.
Raj
marketraise001
11-07-2007, 06:26 AM
Exactly by adding fresh content to your website on a regular basis you make it Search engine friendly.Search Spiders love fresh content and crawls them at once.If you steal content then Google terms your pages or website to be palguarized (PLR) and your website is banned from Google or any other major search engine.
bartholomew
11-07-2007, 06:32 AM
numbers 1, 2 and 5 are the ones i would fix first.
the others strike me less crucial.
inertia
11-07-2007, 06:57 AM
Duplicate content is definitely the worst! Its the only one on your list that can really mess things up! Forever!!!!!
Also keyword stuffing, hidden text - all of that sort of stuff is really bad!
But....Does anyone ever come across very spammy sites which do really well? For example i started SEO work last week on a site that had huge paragraphs of hidden, keyword stuffed text. But this site did really well in the SERPs. Surely the search engines should have picked it up? Any explanations would be read with interest...
bartholomew
11-07-2007, 08:06 AM
Duplicate content is definitely the worst! Its the only one on your list that can really mess things up! Forever!!!!!
Also keyword stuffing, hidden text - all of that sort of stuff is really bad!
But....Does anyone ever come across very spammy sites which do really well? For example i started SEO work last week on a site that had huge paragraphs of hidden, keyword stuffed text. But this site did really well in the SERPs. Surely the search engines should have picked it up? Any explanations would be read with interest...
LOL, spammy sites come and go in the SERPs, but there are always some baffling ones that don't deserve being in. and reporting spam to engines does not usually result in a ban or penalty. rather they claim that they use complaints as pointers to what they should tweak in algorithm!
duplicate content is not usually an unfixable disaster. in fact, I think maybe it is handled better than used to be. now duplicate content usually mean only one version indexed or ranked if it is identified as dupe. in days gone by I seen problems that seemed to me like actual duplicate penalties. I don't see that penalising happen to people in last year or more, only filtering.
erikko
11-07-2007, 10:07 AM
What is worse for a website for search engines?
1- Dead links on your page to pages that no longer exist.
2- Duplicate content
4- No keywords in <meta>
this three are the main problems SEO's encounters and needs attention
bartholomew
11-07-2007, 10:22 AM
this three are the main problems SEO's encounters and needs attention
keywords meta? a main problem? many years ago, perhaps, but certainly not these days for Google. Maybe a little more for Y! and MSN, but not for the big fish.
if you had said no keywords in the TITLE is a problem then you would have been on to something.
mjtaylor
11-07-2007, 11:37 AM
Yep, there are lots of spammy sites in the index ... and you can do something about it ... for years there was a site that was just awful and spammy in my niche ... but it had SO many backlinks and so much on page spam that it was in the top ten all over the niche ... everyone hated it and couldn't understand why it was there ... and I used G's "disatisfied with these results" feedback feature and, well, it took a while, but the site is nowhere to be found these days ...
Duplicate content and not optimizing the title tag would be my top two of your list. Broken links right behind those ... 3, 4 & 6 are relatively meaningless.
I can't agree with the opposite of fresh, relevant content as being the worst, because while a site needs relevant content, it does not need to be fresh. If you have the right content when you first put up a site it can rise to the top and stay there without any change in content.
JMO, MJ
bartholomew
11-07-2007, 11:42 AM
Yep, there are lots of spammy sites in the index ... and you can do something about it ... for years there was a site that was just awful and spammy in my niche ... but it had SO many backlinks and so much on page spam that it was in the top ten all over the niche ... everyone hated it and couldn't understand why it was there ... and I used G's "disatisfied with these results" feedback feature and, well, it took a while, but the site is nowhere to be found these days ...
how sure are you that your feedback is made the difference, MJ? after all, there is always a lot going on, no?
mjtaylor
11-07-2007, 11:48 AM
how sure are you that your feedback is made the difference, MJ? after all, there is always a lot going on, no?Thanks for calling me on that. I should have worded my comment differently ... I don't know that it was *my* feedback that made the difference, but it could have been. I would guess I was not the only one who reported that site ... and I do *believe* that reporting it will make a difference ...eventually. And it made me feel better to do it. JMO, MJ
incrediblehelp
11-07-2007, 04:42 PM
Not sure if you can pick one "worse" thing for the search engines and your website. When conducting SEO is it much like cooking a cake. Sure most all chefs know how to make a chocolate cake and some make it better than others. Some use other better tasting ingredients than others. The basic recipe is the same, but they all add their own personal flavor to it.
Knowing this, not sure if you can point out on thing to add to the recipe or remove from the recipe that will make the cake taste terrible.
sparky
11-08-2007, 01:32 AM
2- Duplicate content
I know I'm going to get a lot of bad come backs when I say this but I'm not sure where one should draw the line.
What I mean is all my sites are retail sales sites and one product can show up in 3 or 4 pages. lets take a gold chain with a cross pendent. This item could be placed in necklesses, religion items, pendents, gold jewelry. so if this 1 item is shown on 5 pages would that be considered duplicate content or does the whole page have to be the same?
Just asking because I run into this all the time on my sites and yes right now I have 1 product shown on 3 to 4 pages how bad is this really?
lovemark
11-08-2007, 05:24 AM
I see that most of you are saying that duplicate content is the worst thing. What can be done about articles that are sent to me and sent to other sites too? Or perhaps they are copied from my site later.
Or if I have a site that deals with song lyrics. These lyrics will surely be found on other sites too.
As regards to articles that the writer has sent to several sites, does it help if I make a few changes per page? For example correcting grammatical errors etc.
bartholomew
11-08-2007, 05:32 AM
lovemark,
it is wise not to build all, or most, of site using syndicated or other duplicate content. ideally you should need as much original content as possible. by all means include syndicated/reproduced content for benefit of your visitors, but do not expect it to rank, or even necessarily to get in the indexes. I would recommend optimize your unique content, and use robots.txt and robots meta to blocking pages you know to be mostly content that appears elsewhere.
In Google, duplicate content mostly is filtered out rather than heavily penalised, but still means that it does nothing to help your site with SEO. This also means to keep all your link-bait on original content pages. No point baiting a page that you then block in robots.txt.
IMO, it is NOT safe to think that minor changes to content, such as correction or superficial rewrite, will stop dupe content issues.
bartholomew
11-08-2007, 05:42 AM
Thanks for calling me on that. I should have worded my comment differently ... I don't know that it was *my* feedback that made the difference, but it could have been. I would guess I was not the only one who reported that site ... and I do *believe* that reporting it will make a difference ...eventually. And it made me feel better to do it. JMO, MJ
I see. I wondered if there was something specific that made you to think that one particular complaint tipped balance over into action by engines.
It is frustrating. A year or so ago I used to report spam diligently, but never saw anything that made me think much heed was paid by any engine, so I am afraid I gave up. Probably I should have been more persistent! I may try again.
inertia
11-08-2007, 06:23 AM
I have several pages on my site which have been completely taken from sites such as wiki. When i "stole" this content i had no expectations for it to rank but felt they were good articles for my visitors (and at the time i was under the impression that OBL were bad!) but now these pages come up highly in the SERPs. How is this? Shouldn't these pages be removed from the index?
One thing that i did think about was, when i "stole" the page from wiki it was only a small article, over the years the wiki page has been changed and updated so much it is now completely different, making my content original! Am i a bad, bad person??!
What is worse for a website for search engines?
1- Dead links on your page to pages that no longer exist.
2- Duplicate content
3- Meaningless subdirectories, such as mydomain/m-sec-pg.html
instead of mydomain/my-second-page.html
4- No keywords in <meta>
5- Bad choice of <tittle>
6- Not submitting sitemap to google
7- Something else
The worst things that can be happened to a website are -
a) Duplicate content
b) Bad choice of Title Tag.
and hidden content and links.
Look at the PageRank of the World's Worst Website (http://www.angelfire.com/super/badwebs/).
Content is sail boats, links are wind.
Great content without relevant IBL's is (or was after the ongoing massacre (http://www.webproworld.com/google-discussion-forum/63904-ongoing-pagerank-massacre-hits-big-players.html#post343306)?) like a regatta without wind.
Not sure if you can pick one "worse" thing for the search engines and your website. When conducting SEO is it much like cooking a cake. Sure most all chefs know how to make a chocolate cake and some make it better than others. Some use other better tasting ingredients than others. The basic recipe is the same, but they all add their own personal flavor to it.
Knowing this, not sure if you can point out on thing to add to the recipe or remove from the recipe that will make the cake taste terrible.
I am sure you use too much sugar over there (http://health.yahoo.com/experts/deepak/31/sugar-coffee-and-alzheimers-disease), or am I wrong? ;)
Excuese me, I do not remember what I said, since my short term memory is too short, so Jaan, please forgive me.
bartholomew
11-08-2007, 08:50 AM
I have several pages on my site which have been completely taken from sites such as wiki. When i "stole" this content i had no expectations for it to rank but felt they were good articles for my visitors (and at the time i was under the impression that OBL were bad!) but now these pages come up highly in the SERPs. How is this? Shouldn't these pages be removed from the index?
One thing that i did think about was, when i "stole" the page from wiki it was only a small article, over the years the wiki page has been changed and updated so much it is now completely different, making my content original! Am i a bad, bad person??!
Not a bad person. As I understand, wiki content is licensed for reproduction. Your guess about the changes making the two items no longer duplicate is a plausible one, but if it were me I'd still worry a bit that they might be close enough for my version to get dropped at some point. Filters aren't static - they get tweeks and modifications.
If your versions rank now then you are doing pretty lucky so far! For precaution, you might consider to develop orignal content that presents equivalent info a little differently, and then 301 the reproduced content to those original pages. Link juice should flow, and if the info remains valid and accessible there no reason for anyone to remove existing links.
But you can never be sure the work is justified. You may never get filtered out.
I have sites where filters removed my SERP for syndicated content and other sites where my copy of an article still rank better than the library I got it from - even after couple years.
coolguy27
11-08-2007, 11:16 AM
No keywords in meta? Even without keywords still it works because almost all SEs ignored this part and as long as proper optimization is done your site will be fine.
to sparky,
I don't think the same necklace showing up in several different categories or context in ecommerce site is considered duplicate content.
They are mostly referring
to TEXT.
Like if your page is just articles off someone else page with nothing else.
It is OK to syndicate in my book. If your own particular mashup is very useful what you have created is that particular arrangement of information. Just like a database of publically available info, any individual point I cant claim I own but I can own the schema.
The same way those guys create music with tiny little clips of other peoples music or sounds. Or in visual, those
mosaic pictures that are assembled from hundreds of tiny pictures and the overall color of the component picture contributes to a bigger picture.
There is IP in arranging and the SE's try to do a crude job of sussing that.
kevan
11-08-2007, 08:16 PM
All,
I think I should suffer from duplicate content issues, although I have good google results. I have quite a few sites that have a variety of [parked domain] names, that all obviously point to the same material.
I am loathe to lose these names, although the occasional site goes by the wayside, when I have been using a poor web provider, eg ipowerweb, who are the pits.
So, for example, my main site is londonpublichouse.com, which is also known as essexpub.com, essexpub.net, pubsinlondon.net and probably many other names. Domain names are cheap!
Is this duplicate content???? What do I need to do about this, apart from deleting the extra site names.
My content is updated hourly, with fresh content being added all of the time. I use lunarpages, who are not only cheap, but also offer me excellent support, by the way.
I would really appreciate an answer to this, I am really not clear whether I am doing a dis-service to mys site/s. I spend probably 40 hours a week updating content, on top of working and travelling in normal work, so I feel I deserve reasonable results, but wonder how this duplicate content may affect rankings.
I would appreciate any feedback.
Thanks
Kevan
Keimos
11-08-2007, 08:57 PM
Hi inertia,
Look at Kguns worst site. (p4) A very clever person using sarcasm as the best form of wit. Is that what you meant kgun?
There is no worst, if it works use it!!!!!!!!!
k
edhan
11-08-2007, 09:38 PM
Well, I guess duplicate sites and spammy sites likely to be the worst thing can ever happen. Hard to keep sites remaining unique at times.
billc
11-08-2007, 10:09 PM
LoveMark;
When you put
"7- Something else"
I thought you meant something other then the above 6. Why is everyone debating about a few gimmies. I belive LoveMark was looking for more reasons.
Rarely mentioned but by how many times my sites are spidered for WhoIs. Make sure your site matches the Whois for local listings ect............
OK! Any others .
seo4china
11-08-2007, 10:33 PM
What is worse for a website for search engines?
1- Dead links on your page to pages that no longer exist.
2- Duplicate content
3- Meaningless subdirectories, such as mydomain/m-sec-pg.html
instead of mydomain/my-second-page.html
4- No keywords in <meta>
5- Bad choice of <tittle>
6- Not submitting sitemap to google
7- Something else
Please feel free to comment on any of the above.
Any tips you may give will be appreciated by me and other members too, I am sure.
Thanks!
Depends of the search engine and the time. What is worst for ranking on Google today maybe just fine for Yahoo in a near future :)
danners
11-09-2007, 05:07 AM
linking out to spammy websites ("bad naighbourhoods") ... and not linking out to a few relevant pages with good content.
Related WPW posts:
Do Google penalise mirror sites (http://www.webproworld.com/google-discussion-forum/60344-do-google-penalise-mirror-sites.html#post323569)
Keyword Density (http://www.webproworld.com/search-engine-optimization-forum/62427-keyword-density.html#post335380)
Cratima
11-09-2007, 12:04 PM
2 worst
1 and 5 - bad
mjtaylor
11-12-2007, 10:03 AM
linking out to spammy websites ("bad naighbourhoods")
This is definitely worse than anything mentioned so far, as it will get you de-indexed from Google. The rest on the original list pale in comparison ... danners should get a prize!!!
Cheers, MJ
incrediblehelp
11-12-2007, 02:35 PM
...as it will get you de-indexed from Google...
Did Google say "de-indexed" somewhere on their website(s)?
crankydave
11-12-2007, 03:18 PM
Well I can think of a few right off the bat as far as SE's are concerned.
-Improperly optmised flash sites.
-Framed sites not using the <noframes> tags properly.
-Violating SE guidelines... and getting caught or turned in.
Not so sure I'd call the the others "worst" neccessarily. Really depends upon the extreme to which they are taken and the genre in which they are competing.
Even then let's not exclude the worst things from the visitors perspective...
-Color schemes that make your eyes bleed.
-Search functions that don't work.
-Horrible navigation that makes things hard to find or take too many clicks.
-Pages that don't render properly.
Dave
rajeshchand
11-13-2007, 07:28 AM
Well the worst thing for me is duplicate content, dead links are still manageable or it is out of carelessness but dup content is something which you will be well aware of and still doing the meaningless SEO game when you know if you are caught then nothing can make it feel better
Even then let's not exclude the worst things from the visitors perspective...
The most important thing. Websites are made for human beings.
SE, are made to find, hopefully the best pages.
If you have a single source, many presentation XML driven web site, web copy may be a very important part and feature of that site.
The xml code is identical for the SE, but not the presentation for the surfer. The SE may not see the different XSLT stylesheets that are used to present content in different formats and to different users.
To some exteng this depends on how andvanced the bots are.
Tubby
11-13-2007, 07:32 PM
I think the worst thing for your site is a lack of enthusiasm.
we have all walked into that shop eager to buy a new fishing rod, or watch, ' Yea mate gonna by me a new hat today" When you walk in you are confronted with apathy. . a voice said in a dull drone "hats" and a finger points to the far corner of the store. The store is empty, no hustle and bustle. No salesgirl that is enthusiastically showing you hats and telling you, "hey' that hat makes you look like ......." It is a dead zone. You find yourself turning around and walking out. You find yourself looking in shop windows and you are not quite sure why the old hat seems to be O.K. for another few weeks...
The buying experience is part of the cost of the item. . Never forget to include it.
mjtaylor
11-14-2007, 09:36 AM
Did Google say "de-indexed" somewhere on their website(s)?
What's wrong with the term de-indexed? Why does Google have to say it? We know (do we not?) that linking to bad neighborhoods can get your site removed from Google's index. I would call that de-indexed.
What G does say in it's Webmaster Guidelines (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769): "Google may respond negatively" if a site doesn't meet quality guidelines, which include the instruction: "In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."
And in case we don't know that links to bad neighborhoods can get a site entirely removed from the index, I had it happen on a site a few years ago. The site was no longer in the index and it had been #3 for a few years on it's top term ... I emailed G and got a "quality guidelines' response. I combed the site (it was 'inherited' from another webmaster and for all I knew there was hidden text somewhere ... I found nothing until I checked every link ... I found 2 or 3 that were clearly 'bad neighborhoods' ... I deleted those, and sent a reinclusion request (this was before Webmaster Tools where you would request reinclusion (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35843) today) and in a day or two the site was back in its usual position.
IME, MJ
incrediblehelp
11-14-2007, 10:43 AM
Well removing your website from the index (de-indexed) is RADICLALY different than "may respond negatively" or demoting your website so it doesnt rank as well. It is much easier to raise a ranking that is under preforming than it is to get a website back into the index that has been banned. You see the difference now MJ?
Either way we are on the same page here. I agree linking out to bad nieghboorhoods or irrelevant linking in anyway is not a good idea.
I made the following search
"bad neighborhoods" site:Google (http://www.google.com)
to see how specific Google is about this concept.
Result:
Webmaster Help Center - Webmaster Guidelines (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769) Mentioned above.
Don't participate in link schemes (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66356) designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
Webmaster Help Center - Link schemes (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66356)
Webmaster Help Center (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/search.py?query=pagerank&ctx=br%3Asearchbox)Any better source?
This may be of interest:
Webmaster Help Center - How can I create a Google-friendly site? (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40349&query=pagerank&topic=&type)=
May be a more proactive step.
mjtaylor
11-14-2007, 11:05 AM
Well removing your website from the index (de-indexed) is RADICLALY different than "may respond negatively" or demoting your website so it doesnt rank as well. It is much easier to raise a ranking that is under preforming than it is to get a website back into the index that has been banned. You see the difference now MJ?
Either way we are on the same page here. I agree linking out to bad nieghboorhoods or irrelevant linking in anyway is not a good idea.
Yes, we are on the same page ... linking to quality sites and checking regularly to make sure those sites have not changed is *very* important.
*And* while we are on the same page, in practice Google *will* take a site out of the index for links to bad neighborhoods, despite the lesser warning. They may not *say* it, but they do it. I have seen it on one of my sites as I mentioned above and I have the experience of others' corroboration.
:) MJ
*And* while we are on the same page, in practice Google *will* take a site out of the index for links to bad neighborhoods, despite the lesser warning. They may not *say* it, but they do it. I have seen it on one of my sites as I mentioned above and I have the experience of others' corroboration.
As a builder of my own portal or linkcollection, I completely share Googles view here. My worst experiences:
Affilated links banner that change format, that in the worst cases destroy a page or make it unaccessible.
Links that change content and / or redirect to new completely unrelated content in some extreme situations completely new sites.
Broken links, even from large companies.That is why I wait for the next web browser and SE putting much more weight on semantic linking (http://www.webproworld.com/search-engine-optimization-forum/64120-semantical-linking.html#post344876).