While it is undoubtedly important to optimize your website so that it appears near the top of search engines allowing for the highest amount of exposure, there are rules you need to be aware of if you want to remain in good standing with search engines like Google. A recent entrepreneur.com article provides some tips on avoiding having your page rank drop on search engines and the actions to take if something such as cloaking, spam, or lack of value causes your page rank to drop.
The first technique you need to beware of referred to as cloaking involves displaying the content of a website differently for the search engine than for users who visit the site. Cloaking can affect all types of content on websites including photos and text, so to avoid being penalized or even banned from a site like Google, you should constantly monitor your website and crosscheck the content that is on your webpage with the content that is being fetched by the search engine. There are many free tools available to perform these checks and they should be taken advantage of to avoid a penalty or drop in rank.
Another issue that will cause your rank to drop is having spam or using spam techniques on your website. To prevent this, be sure to choose an automated messaging system that has anti-spam functionality. You should also constantly check your page for spam from other sources and promptly remove them to protect the people who view your website. Spam is a huge nuisance on the internet, and if you keep your website spam-free your webpage will be much more likely to appear near the top of search engines.
Finally, perhaps the element that you have the most control over attributing to the ranking of your website is the overall value of content. Search engines use software as well as human employees to determine the quality of the content on websites. Therefore, to retain a high ranking, you should always make sure all content on your website is direct and to the point. There shouldn’t be any irrelevant information or unnatural reference links on the site and you should never plagiarize.
If you are quick to correct any of the above issues with your website, you should be in good standing with Google and other search engines. However, if you receive an SEO penalty, don’t be discouraged, for some of the most popular sites have received SEO penalties. It is always in your best interest to fix the problem quickly and your site’s ranking will eventually go back up. OptfinITy offers services in website development, and we would be happy to assist you with creating a quality website that is optimized for your success. If you have any questions about avoiding SEO penalties or website optimization, give us a call at 703-790-0400 or visit our website at www.optfinity.com.
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