Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engines' SEO Guidelines

Before you submit your site to the major search engines and web directories, you should check whether their seo guidelines are met:

• Google Webmaster Guidelines
• Yahoo! Search Content Quality Guidelines
• Bing Guidelines for successful indexing
• ODP / DMOZ Site Selection Criteria

The search engine's seo guidelines provide optimization suggestions that will lead to a better ranking of your website. On the other hand, they also make clear which methods can lead to being excluded from their indexes. Here are some of the sins you should not commit:

• Cloaking:  This is a prohibited seo technique in which the content presented to the search engine spider is different to that presented to the user's browser. The purpose is to trick search engines into indexing content i.e. keywords which are important for a better ranking. This can, for example, be done by text or links on the same colour background. Thus, the website visitor is often directed to a page which does not provide the information looked for. Sneaky redirects also belong to this category.
• Doorway Pages:  These are intermediate pages (usually without any complicated layout), which consist of search results for particular keyword phrases with the only purpose of sending visitors to different pages.
• Duplicate Content:  Search engines and web directories like to avoid any duplicate content. Therefore, please do not use content of other websites, even if that was allowed by copyright, and avoid identical content on different pages of your own website. The same applies to different domains that mainly have the same content.
• Link Farms:  This term describes a collection of websites / domains on the Web, which is primarily designed to create as many links to other websites as possible. This is to improve the search engine ranking for the listed websites. Also it is better to stay away from an excessive link exchange / link exchange programs.
• Automated Submissions etc.: It is also a violation of the search engine guidelines, if you submit your website / URL to the search engines by unauthorized, fully automated programs or check your rankings by these sort of programs. The use of automated software can affect the performance of the search engine servers.
• Other Violations: The search engines will not, of course, include sites with illegal content or harmful functions (phishing, smuggling viruses, trojans etc.) in their indexes. Also it is forbidden to have domain names registered with misspellings of well-known websites. Moreover, the excessive use of pop-ups, which make it difficult to use a Web site can lead to an exclusion from the search engine's index.

If your website has been ruled out from a search engine's index, you can put in a so-called reconsideration request (Google) for it. At Yahoo, you should tell via the Yahoo! Search Feedback Form that your site is not included in the index and ask for assistance. A similar facility is also available at Bing. Clear the violations of the guidelines completely. Then you will have a chance of being reinstated in the index.

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