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SEO Mistakes : Google is smarter than you think
March 17th, 2009
Whether you run a blog, website or build websites for your customers, Google is hard to ignore. Of course writing for search engines is not a good idea and we should focus on writing content for people, but we can’t ignore Google. That is if you run a blog, because if you run a more “static” website, SEO is probably and should be a big part of your strategy.
I want to talk about the worst mistake you can make when it comes to SEO and Google traffic: assuming Google is dumb. There are some very common mistakes I see on a all sort of websites, including “professional business” websites and these mistakes are mostly due to thinking Google is dumb and can’t detect basic patterns like keyword stuffing. Thinking you are smarter than Google will probably hurt your website more than help it.
Common mistakes
Writing with the search engines in mind at first is a bad idea. The best technique in my opinion is to write in a natural way AND THEN optimize what you wrote for search engines if you have to. Here are some common patterns I often see that won’t help your rankings:
- Overusing the target keywords (too much repetition)
- Overusing bold text
- Keywords stuffing
- Text with same color as background to hide keywords
- Not using h1, h2, hx tags
- Gazillion HTML errors (Not XHTML compliant)
- Page title too long with 100 keywords
Assuming Google is dumb
Why most of these mistakes also mean assuming Google is dumb? Well, let’s take “overusing the target keywords” for example: some people think that by making the target keywords appear on the page very often, it will improve their website’s ranking. While not entirely false, it is not entirely true. It is true that you have to make your keywords standout, but don’t assume Google can’t detect non-natural text. The Google algorithm is not as simple as “This keyword represent 25% of the total text, let’s rank the site higher for this keyword”. Look, there are thousands of engineers and PhDs behind the Google algorithm, I’m sure they thought of that.
It’s the same story for keyword stuffing. Don’t you think Google can’t detect simple keywords repetition patterns like “Internet Marketing, Marketing, Internet, Search Engine Optimisation, …, …” all cleanly separated by a comma? Please.
The same goes with using a hundred keywords in your website’s title and H tags. By doing that, you dilute the keywords and simply make it harder for Google to determine what your website is about. It’s not because “Web 2.0″ is one of the 50 keywords in your title that you will rank for “Web 2.0″, you have to prove to Google it’s a relevant keyword.
This goes on and on. My advice is: if you think you found a new “clever” way to rank higher and that it is kind of obvious, probably someone at Google thought about it too.
My top SEO basic tips
Here are my key advices for good website ranking:
- XHTML compliant website (hard with blogs), use http://validator.w3.org/ to validate
- Using H1, H2, H3 tags (only one H1 tag per page)
- Natural writing, still with an emphasis on your keywords
- Make your text and titles relevant
- Get decent “dofollow” backlinks
- Relevant anchor text for backlinks
There are a lot more of course, but if you do this, you’re good to go. And you know what? SEO is all about common sense, it’s when you try to be clever that you will most likely fail.
Share with us
Have you made some of these mistakes in the past and what are your top tips for a good ranking? Share with us your knowledge and what you think!
114 Responses to “SEO Mistakes : Google is smarter than you think”
What do you think?
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I agree with everything you have said. I have seen sites trying to meet their percpection of the target keyword density. In the end, content and value to your visitors is king. This is what makes them stick and convert.
yah i agree with you.google is the smarter,but i seeing some of the website which use no tag,ugly design and not good content, do good ranking for some keyword.Do you tell me why they ranking…
I think it is not new that google is clever. But there are some really good tips and really good information in your article. I like the style you write and i like the information. Thanks a lot. I am looking forward to new articles!
google is seriously a nice tool..whereever we go on internet,whichever site or blogs we open google is hard to forgot….any search we have to do we need google…it is a very important site for everyone…
Very useful information for me.
I personally feel that all this seo stuff is bad for the
Internet. People have started building sites for google rather than actual users. So frusterating, but you have to conform or your site will be on page 45.
Thanks a ton for the great ideas. I think most of us have made a few mistakes and think that Google is dumb. I tried to write my website so that the search engine would like it, but I think I just shot myself in the foot and didn't write it with humans in mind. I later went back and rewrote it for people then tried to add keywords where they fit.
Some good pointers there. Thanks for that
you will give a great knowledge stuff! here,i like your style on this things,well thanx for this post
Great Post! You must respect the Google Gods! I have been "sand-boxed" in the past so trust me, I have learned my lesson.
Really nicely explained, man. You do a good job of rubbishing the misinformation out there.
The instructions that you have provided for starting up a website are perfect. its always better to be natural in the first instance and then optimize. thnks a lot thses tips. keep posting.
run smoothly.I think google is like detective. they know what I do.
And difficult to practice h1, h2, hx tags in free blog, like blogspot.
Google is really smart than us. Without google, we could do anything. We are to much relying on it.
What if you have a blog that's about general issues, not necessarily one topic? Will this hurt me or should I create seperate blogs for all of them? I don't want to stuff keywords either but I am not geting any trafffic whatsoever
i cant' stop reading about seo and especially with people like you who are actually doing it.
I don't think now many people make these mistakes because many people know that these are obvious mistakes..
A lot of people do. Some on a more subtle level, but a lot of people and businesses do.
These are nice tips on how to deal with problems related with google. May be observing these could help me too. Thanks.
Writing the article and then afterwards stuff the text with a little more keywords seems to work fine. Goggle wants to see a well written, just like the users.
That really is a concern that all of us tend to ignore. google is the master of everything. This is quite an interesting post by you.
Google started it all. It's not dumb at all.
Will you please tell me how many words should I use in a post for SEO purpose. Some people says I should use 300 words and some says more than 500.
Kindly help …
agreed, and agreed
Great insights,
I have read your blog first time but I will come again and again to get more from you.
thank you for nice posting. I read all. thank again.
It is always bad to write content for search engines or writing search engine friendly content. I know many people who have banned sites due to the same reasons. I think we should focus on genuine content. A little bit tweaking might be done.
Nice article. You probably surprised me when I read that there are thousands of PhDs and engineers working for Google. I always knew about Google but this is something new to me. Ofcourse as a search engine, they've to rank fairly so they've to make a very strong mechanism.
thank you very much for you info about SEO.
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I tried hard to get a valid blog but stupid wordpress errors keep bringing it down. This is shown by the CSS I used (my own custom made theme) having green validation and the actually WP html getting approx. 50 errors.
Google is not that smart but not that dumb… if you got pretty good coding skills you can outsmart google… Black Hat Practitioners go big time with their autoblogs if they can see google patterns
It has been my mistakes too especially on writing about a certain keyword, makes the article so annoying because of the repetition of the words. Thanks a lot for sharing these tips and SEO basics.
Well, "everybody knows" that the way to Google's heart is backlinks. And of course, the more relevant, the better. Backlinks ARE very important. Google also tracks how long your visitors visit. If nobody lingers on your page, you can bet Google will drop your ranking. Give them something good to read or watch or buy when they come and they will stay and buy, watch or read. AND your rankings will climb.
Google is smart and getting smarter.
Hey Ben,
The biggest (most costly) mistake I've made is building links to my websites too fast. I had a website which was in the top 10 of Google for most of my tarket keywords and from one day to the next it disappeared from the face of google. About a month later it came back but for several weeks it was nowhere to be seen which probably cost me thousands of dollars in lost sales….sometimes the best lessons are learnt the hard way.
I see in several SEO contest do that, i see the result, how do you explain that ? thank you
after using that kind of stuff that sites are getting rankings but visitors are alos smart enough to identify this kind of stuffing so they'll avoid to visit this kind of stuff.
after using that kind of stuff that sites are getting rankings but visitors are alos smart enough to identify this kind of stuffing so they'll avoid to visit this kind of stuff….
Google keeps changing it’s search parameters but stick to the basic guide lines given here and you cannot go wrong….great post
Articles stuffed with keywords are horrible, horrible. They won’t encourage anyone to read any of your articles.