SEO Mistakes : Google is smarter than you think

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googlelogo1Whether 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!

42 Responses to “SEO Mistakes : Google is smarter than you think”

  1. Dean

    Great post.
    The amount of effort that people put into trying to dupe search engines would build a pretty good business if they just focused on building it from the ground up.

    Reply
    • Ben Tremblay

      Absolutely. It seems to work not to bad for some, but for the majority of people I think it's a waste of time.

      Thanks Dean!

      Reply
  2. Leo

    Interesting..it still doesn't explain how black hat marketers can snag top 10 rankings in (some) competitive niches by keyword stuffing and shoddy backlinks. Perhaps, keyword stuffing is more tolerated in certain niches than others…..

    …or perhaps, google really isn't that smart and is relying on competitor's to report them….

    At any rate, I do have to agree with you that google is getting better at detecting "spammy" type pages. But I have to wonder about it everytime I see a page that is ranking #1-3 and is doing so with no more than a page with the same keyword stuffed over and over and over.

    Reply
    • Ben Tremblay

      Thanks Leo for your comment and I was expecting something like that when I wrote this post.

      Basically, it's like anything else, some people do blackhat SEO and are successful at it. But I think that for the vast majority of people it is a very bad idea. Plus, it's hard to have a long term vision with blackhat SEO, you can lose your ranking anytime…

      But I have to agree with you, some are successful at it. For how long?

      Reply
      • Leo

        I imagine if you buffer your BH sites, ie. use the sites with established trust rank like forum profiles and what not and then pound the hell out of it with backlinks and link up to your site (or go even a tier back) that this would be fairly safe.

        How long would it last? well, I guess that depends on a lot of things. The worst case scenario in this case would be that the backlink would be ignored.

  3. Ben Tremblay

    When that happens, they usually are old websites with a 5+ yo domain name and a decent number of backlinks. Remember that Google doesn't "see", so it might be ugly and still rank terribly well. Thanks for dropping a comment!

    Reply
  4. Luis Torres

    Hi Ben,
    Oops, I guess I am making the mistake of too many keywords in my title page. Even that they are relevant to my posts, but I will need to trimmed a lil.

    Thanks for the reminder.

    Luis

    Reply
  5. yogababe

    Hi Ben – long time no see. Good article! I would love it if you write an article about "Get decent “dofollow” backlinks". Or did you do that already? I have just moved, can't find my stuff or my mind yet. But am HERE!

    Your blog looks better and better.

    Adele

    Reply
    • Ben Tremblay

      Thanks Adele! I could write a "how to get decent dofollow backlinks" article for sure! And no…I haven't wrote any before ;)

      I will also move in a couple of months and I must say I don't feel like it…packing…unpacking…no finding stuff hehe ;)

      Thanks for your comment on the blog :)

      Reply
  6. Ben Tremblay

    I'd suggest different anchors for the simple reason that's how natural linking works. If you have a blog about cars, people are going to link to you in different ways with anchor texts like "car", "buy a car", "car reviews", "Bred car blog", etc. So focus on your keywords, but still try to make it look like natural linking ;)

    Reply
  9. Ben Tremblay

    Yeah, well it depends on people. I personally think 90% is A LOT as I much prefer to build content, but Link Building is absolutely essential.

    Reply
  12. Salwa

    Yup they do that and that is a big no no like Ben put it "google is smarter than you think"

    Great article Ben

    Reply
  14. Ben Tremblay

    If it's on a page you have multiple product names, they should be H2 that's right. On the particular page of a product, the product name should be H1 because there's only one product there and I guess it's the main subject of your page.

    Thanks for the comment :)

    Reply
  18. Normal Joe

    awesome post again froggy! You hit it right on the head man! You've GOT to write naturally and make people want to read it or it's all for nothing.

    Reply
  19. Montreal web design

    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.

    Reply
  20. miami beach homes

    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.

    Reply
  27. Ben Tremblay

    Exactly. Not too long ago, search engines were not that smart and it's true that getting a certain keyword density was important. Now it still is because your keywords need to stand out, but it's more important to convince Google in a natural way what your website is about.

    Reply
  28. Ben Tremblay

    Well, I said it's hard with blogs because if you use a free theme or something, you don't have a lot of control over the code, unless you modify it yourself. WordPress will also generate some code so it's can get a bit tricky. Other than that, it's no different and you can still use http://validator.w3.org to validate your blog's code.

    Reply
  29. Ben Tremblay

    Thanks a lot for your comment mate! I know how you feel about the lack of updates on Frogstr and trust me I'll be working hard in the next month to post something like every every 3 days instead of every 1-2 week. Thanks for sticking around, I appreciate it. Really.

    Reply
  30. Ben Tremblay

    Absolutely, filtering your website for duplicate content is a must! A "robots" file can also be used and will do the trick.

    Reply

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