Our tour through the magical world of search engine optimization is now underway
Last week, we talked about the many great advantages that establishing and using search engine optimization can offer for a company. We came to the conclusion that the skillful implementation of good SEO techniques can really be helpful to a company in the long run. But what are these “good” SEO techniques? And are there any no-gos regarding online marketing? This time we will be traveling through the history of search engine optimization, past questionable methods and approaches, and toward the SEO that we know and love (and practice) today.
SEO – Off to a Shaky Start
Without a doubt, the early days of the development and implementation of SEO techniques were intertwined with the introduction of the first search engines on the internet. The first search engines were established in the early 2000s, with Google being a front-runner from the beginning. It became obvious early on that a good top ranking in search results and SERPS would mean reaching a larger audience and result in more clicks. Thus began the webmaster games – they tried to manipulate search engines with all kinds of dubious methods in order to get first-class rankings. This was possible back then, since the SEO terrain was still very young and unexplored, and could be traversed without any rules and restrictions. In addition, the search engine algorithm at the time was not completely armed for the schemes of the SEO community. The SEO techniques used back then, while simple and rewarding, lacked in one aspect: user-friendliness. Users usually did not find what they were looking for in the top search results. We will now introduce you to these common methods from back in the day.
The Keyword Stuffing Method
The term keyword stuffing describes the excessive use of keywords (the focus words) on a website. The goal here is a top ranking in search engine results for this specific keyword. This was done by maximizing the keyword density in the source code and in the page content, also known as loading the page with keywords. This was a proven method in the 2000s, but now is a punishable offense by Google and other search engines. Keyword stuffing lowers the value of a website because of the use of pointless content, and is just plainly considered spammy.
The Link Spamming Method
The next alleged contender that enjoyed popularity at the beginning of the SEO boom was link spamming, or search engine spamming. This term is used if a website is ranked in the SERPs well with one or several keywords, even if the content of the page has nothing to do with these keywords. Link spammers also implement so-called hyperlinks for this – if a user clicks on one of these links, they would probably land on a page with a topic that is not at all related to what they were searching for. This serves to trick search engines, since they would then scoot way up to the top in the results. Link spamming is neither a particularly promising nor long-lasting SEO method, and those who still believe this put themselves at risk for punishment by Google and other search engines.
Valuable Algorithm Updates
Over the years, search engines realized that these SEO methods were not working in the users’ best interests. To counter this, a string of algorithmic updates were done with the goal of totally re-optimizing the quality of search results – or more exactly to disqualify low-quality websites and SEO techniques. The Panda and Penguin Google updates were particularly relevant in this regard. They occurred in the early 2010s and played an important role in combating sites with content that was overly-optimized or without substance. It can be said that in general, search engine ranking factors and the subsequent improvement of search results is being developed more and more all the time, as are SEO techniques themselves.
Shady Black Hat SEO
Despite constant efforts by Google and its counterparts to improve ranking quality, there are still website owners who choose to work on the dark side of SEO. The most infamous techniques currently used to generate better search engine rankings are known by the term black hat SEO. These are methods that are directly in breach of search engine guidelines. It is worth taking a look at this in order to avoid any future faux-pas and thus a ranking degradation of the site.
Next is the rise of keyword stuffing – the insertion of “hidden content”. Text in white font, in particular for the focus keywords, is placed on a white background, which is not readily visible by the page visitor. This used to help rankings, but today it is exposed immediately due to the development of algorithms and the use of crawlers, which act as key players for search engines, searching for content on the internet and then identifying it. But, black hat SEO has also developed methods to trick these crawlers. The term cloaking describes all techniques used to show users different content than what the search engines are being shown. The real essence of the site is “cloaked”, or veiled, as soon as a search engine crawler or robot attempts to access it. The website’s server performs this by identifying if an access attempt is from a normal browser or a robot via certain identifiers or its IP address. Immediately following this, a reduced or optimized variation of the site is shown.
And last but not least, there are doorway pages, which are one of the most prevalent black hat SEO techniques. These can be understood as a type of cloaking, since multiple sites are opened (a keyword-loaded page for the crawler and an information-focused page for the visitor). The difference between this and cloaking is that the visitor is forcibly redirected to the other page at a later point in time.
Playing Fairly
Today, there is almost no chance that black hat SEO will get by unrecognized. Generating top rankings on SERPs through force and greed ends by being reprimanded and losing visibility. In many cases, the most common search engines will even decide not to index the website anymore, so hands off! Those who want to keep their integrity as well as long-term success need to implement clean SEO techniques using so-called white hat SEO – these stay within the boundaries set by search engines, value quality, and also lead to well-deserved high rankings.
To be continued…
