Google, Internet, Magazine Articles, SEO

5 sure-fire ways to get your website banned by Google

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I’ve got another feature running in .Net magazine in June (I’ve had quite a few now) but this one’s something of an annoyance. When I wrote the article it was titled: ‘5 sure-fire ways to get your website banned by Google’, but they thought it wasn’t a good idea to run a story like that as people might think it’s advice to be followed, rather than the tongue in cheek style that was intended.

Subsequently the article was watered down to what you see below.

Naturally the original article was better and carried more gravitas. It stated that many SEO websites and forums (including some SEO companies and professionals) offer advice that will get your website banned, and the 5 ‘tips’ presented were all the sort of gems of advice that you could receive that, should you follow, could end in your website being banned.

How to avoid getting your website banned

You can also download the PDF here.

But, if you’d rather read the original article (perhaps just to compare) here it is:

5 sure-fire ways to get your website banned by Google

In the world of SEO and online marketing, everyone looks for a way to get ahead of the competition, something that will give them that extra edge. With many SEO companies, SEO websites and SEO forums offering advice on improving your rankings, you don’t have to look far for tips. However, just how trustworthy is some of the information you’ll find?

Far from increasing your rankings, you could find that the SEO advice you’ve found actually hinders you to the point where you are banned from Google. Here are some basic tips that you may well find online that will get your website banned. Use them at your peril.

Stuff your site with keywords
The more you mention your keywords on your site, the higher it will rank! By repeating your keywords over and over again in your content, you’re sure to increase your ranking for those keywords, surely?

Copy content from your competitors’ websites
If your competitor’s website has some great content and they’re ranking for search terms, you could copy their content and paste it on your website. This means your site will rank for those terms as well. You could even find articles written on free article sites and reuse those, so you’ll have loads more pages on your site. Isn’t this a great way to get free content?

Hide text on your website
Sometimes you won’t want ugly text on your website, especially when it hinders your fluid design. You can always hide it on the page, maybe by changing the text colour to the same as the background, or by using CSS to hide it off the page. This way Google can index it and your website won’t be spoilt by its presence. Loads of SEO companies do this, so it must work?

Create doorway pages
How about creating special doorway pages focused on a specific keyword that are designed to rank in Google, and when they’re visited by a user they redirect to your front page? This allows you to create dozens of pages, all targeting different keywords, without harming your site’s look. You’ll have loads of listings within Google, vastly increasing your traffic, won’t you?

Add affiliate links
Linking to other, more established websites is sure to help your rankings. What could be better than adding hundreds of affiliate links to websites and the product descriptions for the products themselves? This will earn you money as well as improve the amount of content on your website.

All of these tips can be found on various SEO websites and are even offered by some SEO consultants, yet following the advice can lead to your website being penalised by Google and even banned from the index entirely.

Rants

Microsoft once again displays its lunacy

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I have to work with Microsoft products on a daily basis. It’s an unavoidable part of my job. This wouldn’t be a problem though if Microsoft products actually worked in such a way that made them useful. Yet Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, seem to go out of their way to make their products as useless and aggravating as possible.

Now, I’m not one to complain (as you know) but when I’m working I expect some basic levels of performance from my PC. One of the things I expect my PC to do is to NOT switch off while I’m using it. This is annoying, and somewhat counterproductive towards my working day.

Yet Microsoft believe that a computer that turns itself off is somehow beneficial to people. This morning I had this message on my screen while I was in the middle of a lengthy task

restartnow

Note the ‘restart later’ button is greyed out. This means I have two options. Switch the PC off now and lose everything, or try to save what I’m doing quickly while the PC counts down its ‘death clock’ before shutting itself off.

What possible use is this to anyone? Had I left the PC performing a task, such as a macro in PhotoShop or a process in Premier I would have lost the files.

How in the name of anything that’s holy can this be useful? Imagine if Microsoft made flight control systems for pilots. You’re at 20,000 feet on a flight to New York and the plane decides you’ve four minutes to get your affairs in order before it reboots.

Microsoft are idiots.

Before anyone mentions it, I can’t change this in the control panel as I don’t have Admin access.

General, Michael Jackson

Getting my scan results today

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Today’s the day I get my results from my CAT scan and MRI scan that I had some months ago. I’ll be seeing the spinal surgeon this afternoon, where I fully expect to be told that I’ll need surgery to remove the steel rod from my spine and have it replaced to fully correct the scoliosis. If this is the case, it’ll be done sometime this summer, but not until after the Michael Jackson concert obviously.

I’m not looking forward to this, but it has to be done; I can barely walk more than 50 yards now without excruciating pain. Not too clever really.

Stay tuned for the results as always!

Internet

Why is there no pride in Internet fraud anymore?

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Is it just me, or is there no pride in the Internet fraud industry anymore? I mean, fraudsters used to be a noble breed, with standards and ethics… well, maybe not ethics, but they had standards. There was no point being a fraudster if you were sloppy; you wouldn’t defraud many people.

These days however it seems every Tom, Dick or Amjad is committing fraud online, and standards have really slipped. I received the email below today, supposedly from Lloyds TSB, trying to get me to enter my online banking details into a phishing website. Nothing unusual there, millions of these emails are sent every day. PayPal and eBay ones are the most common, and are often quite convincing.

This email however is bloody awful. I was insulted to receive it. What’s the point in going to the trouble of setting up a fake website to capture people’s login details, sending out countless emails (which aren’t free to send, they cost you know) and then not even bothering to spell check the sodding email?

This email is scandalous. It’s riddled with typos, americanised spellings and even refers to an ATM… hello… UK?

Come on fraudsters, sort it out. Get your bleedin’ act together and write some decent phishing emails.

FROM: Lloyds TSB <onlinebanking@lloydstsb.co.uk>
Subject: Lloyds TSB Alerts : Irregular Check Card Activity

Dear Customer ,

We have informed that you have received unauthorized access to your Lloyds TSB ATM Card by date of April 08 2009 ,
We already put your account on third party until the verification is finish
We ask you now to Log-In to your internet banking and check your statment .
We asking you to Log in immidiatly to your Internet Banking and and follow this steps

1. Log-In to your internet banking by clicking here
2. Check your recent statment

Please make sure to let us know if there is any authorized withdraw from your Lloyds ATM Card

Lebel Operation :
4670659

Your account is on the third party and is will be untill you finish the steps
Lloyds TSB , United Kingdom

***********************************************************************************************
This message and any attachments are confidential and intended for the named addressee(s) only.
If you have received this message in error, please notify immediately the sender, then delete
the message. Any unauthorized modification, edition, use or dissemination is prohibited.
The sender does not be liable for this message if it has been modified, altered, falsified,
infected by a virus or even edited or disseminated without authorization.
***********************************************************************************************

CSA

Are you having trouble with the CSA and disputed parentage?

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If like you’re having problems with the CSA, The ONE Show on BBC One want to hear about it. They’re making a short piece about disputed parentage and want to speak to people who have been in this situation.

Here’s the message The ONE Show has asked me to put up. Get in touch with them now if you believe you could contribute.

The ONE Show- Film about Disputed Parentage

We are making a film on ‘Disputed Parentage’ for The ONE Show, a primetime topical magazine show that transmits every weekday evening on BBC ONE at 7pm.

For the film we would like to speak to men and women who have been in this situation.

It will be an informal chat with a view to doing an interview at some point this week.

You can contact me on 01612443248 or 07843023251. Alternatively you can email me on joe.casey1@bbc.co.uk

CSA, Just Search

CSA force me to quit my job

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Sadly it’s finally come down to my having to resign from my job as a direct result of the CSA. It’s not something I wanted to do, but as they’re taking 40% of my salary, refuse to speak to me over the phone and haven’t sent my employer an updated payment schedule in almost 2 years, I can’t continue.

The last message I received from the idiots stated how they had sent a payment schedule to Just Search in July 2008, however they hadn’t sent one. I didn’t receive one and Just Search didn’t receive one.

The CSA lied.

I then heard that my DEO (deduction of earnings order) can’t be changed by my employer until the CSA send them an updated payment schedule, which they’re not planning on doing until July this year. This is despite my having already overpaid according to my records, and my employer’s records. Now, as the CSA lied about sending one in 2008, am I to trust they’ll send one in 2009?

Not likely. Even if they do actually send a new payment schedule this July, with the correct reduced payments, I would then have to APPEAL to get my money back!!!

Again, this isn’t going to happen.

As the CSA refuse to provide my employer with the correct payment schedule, haven’t done so for nearly 2 years and refuse to speak to me I’m left with no option but to quit. I can’t afford to work anymore.

I’m not the first to have to do this and I won’t be the last. I really don’t understand how the CSA can legally demand money direct from your employer based on a calculation that they refuse to update, and claim they did in 2008, when they blatantly didn’t. They have lied to me, they have lied to Just Search and they have been stealing money from me. No one can do anything about them, they are not governed by any policing body and they’re answerable to no one.

It’s a shame, but that’s the child support agency for you. Of course the real losers in all of this are my children, as they won’t receive any money from now on. The CSA have made sure of that. That is of course assuming they’ve received any of it in the first place?

Here is the letter I sent to the CSA informing them of this. Perhaps someone has a comment on this?

Birkenhead Child Support Agency
Great Western House
Woodside Ferry Approach
Birkenhead
Merseyside
CH41 6DA

REF: Resignation from employment
National Insurance Number: **********

Dear Sirs

I write to notify you that due to your failure to act accordingly, and your failure to supply my employer, Just Search, with a payment schedule since July 2007 (almost TWO years ago) I have had no option but to resign from my job.

May 7th 2009 will be the last day of my employment as it just isn’t financially viable for me to continue working when the CSA are taking 40% of my salary and refuse to update my payment schedule to account for my overpayment.

Congratulations to you sirs, you have forced another hard working father who just wants to earn a living, pay his way and see his kids, to quit his job. I do hope the government rewards you accordingly for adding to the country’s unemployment figures.

I will be unemployed until further notice, but won’t be going out of my way to find a job. Nor will I be claiming benefit, as I don’t believe in sponging off other people who do work.

I complete a self assessment tax return for my affiliate earnings, but made a loss last year due to increased costs and reduced revenues. I might break even this year, so there is still nothing you can claim from me as I will not be earning.

This will be my last letter to you as I do not wish to correspond with you via letter in future. Any future correspondence must be made via phone call. You have my number, but here it is again just in case: ***** *** ***.

Regards

Darren Jamieson

Google, Internet, SEO

SEO company uses spam websites to sell links under Google’s nose

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The process of selling links to people on your website for the purposes of SEO and passing PageRank has long been frowned upon by Google. It’s against their TOS and they even have a way in Google Webmaster Tools for you to report websites selling links.

However, it still goes on. Websites sell links direct to other websites and SEO companies buy links for their clients from link suppliers. I have even been penalised by Google for it. Some companies own hundreds, sometimes thousands, of websites just for the purpose of selling links.

One such SEO company owns the websites below. They make a point of creating hundreds of websites just to sell links on, and even buy up domains that have just expired so that they can offer links on domains with PageRank and IBLs (inbound links) for their clients.

This process, as I’ve already stated, is frowned upon by Google, yet Google seems to turn a blind eye to it. These websites, many of which are listed below, use the same template and consist of a small bit of text, followed by dozens of irrelevant links to client sites. One of these sites, agold.co.uk, features links to websites offering piano lessons, football tournaments, mouse mats… you name it. Whatever they can sell links for. All of the other sites, listed below, are the same. They’re devoid of unique, relevant content and exist purely to act as links to other websites. Just what Google wants to avoid.

How did I find this list of websites? Simple, whoever created them did so in a very amateurish way as they included the same intro line on every site. Simply Googling that line as an exact match showed up all of the other websites. However, I made the mistake of clicking on one of the results, which obviously then showed up on their stats, and they subsequently removed the line that was identical on all of the sites. Not before I copied the list though!

You’ll also notice that they’re all on the same IP address, on a server owned by Fasthosts… no surprise they’re involved somewhere.

Despite these websites being obvious spam links, they still carry PageRank and still rank within Google for competitive phrases. The question is, why does Google allow this when it’s so clearly against its TOS?

Have a look at the list of URLs and see what you think. Do these look like spam websites to you?

www.biojewelry.co.uk
www.butlerreview.org.uk
www.ctshow.co.uk
www.francealacarte.org.uk
www.agold.co.uk
www.amkdesign.co.uk
www.timerecords.co.uk
www.netstitch.co.uk
www.radio-active.co.uk
www.data-sphere.co.uk
www.lmal.org.uk
www.2cvchassis.co.uk
www.coasterkingdom.co.uk
www.craftybrides.co.uk
www.studentwatchout.co.uk
www.petitpoint.co.uk
www.big-print.co.uk
www.sewkits.co.uk
www.momag.co.uk
www.failsafe.org.uk
www.equinox-ebusiness.co.uk
www.bbsolutions.co.uk
www.hammondgallery.co.uk
www.400times.co.uk
www.en-gaged.co.uk
www.trafalgarweekend.co.uk
www.lpclassics.co.uk
www.toy-soldier.co.uk
www.alterkicks.co.uk
www.visonic.org.uk
www.livingincambridge.co.uk
www.revisingscbcd.co.uk
www.payableondeath.co.uk
www.movingmusic.co.uk
www.lifes4living.com
www.platinumart.co.uk
www.adverse-credit-remortgages.co.uk
www.bigrealestate.co.uk
www.bmx-race.co.uk
www.gazzettaonline.co.uk
www.mudbugz.org.uk
www.digital-arts.co.uk
www.efmag.co.uk
www.slimfit.co.uk
www.thepaternitycompany.co.uk
www.educationextra.org.uk
www.carimportsolutions.co.uk
www.kiltsandbagpipes.co.uk
www.swansfc.co.uk
www.visionsecurity.co.nz/Products++Solutions/CCTV+Systems.html
www.aviatorshades.co.uk
www.mcs-direct.co.uk
www.mousetrap-online.co.uk
www.strawberry-blondes.co.uk
www.smurfitinterlok.co.uk
www.photo-sense.co.uk
www.lsagency.org.uk
www.cellularrepairs.co.uk
www.vacuumcleaners4u.co.uk
www.fudoshin.co.uk
www.busbook.co.uk
www.madpaintball.co.uk
www.invincashield.co.uk
www.paulfrancispiano.co.uk
www.shrewsburyguide.co.uk
www.discountimports.co.uk
www.xlibris.co.uk
www.myvirtualreality.co.uk
www.breast-implant.co.uk
www.forbo.co.uk
www.freebies4u.co.uk
www.bluejuice.org.uk
www.herbalbody.co.uk
www.golf-properties-spain.co.uk
www.apis.org.uk
www.bodyorganic.co.uk
www.breast-reductions.co.uk
www.ilovegames.co.uk
www.website-banners.co.uk
www.cctv-city.co.uk
www.nwpr.org.uk
www.palmsource.co.uk
www.rugbysupporters.co.uk
www.malematters.co.uk
www.sweets-direct.co.uk
www.no-regrets.co.uk
www.shoesz.co.uk
www.sampleshack.co.uk
www.butterflyeffectthemovie.co.uk
www.auto-insurance-online.co.uk
www.topmoneymakers.co.uk
www.shopsafely.co.uk
www.dentistry.org.uk
www.divorcez.co.uk
www.romania.org.uk
ir.library.oregonstate.edu/dspace/bitstream/1957/9434/1/1988.pdf
www.medweb.co.uk
www.vivendi-universal-interactive.co.uk
www.find-uk.co.uk
www.smoke-house.co.uk
www.dancevinylfinder.co.uk
www.airport-secure-parking.co.uk
www.cam-orl.co.uk
www.elms-sc.co.uk
www.realholiday.co.uk
www.gemsnthings.co.uk
www.vampiremovies.co.uk
www.horse-traders.co.uk
www.sexysox.co.uk
www.ultimateseduction.co.uk
www.kostar.co.uk

Google, Internet, SEO

Why Google PageRank is meaningless

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I posted previously how Google had penalised this site for selling links by hitting me with a PageRank penalty. Now Google has completely stripped this site of PR (as you can see if you have the PR toolbar) for what I can only speculate is link selling.

This is a bit of an annoyance to be honest because this site hasn’t sold any links except for the TextLinkAds widget on the right, which has been there for a few years now and only has one link.

What’s worse is that many other sites continue to sell links, right under Google’s nose, without any kind of penalty, though I’ll be blogging more on these in due time, and about how I’ve reported these sites to Google and Google has done nothing about it.

Still, as the title of this post suggests, PR is meaningless. It doesn’t affect your traffic or your rankings within the SERPs. The only advantage to PageRank is that advertisers can see how popular site is more easily. Anyone who looked at this site without paying too much attention could assume it didn’t get any traffic… which would be something of a mistake.

So much anger, so little time