At Humankind Web Placement we build lasting relationships with our clients. One such friend of Humankind Web Placement are the top notch Houston advertising specialists from Design at Work.
I was speaking with a group consisting of a Vice President, some account managers and multimedia specialists earlier this week about SEO for their company. suBi, a great web constructionist, had a great question.
“If you are building links to a site that does not pertain to the site’s main business, and you do not change the on-page content, is that “black hat SEO”?
The short answer is ‘no’, but it’s not that simple…
When optimizing a site for Google ranking, Google will take into account many factors including the inbound links. Google does not expect a site to have only relevant links. In fact, having link diversity is one way Google will give your site big bonus points. There are a few guidelines, however. You want to have at least some relevant, high quality links coming in. You also don’t want to have too many irrelevant links because that is unnatural and look suspicious. Otherwise, a link is a link is a link. A couple of things Google doesn’t like include:
Excessive link swapping (You link to me and I’ll link to you)
Google doesn’t necessarily give you a major penalty for link swapping, but you won’t get the credit for those links you are looking for either.
Links from bad neighborhoods
Getting a link in from a bad neighborhood isn’t the end of the world, as long as they are kept to a minimum. A bad link for every handful of good links is fine and natural, but if the bad links start to pile up, beware!
Cloaking
Showing a version of your site to Google that is different than what the visitors see is a big no-no. Nothing will get your site black listed faster than this.
Keyword StuffingIf you are gunning for a keyword and repeat it over and over in your site copy, Google will notice. You have to achieve the right balance with your keyword density and if you cross over the line a penalty will be applied.
Changing the content on your site so it matches your acquired or purchased links isn’t necessary at all. As long as you have tweaked your page to fit the keywords you desire, they can be left alone. Fresh content is always a good idea, so keep your blog postings and press releases active.
The bottom line is to keep building links, keep adding content, and don’t worry about accidentally getting a penalty from Google. Unless you are purposefully trying to manipulate the results with on page changes, penalties are almost impossible to get.
A Link is a Link…
At Humankind Web Placement we build lasting relationships with our clients. One such friend of Humankind Web Placement are the top notch Houston advertising specialists from Design at Work.
I was speaking with a group consisting of a Vice President, some account managers and multimedia specialists earlier this week about SEO for their company. suBi, a great web constructionist, had a great question.
“If you are building links to a site that does not pertain to the site’s main business, and you do not change the on-page content, is that “black hat SEO”?
The short answer is ‘no’, but it’s not that simple…
When optimizing a site for Google ranking, Google will take into account many factors including the inbound links. Google does not expect a site to have only relevant links. In fact, having link diversity is one way Google will give your site big bonus points. There are a few guidelines, however. You want to have at least some relevant, high quality links coming in. You also don’t want to have too many irrelevant links because that is unnatural and look suspicious. Otherwise, a link is a link is a link. A couple of things Google doesn’t like include:
Excessive link swapping (You link to me and I’ll link to you)
Google doesn’t necessarily give you a major penalty for link swapping, but you won’t get the credit for those links you are looking for either.
Links from bad neighborhoods
Getting a link in from a bad neighborhood isn’t the end of the world, as long as they are kept to a minimum. A bad link for every handful of good links is fine and natural, but if the bad links start to pile up, beware!
Cloaking
Showing a version of your site to Google that is different than what the visitors see is a big no-no. Nothing will get your site black listed faster than this.
Keyword StuffingIf you are gunning for a keyword and repeat it over and over in your site copy, Google will notice. You have to achieve the right balance with your keyword density and if you cross over the line a penalty will be applied.
Changing the content on your site so it matches your acquired or purchased links isn’t necessary at all. As long as you have tweaked your page to fit the keywords you desire, they can be left alone. Fresh content is always a good idea, so keep your blog postings and press releases active.
The bottom line is to keep building links, keep adding content, and don’t worry about accidentally getting a penalty from Google. Unless you are purposefully trying to manipulate the results with on page changes, penalties are almost impossible to get.