SEO Don'ts

More often than not, people are interested in what to do to improve or achieve high website search engine positioning and may unknowingly fall for methods that qualify as emphatic "dont's!" While search engine optimization does involve modifying the basic content and page elements in the source code, there are ethical methods of optimizing without crossing the line.

To avoid crossing the line, it's just as important to know what constitutes as a "don't" just as much as knowing all the "do's."

Don't keyword stuff. "Stuffing" refers to adding keywords into places within a web page where they do not belong, such as comment tags, link tags or image ALT tags.

Never add invisible text (making the copy the same color or similar color as the background) or put text in a ridiculously small font or within invisible layers. This is a big don't that could get your site penalized or worse - thrown out!

Don't use an automated submission process. Pages should be manually submitted to the search engines and directories.

Don't fall for gimmicks such as "we'll submit your site to thousands of search engines." First of all, there aren't thousands of search engines. You should focus your attention and efforts on the major search engines and directories - those that generate 90% of all search traffic.

Avoid free-for-all links. While link popularity is good and can be an effective marketing method, it needs to be done right. You need to ensure that the links are relevant. Random links are not worth nearly as much relevant ones, but even more so they can be viewed as spam.