Most bloggers and website authors know search engine optimization (SEO) is vital to gain followers and readers. This website and many others try to teach proper methods to SEO. Here are a few warnings, which we call traps, of things to avoid in your fervor to optimize:

If you read most articles on SEO you can easily develop the impression that SEO is a mathematical, algorithmic mystery. It seems so mysterious to the newbie. True, some SEO techniques are arcane and might require advanced education to implement. But the bottom line of SEO is that good websites deserve and get new visitors. A ‘good’ website is one with new, informative content that readers can enjoy or learn from, and the content changes every once in a while.

Content is King, Queen, Duke, Duchess and Everything in Between.

Content – whether words or images – is what most humans are looking for when they surf. And as far as SEO bots can imitate humans, good content is what SEO bots look for too. A static website that never changes rarely gets return visitors or high SEO ratings. There are exceptions to this rule, such as the catalog pages of retailers who sell more or less the same list of things year round. But the most common websites need new content all the time. And pleasing layout and pictures. Just as a boring book does not get many readers, a boring website does not get many visitors.

There once was an informal rule floating around on the web that blog content must change at least once a day. Not so. Some very highly ranked blogs and websites change at a more leisurely pace. Some change every few days, some once a week, some less often. But highly visited websites change often enough to attract curious visitors.

So it can be safely said that one SEO trap to avoid is set it and forget it websites. Newness and freshness beats boring every day of the week.

Link Exchange – Linky Dink

Linking to other, similar websites is a good way to increase visitors and SEO. But there are at least two obvious problems to avoid when making links.

Links should be to similar websites to yours. A website on dog care should not link to an XXX website or any other website that has little or nothing to do with dog care. On occasion I see offers to link to hundreds of other websites. This is an offer which is easy to refuse. Not only do links to unrelated websites not help SEO, they may actually hurt your rating. It leaves the impression that the site is spammy and not worth visiting – unless the visitor takes a shower soon after leaving.

Another problem is swapping links with problem websites. Inbound links are a kind of ‘vote’. If by chance you link to a site that gets penalized for some reason or other there is a good chance your site will get penalized or demoted too. Be cautious when you link out. Make sure to review the other site and make sure to evaluate whether the other guy uses questionable SEO practices. Linking to a questionable website is like getting into an ugly divorce battle. You do not need it.

Duplicate Content

There is a lot written about duplicate content. You might say that most of what is written about duplicate content is itself duplicate content. That’s technically not the case. But there is a lot of fear of duplicate content.

I would strongly suggest to all webmasters that they find the Matt Cutts website about this issue. Mr Cutts is one of Google’s chief spokespeople. He suggests that Google does not like duplicate content but makes small allowances. For the average webmaster that means a small number, say 3 or 4, repetitions of content is permissible. But once you get beyond that small number, duplication and repetition gets penalized.

My personal opinion, for what it is worth, is that well over half the content of the internet is duplication. I see the same themes repeated over and over again in slightly different words. Look up a collection of websites which talk about a topic, say duplicate content. I would guess that ninty percent or more of the sites have ninety percent or more content in common. There is very little that is new on most websites about certain topics. So it must be a herculean job for the search engine bots to judge which content is indeed duplicate. But that’s what bots do. I will not worry my head any more.

But if you are going to copy this entry, be aware that I have already copied it three or four times, so your copy will be evaluated by the bots as duplicate, so you will get no internet love for your theft.

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Tags: algorithmic mystery, blog content, informative content, mathematical, SEO, SEO bots, swapping links