Watch for Dirty SEO

By Wes Thompson / June 3, 2008

Run far and fast from anyone who guarantees #1 search engine placement through SEO. Many webmasters want to do whatever it takes to get search engine results, and thus do not realize that they might be "breaking the rules" so to speak in the process. Hiring an SEO firm that practices Dirty SEO tactics could get your site banned from Google Search altogether.

A few Dirty SEO tricks to look for are:

1) Hiding text on a page. In an effort to increase traffic there are those who will create a giant list of keywords and pile them at the bottom of your home page, or on certain sub-pages, and make these words the same color as the background. This tactic is Dirty!

2) Loading the Keywords Meta tag with irrelevant keywords, or more keywords than necessary.

3) Link Farms. Someone who promises that they will get thousands of sites to link back to your site.

The bottom line is that Search Engines want things to be as natural as possible. They will flag anything that stands out as "unnatural" or SPAM. Here is some good documentation from Google on this subject. Google Webmaster Tools