Top ten ways NOT TO USE in search engines

As more and more web sites compete for the top positions in fewer search engines greater effort is spent on trying to "fool" the search engine and thereby gain a dishonest advantage over other sites.

1) use "invisible text" (text the same color as the page background or using phraseology that has little to do with the context. Since 1996 Search engines have been programmed to recognize the method and automatically disallow the site listing

2) Frames - Search engines don't like them: they will either stop at the frame and go no further or follow its links to non frame pages.

3) Copying other site's meta tags - Doing this causes your site to lose its originality. The more site "meta tags" you mirror the less distinct your own page becomes.

4) Flash, music, and animation are going to have all kinds of disruptive dilemmas with search engines. Not only will it confuse users who are looking for obvious links and information, the search engines won't feel you're very relevant because they aren't sure what to make of you. If you have a web site made up of nothing but heavy graphics and multimedia, not only will you give the search engines nothing to index, you'll also aggravate any user with a slower connection. at least use ALT-tags to describe images for text browsers and search engines.

5. Redirects - if you use redirects on your site to track clicks for advertisements and to collect personal information about your visitors your site may be indexed but not ranked very well. A good web hosting services provides you with site statistics which gives you the information you need without using specific page redirects to collect the same data.

6. Long and complicated URLs (Universal reference links or the phrase that appears in your browser's "address" box. It is a mistake to use percent signs, question marks, and session ids as part of your web site address. Robots.txt or/and no index tags.

7 .If your site doesn't conform with the robots protocol (http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/robots.html) then you may inadvertently disallow search engines to list your site. Does your web page code contain "user agent; "disallow/" or

8. Doorway pages (many web search optimizers and their companies talk about improving your position with a doorway page). Anything created exclusively for a specific search engine advantage have little value. If you are trying to pull a bait and switch technique eventually you will be discovered. Search engines will realize that you are only masquerading as something you are not and the search will disallow your entire site and remove it from their data base.

9. Use of Identical titles and meta tags on all web site pages: You may have become more focused on launching the site rather then sell anything. Use your company name over and over again in your Titles will be of no benefit. Imagine going into a library where every book had the exact same Title on the spine. What better way to tell a search bot to "shoo" than showing them that all of your content, on every page, is exactly the same. A quick check list to avoid this trap: Do the tags call for action on behalf of the visitor? Does the title exceed the limit of 80 characters (space count as one character)? Do you use important words and phrases that are particular to your business/service? Does the description meta tag accurately describe the page contents and is it consistent through the web site?

10. Link Farms: Participation in these "farms, pages" is a waste of time and effort. Search engines penalize those sites. Most important ask yourself "What can you do for the web not what can the web do for you."