Ways Bad SEO Can Get Your Site Blacklisted

Did you know that Google blacklists 6000 to 10,000 websites daily? While there is no direct reasons given or special tools, reaching out to an SEO company can help you nail down what is hurting your search engine optimization, and they can confirm whether or not your site has toxic links or practices that have put your website in a blacklisted status.

Hints your site is blacklisted can include the sudden appearance of pop-up screens that have messages of: “This site may harm your computer” or “This site is suspicious.” Not only can this point to blacklisting, but it can also mean your site may have been compromised and has viruses, malware, or malicious content. When your website is blacklisted, it is excluded from search results and will remain in this status until the situation gets handled to Google’s satisfaction.

Other common reasons for blacklisting a domain by Google:

Duplicate Content

Google wants every page; it returns in the search results to offer a quality experience for a user. If your site is nothing but repeated or spun content, mirror sites, or subdomains with boilerplate text, it can get your domain blacklisted.

Bought a Used Domain Name

When you buy a domain, you need to perform due diligence because if the domain was previously used to spam people, you could literally be buying a huge problem.

Overuse of Keywords

It’s a good practice to use keyword phrases that relate to your site, industry, and niche. The problem comes when you over-optimize. It doesn’t read well, and it looks spammy to over-use keyword phrases.

Hidden Text

A way to hide keywords on the front page used to be to write them using the same color text as the background, so it is not visible to viewers but to search engines. Being less than transparent in your web design is a fast way to get your site excluded from the search results.

Using Cloaking or Redirects

Google’s webmaster, best practices, means being upfront of the navigation on your site. Using cloaking scripts or redirects are a direct violation of the Webmaster Guidelines.

Low-Quality Links

Reciprocal links are looked down upon from Google. While link farms are no longer widely used, allowing spammy links with no relation to your site in terms of industry or content and low-quality links can all drag your site down. Additionally, adding backlinks in a way that does not look like average growth can further hurt your rankings.

Over-Adding Advertisements Above the Fold

This is particularly crucial if you rely on Adsense for revenue, there are specific rules for the number and placement of the ad blocks.

Ghosting Your Site

If you don’t post regularly, search engines lose interest. If you don’t have time to create posts on at least a weekly basis, outsource the task and watch the difference in your site traffic.

Think your site might be blacklisted? Horizon Marketing is here to help your business succeed in the confusing world of ‘online’ or ‘digital’ marketing. We focus our efforts exclusively on Internet marketing to give you the best Return On Investment possible. Call (310) 734-1493 Ext. 1 Now and request your Free Web and SEO analysis.