5 SEO Techniques That Will TANK Your Website

Search engine optimization has come a long way since its humble beginnings. Strategies that were amazingly popular and effective in the early 2000s are simply disastrous for your website now. Also, search engines have evolved tremendously. Their algorithms are getting better and better at discovering bad websites filled with duplicate and irrelevant content, which doesn’t bring any value to readers.

Surprisingly, these already obsolete SEO techniques and strategies are still popular among some web designers and digital marketers. Let’s take a look at some of the worst SEO techniques that will utterly TANK your website… Try to avoid them at any cost:

Keyword stuffing
Keyword stuffing was pure magic until the early 2000s – that’s a fact. Nowadays, however, it’s a disaster waiting to happen – and it will happen. This technique is literally a massive red flag in the eyes of Google, and your website will be instantly banned and deindexed from the search engine. It does sound crazy, but some people still do it. Think about it: a website selling fishing supplies would be something like: “the best fishing supplies here; we only have fishing supplies, right for you; come get your fishing supplies here, we are all about fishing supplies” – all in a sentence…

Duplicate content
If you have copied content on your website, it’s bad. Google hates duplicate content and will love to let you know that. Duplicate content, however, is tricky. For instance, if you are the original creator of the content, and other websites copy the content (with a citation), you are good to go. However, if Google sees that your content is not the original copy, your website will be penalized. Keep doing it and your website will be deindexed.

URL hijacking and typosquatting
Making typos is only human, right? Well, Google is now capable of detecting when typos are not entirely human errors. When webmasters hijack URLs, they essentially build a website around a typo. For instance, creating malicious domains built on similar reputed brands will get you penalized by Google instantly. Also, changing the country code won’t get you far. What’s more, you could easily be sued by the original brand or company.

Shady redirects from expired domains
Using the 301 redirect was working well back in the early 2000s and, amazingly, there are some webmasters who are still doing it. Exploiting expired domains is now penalized by Google and other serious search engines. Also, getting redirected to an old website, via an older one, and finally getting to the malicious website is bad business for your company as well.