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Every smart online business owner and Internet marketer knows that search engine optimization (SEO) is a huge part of ranking high in search engine result pages, which ultimately leads to more traffic. However, there are good ways and bad ways to go about optimizing your site. The recent Google Penguin update shows us that bad SEO techniques will no longer be tolerated. To stay ahead of the game, you need to avoid the temptation to use bad SEO techniques, and concentrate on ethical SEO strategies.

So what is the Google algorithm update? In February, 2011, Google rolled out the Panda algorithm update. This update changed the way that Google ranked webpages, so that they could watch and control spam. The goal was to reward high-quality websites in the search engine results pages, and get rid of the low-quality sites that were simply trying to make money and not tell and entertain site visitors. Google estimates that the Panda change affected about 12% of websites on English language search pages. On April 24, 2012, Google released the Penguin update, which cracked down even harder on spam sites and websites that used bad SEO techniques to manipulate their rankings in the search engine searches. Google says that a further 3% of websites got written off as a result of this update.

What exactly is bad SEO? Bad SEO techniques involve using unethical methods to rank higher in the search engine results. This type of SEO makes a website look more important and useful than it actually is. It can also mislead web surfers so that they inadvertently end up at a website they were not searching for. Bad SEO also involves posting poor quality web content that has no value to site visitors just to get back links. There are a few poor SEO techniques to avoid. Such as keyword stuffing, this involves taking a highly searched keyword or phrase and inserting it into web content at a very high and unnecessary density just so you can rank for those terms.

Another method is through spinning articles. many people believe that measure trumps quality when it comes to content on a website. Some people resort to using spinning machines or poor rewrites of existing content to bolster the content on their website. Another poor method is buying links. It is a well-known fact that Google looks at the links pointing back to your site and ranks your site through this. However, if those links are coming from poor sites or back link mills that you paid for, you will most likely be penalized. Misleading anchor text. The keywords in your link, also known as the anchor text, should match the topics in the content, and they should also match the content on your website. If you use keywords that point back to your site that have nothing to do with your site, you are essentially spamming.

Although Google does prefer people creating original, compelling content that will naturally draw people to their sites, they do not mind people using ethical SEO strategies. This is because they understand that SEO is marketing, and that is just good business sense. If you are going optimize your site, use white hat SEO techniques. These include posting regular, unique, and useful content, using social media marketing to draw people to your site, and gaining organic links from high quality websites.

For more information on SEO methods or Google updates, click here or check out Indigo Web.