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The best practices and the abandoned SEO techniques

(9 votes, average: 4.89 out of 5)

Posted by bbriniotis on 6th of November, 2009 at 12:41 to SEO

In the SEO world one thing is certain: the “best practices” come and go. Due to excessive spamming or because of the appearance of new technologies and methods, these practices are abandoned.

Most of the techniques in SEO are based on the following principals:

Spiders are stupid: Help them parse your site. Use the tools you have efficiently.
Spiders are clever: Create quality content and they will find you and rank you well. Do not use black hat techniques because you risk getting banned.
Focus on the user experience: Design the websites mainly (but not only) for users and give them what they need. This is how you will get links and receive more traffic.

In this article we will not elaborate on the details of the principals mentioned above. Instead we will reveal 3 practices that used to be very popular in the past, but now are abandoned or they do not influence the search rankings as much as they used to.

PageRank Sculpting by using rel=nofollow

This PageRank Sculpting technique was heavily used by many SEOs, as it helped them manipulate the PR flow of their sites. Google never recommended this technique. They characterized it as “not very efficient” and they stated that it has second order effects.

Few months back Matt Cutts announced that rel=nofollow does not work any more the way it used to. Please note that this information is included in a previous article (The PageRank sculpting techniques and the nofollow issue). Our team suggested an alternative PR-Sculpting method by using rel=nofollow and a special script (check the article PageRank Sculpting: You can still use rel=nofollow).

Submitting sites in Directories

Submitting a site in as many directories as possible was a very popular method to boost the rankings of a site in the past. Even Google had a guideline in the webmaster quality guidelines page, which suggested that submitting a site in quality Directories (DMOZ and Yahoo Directory) is something that can be very helpful.

Recently Google removed that guidelinebecause, according to Matt Cutts, “People got obsessed with it”. Submissions in quality directories has still positive effects on the SEO status of a site, but SEOs have finally understood that submitting a site to 1 trillion link farms is something that will not help. Surely though, it will NOT hurt a site and it will not lead to any bans.

Use of Meta keywords

The Keywords Metatag is not used any more by Google. Additionally it has almost no effect on the rankings for the other major search engines. Ten years ago where we had meta-search engines it used to affect the search results. The fact that users misused this tag, by spamming or by adding irrelevant keywords, lead to its abandonment.

On the other hand Meta Description is still important as it affects the snippets that appear in the search results. So make sure you use META description tags properly.

If you like this article, use the bookmark buttons on the top of the page and share it with other users.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 12:41 and is filed under SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

33 Responses to “The best practices and the abandoned SEO techniques”

referenceur says:

6 November 2009 at 16:26

Nice article. What is intersting right now in your writing, that I like too much, is the use of simple words to transmit important information that is useful to all of us. Thanks.
referenceur did not rate this post.
ARticles says:

8 November 2009 at 01:04

Thanks! for your writing, it is really helpfull for seo begginers and advanced ones. Thanks !!!
ARticles did not rate this post.
ARticles says:

8 November 2009 at 01:06

How about writing articles for ezines en other article directories?
ARticles did not rate this post.
search engine optimization service says:

14 November 2009 at 11:04

I just found your blog. Great articles and well written. Thanks for all the info. Namaste!
search engine optimization service did not rate this post.
Denver SEO says:

19 November 2009 at 18:03

Very informative.. Like the videos as well.

Interesting also about keywords. Will have to re-think a couple initiatives after seeing that.

Thanks!
MAS
Denver SEO did not rate this post.
Why? – Title Tag Optimization | Internet Marketing Strategies-Wholesale Electronics says:

20 November 2009 at 05:28

[...] The best practices and the abandoned SEO techniques | Web SEO … [...]
Safety Culture Plus | The best practices and the abandoned SEO techniques | Web SEO Analytics says:

28 November 2009 at 18:59

[...] November 28, 2009 By: webmaster Category: Culture via webseoanalytics.com [...]
Denver SEO says:

2 December 2009 at 06:56

Nice piece! Thanks… Liked especially the note about ‘nofollow.’ We’ll check back soon!
MAS
Denver SEO did not rate this post.
Earl says:

3 December 2009 at 00:45

Thanks very much for this article. You have put in plain and simple terms about the what’s and what not’s of basic SEO.

Earl
Earl ratings for this post:
SEO Bootstrap Blog says:

6 December 2009 at 18:49

Meta keywords perhaps are not used now, but meta titles or page titles are still supremely important.
SEO Bootstrap Blog did not rate this post.
SEO Sheffield says:

10 December 2009 at 20:49

Great post, really interesting – I love the point about directories; some of our clients are obsessed with this!
SEO Sheffield did not rate this post.
Alex Rodrigues says:

13 December 2009 at 00:05

Even if the keywords are no longer used by Google, other search engines like Bing and Yahoo! still consider it somewhat ok? Choose good keywords will always be the most important.
Alex Rodrigues did not rate this post.
L Blower says:

18 December 2009 at 11:08

Well, that makes our job easier, unless there are 3 new things to do?
L Blower did not rate this post.
Online Marketing Connect — Blog — Search techniques, old and new says:

23 December 2009 at 01:27

[...] SEO techniques are typically based on the following principles, according to Web SEO Analytics: [...]
Caroline Dignard says:

8 January 2010 at 21:47

I like the information about submitting sites in directories because “link building” should be a natural,gradual and accumulating process. Over time all the links will start to add up until such time you need to focus on quality links not only directorie links.
Caroline Dignard did not rate this post.
Posicionamiento Web says:

14 January 2010 at 22:41

Very good post. Demystifies the subject of the directories and keywords tag.

Besides, I agree with Caroline: “Link Building” should be a natural process.

Javier Zúñiga
Posicionamiento Web did not rate this post.
payday loans says:

17 January 2010 at 02:15

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SEO4all says:

21 January 2010 at 15:31

Hi
This is nothing to do with your post but I have registered for WEB SEO and am having problems with it but can find no help section, support info or contact details so I have emailed you at info@. I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks
Gill
SEO4all did not rate this post.
SEO4all says:

21 January 2010 at 15:32

Hi you have answered now thanks!
SEO4all did not rate this post.
Ibiza Turismo says:

25 January 2010 at 14:16

Beware the mass mailing to directories. I suffered a penalty that lasted two months. Always use quality directories.
Ibiza Turismo did not rate this post.
Web Designing India says:

27 January 2010 at 08:29

Hi,

Thanks, for sharing this nice and very useful information. Your post is helping me for solving my SEO techniques.
Web Designing India did not rate this post.
Online Seo Company says:

27 January 2010 at 12:13

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Online Seo Company did not rate this post.
Cam Gleeson says:

28 January 2010 at 09:52

Love your posts, and this is one in particular. You guys have the great ability to turn the complex in to something us mere non – technical mortals can understand.

Thanks for the article
Cam Gleeson did not rate this post.
Optimize Guyz says:

1 February 2010 at 07:06

Great job of highlighting the recent important Google SEO news. There is so much speculation around every little blurb that comes out of Cutts’ mouth that it gets hard to weed out what’s important and what is just gossip. The only other video I would have included would be the one about Twitter and Facebook links and ranking well in lieu of caffeine.
Optimize Guyz ratings for this post:
James Snider says:

13 February 2010 at 09:43

This is great information. Thank you for sharing it.
James Snider
MBA Marketing
James Snider did not rate this post.
payday loans says:

13 February 2010 at 21:27

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Uptoo Online Media says:

26 February 2010 at 09:42

Your post is awesome. The practices and techniques really helps. Great thanks.
Uptoo Online Media did not rate this post.
Sophie says:

8 March 2010 at 15:31

Some great tips here, really useful. Thanks for sharing! Look forward to more posts.
Sophie did not rate this post.
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10 June 2010 at 20:56

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Licsorienemes did not rate this post.
irmains says:

3 July 2010 at 11:02

thanks, it is helpful a lot…
irmains did not rate this post.
irmains says:

3 July 2010 at 11:17

thank for information… Really help me to improve seo,
irmains did not rate this post.
business review sites says:

23 July 2010 at 19:26

directory submission has lost it,s weight in SEO but some effectiveness is still intact.
yes new technichs have a much greater effect on seo
you are somewhat right

great article
business review sites did not rate this post.
web design india says:

26 July 2010 at 15:46

Thanks for u r information

its very useful
web design india did not rate this post.