Google has a very large, very smart department dedicated to cleaning out search results. Their primary focus is to deliver sites that deserve to be on the first page, on the first page. Websites that try to game the system, offer no value or participate in black hat or shady practices are playing ‘Russian Roulette’ with this team. These cheaters may get away with their tactics in the short term, but once identified, they quickly fall off the first page, never to return. It’s a dangerous and expensive game to play against Google.

Gravitate Online takes a different approach, simply put, give Google what it actually wants and they will reward you in the short and long term. We know that Google has more PhD’s than any company in the word, and we would rather play with, rather than against them. We will make sure that all practices applied to your site are in accord with the guidelines Google has explicitly laid out. We know that if we create user friendly websites, with compelling content, that in-bound links will show Google that your site is legitimate and deserves high rankings. There are no short cuts to long term success.

Tactics we avoid at all costs:

• Keyword stuffing- cramming keyword phrases into footers, and content areas on your site, that sounds unnatural and forced. Trying to include content that doesn’t belong on the page, just so Google sees it. It looks bad, confuses users and Google is not dumb enough not to notice.
• Hidden text- a tactic using white text on a white background, filled with keyword content that search engines can see, but that you want to hide from users (because it looks bad). It’s easy for search engines to see this lame attempt at keyword stuffing.
• Spam links- making nonsense, or vague comments on industry blogs or forums, with a link back to your site. These annoy webmasters, users and…you guessed it, Google.
• Unnatural reciprocal links- “link to me and I’ll link to you”, trading links with partners that have nothing to do with your business or industry for the sole purpose of trying to swap link juice. Occasionally, a natural  link exchange is in order, but gaming it is both easy to detect, and detrimental to your long term link building strategy.
• Cloaking- anytime you present different information to search engines than you show to users. Hidden text is a common example of this, but there are many other diverse mutations of the same idea. It’s the easiest way to get on Google’s naughty list.
• Doorway pages- pages added to a website to target one specific keyword phrase. They offer little or no value to site visitors, and are often generated automatically. They are annoying to users and search engine crawlers alike.
• Interlinking- building multiple web pages and linking them to each other. These rings are pathetic tactics to try and fool Google’s reciprocal link detection attempts. Some think, “If A links to B, B to C, and C back to A…Google will never know. Hah!”, it’s a naive and dangerous game. Google connects the dots and devalues each page in the ring. It costs a lot of money and time to create all these sites. Time and money better spent on legitimate SEO efforts.
• Duplicate sites- creating a copy of a current site, making minor changes, and hoping both will rank. A tactic that often creates duplicate content problems, and again, is wasting time and money. It works occasionally, but not a long term solution.
• Link farms- like interlinking, but utilizes sites already created by a network (a shady network at that) within an industry. They can become quite elaborate as they all link to each other. Once identified by Google, the entire bad neighborhood will go down, dragging you with it. Avoid these neighborhoods and tactics.

At Gravitate Online, we focus on actual value-adding principles that build the search engine equity of your site for the long term.

Principles we follow:

• Create quality content that will make you valuable to your users and Google
• Optimize sites with users, not search engines, in mind
• Build links that will last, to your quality content