Garbage in- Garbage out.... There are no short cuts in SEO. Do things correctly the first time and then you won't suffer the penalties inflicted on sites who think they can out think or game Google. Google says they are trying to "level the playing field". They want only the sites that "deserve" to have ranking to hold the cherished ranking positions on first page. All the methods to RANK your site and also all the methods that can HARM your site and banish your site to the realms of page 11 on the SERPs. Google is trying to create a list of companies that satisfy a consumer query in an order that best answers the "intent" of the question or query asked.
1 Links
Links are still the best way to rank your site; let that be perfectly clear, however, if not done with utmost care and considerations - links can kill ya! If you have affiliations with related industries or services as your business, and they are willing to link to your site to verify you do what you say you do well...then acquire those links. They are real and genuine and will help prove your value to the Google Bots
2 Articles
Writing junk articles and syndicating them throughout the web with links back to your site do not count as anything genuine and cannot add value to you, as a source of information; or value in Google's opinion of your site or the value of your services.
3 Directory Submissions
Don't just flood the internet with NAP's of your business. Name, Address & Phone number references are important to show that you do have a brick and mortar location. It also indicates that you are able to service that specified area, perhaps better than a competitor located in another city. But, if you just blanket the internet with name, address, phone number references in low to no value directories they bring no value to you or your verification.
4 Link Wheeling
Not a new tactic but a new cool name. Link wheeling involves building backlinks to your site by creating multiple blog posts on many different sites and interlinking them creating a "wheel" effect. A niche version of a link network. Why is link wheeling bad for your SEO strategy? .... Because it is! Any link strategy that is not "natural" or able to build as a course of doing business is viewed as false or forced and viewed by Google as a penalty waiting to happen.
5 Buying Links
Buying links is a violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines. Google calls them Link Schemes. This is defined as the buying or selling of links that pass PageRank. Excessive link exchanges or sharing links (link to me and I'll link to you) or pages that are set up exclusively for the sake of cross-linking are also frowned upon. Anything that looks "un-natural" should be avoided. "Do-Follow" Text or Image advertisements that pass PageRank for a fee will also putting your site at risk. However, there are cases where purchased links are acceptable; when related businesses link back to a site they have done business with or have a business affiliation with makes sense and is not viewed as artificial or in conflict with the guidelines.
6 Content
Creating content that speaks to your products or services makes sense. Mentioning in that content the areas you provide business to can assist your local representation. Creating content just to create content again just gives false hope to the site owner and is boring to the user/visitor and will not help rankings for non-localized searches.
7 "Borrowed" Content
Some webmasters think that "borrowing" or "scraping" content from other sites with more authority or more knowledge on the subject they are trying to write about is acceptable. But, just like in life, plagiarism is plagiarism. If someone else has written it, it cannot be republished under someone else's name - it may be considered copyright infringement. It is well worth the effort to create original content that speaks to your business and your products or services.
8 Redirects
Redirecting is used for several reasons for quite legitimate circumstances - redirecting one URL to another when you move your site to a new address or you consolidate several pages on your site into one page. If you are trying to deceive the search engines or display content to a human user that is different than that made available to the search engine crawlers then your site can be in violation of the accepted Guidelines. This tactic can be called cloaking - what happens is the search engine might index (read and record) the original page rather than follow the redirect - in the meantime, users follow the redirect and receive different information. By displaying different content to the Google Bots and users the site is seen as sneaky or deceptive and may be penalized.
Google struggles to create a fair playing field. Their ultimate goal is to give their users the best experience they can. Google wants to provide the best options on a search results page - giving users the answers to their queries or questions. The best way to make sure you are high on the search results pages is to BE THE BEST in your field of expertise. Trying to "trick" or "scam" Google might work for a while but Google will eventually catch your "trickery" and take your site down.
What do you think of redirecting URLs for expired pages “up” a level to a category page. The destination isn’t a 100% match for the original, but one could argue that the category page may show the user something of interest.
Thank you for your query.
It is always important to not send a visitor to your site away empty handed. 301 redirects to a level higher (Category) page or even back to the home page is better than a 404 – Page not found message
Google have effectively declared that all article writing is bad but this assumption ignores that some article writing is first class and it should be a valid marketing strategy even if Google and link building didn’t exist.
Because Google has commanded that all article writing is bad and applied a penalty they have taken away a valid marketing method from people for generating traffic outside of Google.
If Google were to just ignore article links it is their prerogative and that would be fine but because they now apply penalties well crafted articles that have been good enough to be re-published on quality websites and hard-copy publications are now damaging their authors in Google rankings.
Contrary to Google’s apparent view the world does not revolve around Google and they need to stop implementing policy that suggests it does.
For websites that offer a solution to a problem articles have historically been a valid marketing opportunity, as they can be used to describe a problem that people can identify with and then offer a solution.
Ignoring Google entirely an author would want to get such articles published in as many places as possible in order to disseminate the message and article directories that host good quality content have historically provided a good service.
Google’s obsession with link building was responsible for spawning an avalanche of poor quality highly spun content most of which was so heavily stuffed with keywords that it was sometimes not even possible to find a sentence that made sense. But by causing the problem in the first place their fix is to then destroy quality content that they have no right to interfere with – and such action is a travesty.
Google’s approach on article marketing has been simplistic and shows that no matter what the IQ of some people they can be be pretty dumb at making policy.
Google stated objective used to be that they wanted to organize the world’s information, slowly but surely they appear to want to control and own the world’s information.
Thank you for your comments and insight.
Google is learning with each update and new policy… organizing the World Wide Web’s information is a hefty task… they will figure it out.