Search engine optimization (SEO) is a complicated process and is dynamic. Bad SEO techniques are techniques that spammers use to keep up with the pace. Search Engines have complicated algorithms and hundreds of factors to rank a web page. The idea behind such fast changing and complicated algorithms is to keep ahead of the competition and ensure that web spammers do not get the rankings they are not worthy of. So it is best to bear in mind that what works out for search engine optimization today may not work out tomorrow.

Here are a few lessons learnt from bad SEO.

Lesson 1

Do not rely on keyword metatags as now the search engines rely on the text that is visible to rank your site. Keyword metatags which are not visible have lost their significance as spammers have abused them. So just take the keywords and place them as per the context in the site.

Concentrate on the title metatag as it is visible and can influence ranking. Similarly concentrate on the description metatag as some search engines use it

Lesson 2

Do not stuff keywords in visible or invisible text as it can get your site banned. Do not ever write text in the same color as the background.

Lesson 3

Do not purchase links as search engines want to curb this practice and are improvising their algorithms to detect purchased links. Algorithms look out for patterns, presence of words like "advertisers" or sponsors". There are teams doing this analysis. If detected they will flag your site and it will not contribute towards your page ranking.

Lesson 4

Page rank is a very small factor in ranking these days. Have links to pages and sites that are more relevant to you. More importantly, establish and reinforce site relevance as it has a major role to play in ranking.

Lesson 5

Do not swap links to build page ranks. Build relevance in such a way that visitors to your website benefit due to it. Swap links with sites that are highly relevant to your business. It would be great if you could get links to your website without you linking back to them

Lesson 6

Do not duplicate content as search engines want to rank the same content only once. So avoid having multiple URLs on one site with the same content, as one of these is just a waste of the search engine's time and you will be "leaking page rank" – your own precious page rank is sent to pages that will never rank. "Doorway sites" you could also land you in trouble as it is considered to be spamming. Your site could get banned.

Lesson 7

Do not show different content to the crawlers and some other different content to the user. This is one favorite technique called cloaking used by the spammers and search engines are against it. Crawlers are sent out to detect cloaking and if detected they ban the website.

All that you need to do is to learn how to communicate to the search engine what your site is about. Build your site in such a way that search engines can easily determine the unique value of your website.

Put your time to good use. Stop thinking of bad SEO practices and spend your time to provide good content in your website and make the user’s visit to your website a pleasure.