Everyone knows there are some rules you should never break. For if you do, there may be dire consequences. Not all rules are created equal. For instance, when a teacher tells you that there is a rule that does not allow for the chewing of bubble gum, and you break that rule, chances are the consequences of that infraction will be relatively minor. However, if you break other, more important rules or laws, the consequences can be devastating to your personal and/or professional life.

The search engine rules are no different. Some rules are flexible, some are not. Here the rules that we see as the “10 Commandments of SEO”. They should not be broken, ever. For doing so could lead to some pretty severe, if not devastating affects on your search engine rankings.

I – Thou Shalt Not Cloak Thy Web Site – Hiding information or causing a user to see different information than the search engines see is the very definition of cloaking and is a big no-no with the Google, Yahoo and Bing. The search engines all want the page they index to be the same web page their users see when they conduct a search.

II – Thou Shalt Not Use or Distribute Duplicate Content – Scraping or otherwise known as stealing content from another website and using on your web site is another tactic the search engines disparage against. They would prefer you develop and publish your own unique and genuine content for your web site.

III – Thou Shalt Not Use Automation to Develop Content – Just like scraping, the use of automated tools or software to generate content is never really a good idea. The search engines are getting smarter and smarter every day and they have begun to be able to recognize non-human generated content and punish those that do so in the rankings.

IV – Thou Shalt Only Use Relevant Content – The use of content should also be such that all of the content is relevant and useful to a web site visitor. The use of non relevant content in the hopes of gaining an advantage in the search engine rankings is frowned upon and could result in some serious search engine penalties.

V – Thou Shalt Not Use Link Exchange Services – There is nothing wrong with you exchanging a few links here and there with a friend, colleague or family member. However, using a Link-Exchange service is not a good idea. The search engines caught onto this some time ago and if they suspect you are using a Link-Farm, your web site could quickly fall from grace and into the dark abyss.

VI – Thou Shalt Not Hide Text on a Web Page – Hiding text is an older SEO trick and yet it is still used today. The primary method of this technique is to change the color of the text to match the background color of the web site. It gives the appearance to the search engines that there is more content than the user actually sees on the site. Google sees this as a deceptive practice and severely punishes those who violate this rule.

VII – Thou Shalt Not Title Stack Thy Web Pages – Title Stacking is the practice of using multipletags within the header hoping that Google will pick up the extra keywords listed there. The standard rule of thumb is to use only onetag per page and limit the tag to 65 characters. The use of your primary keywords in this tag is strongly encouraged.

VIII – Thou Shalt Not Do Evil Unto Others- It goes without saying that the number one factor for search engine rankings is TRUST. The trust factor is very important to any and all search engine rankings. If you are doing evil to others by spreading malware, virus’s, bad content, pornography or other questionable content, you will loose that trust and fall into the deep and dark, search engine abyss.

IX – Thou Shalt Not Use Doorway Pages – Doorway pages are pages that are submitted to the search engines for the purpose of ranking for one search term, however, they send the searcher to another page that is totally unrelated. This technique is very similar to cloaking and the penalty is just as severe.

X – Thou Shalt Not Buy Links – Buying links is the cardinal sin of SEO. When a webmaster buys a link for their web site they a paying another web site owner to link back to their web site in hopes that they will appear higher in the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Page). Because Google and the other search engines would prefer a “natural” link structure, this practice is the one that tens to get the most press, and action from Google.

So there you have it…the 10 Commandments of SEO. Violate them at your own risk and at the risk of your web site rankings. Worst case scenario for violators is that Google, Yahoo and Bing remove the sites from the search results all together (otherwise known as being banned). In which case you are most often better off starting over with a new domain altogether then trying to fix the issue. Remember these 10 rules, avoid them at all costs and you should be fine!

About the author: Mike Glover is an SEO Professional with click-finders.com that has been building web sites and working to get them ranked well on the search engines for over 10 years. His specialty is Organic Search Engine Optimization Services where he builds natural and effective SEO Services and programs for web sites across all industries, platforms and genres. You can read more from Mike’s writings at the click-finders.com SEO Blog.

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