"Don't Get Your Website Banned By Google... By Accident!"

Last time we talked about the onpage optimization factors that can cause your website to be banned by Google. Those things included:

Which were only a few of the SEO "no-no's" you should stay far away from.

Today I'm going to dive into some of the offpage optimization factors/techniques that you should never ever do. First let's dispell some popular myths.

• If a "link farm" is linking to your website you'll get penalized and.or banned from Google - FALSE
• If unrelated websites are linking to you, your website will get penalized - FALSE
• Page Rank 1 websites won't help you because Google does not display PR1 websites in their backlink list - FALSE

None of the above are true statements for the simple fact that:

Think about it for a minute. If any of those could actually penalize your website, how many people do you think would simply add their competitor's websites to link farm websites, unrelated websites, and low PR websites? Unfortunately, it would be quite a few.

The only way you can get penalized by offpage optimization is if YOU link out to "bad neighborhoods", which would be:

• Link Farms
• Penalized websites (websites that are "gray barred" by Google)

Now, you would think this would be a pretty easy thing to stay away from, right? Wrong!

Example: Take this case for example, Let's say I had a website and exchanged links with your website. At the time that we exchanged links, both of our websites were very quality, related websites, with a Google Page Rank of 5. This would be an ideal link trade.

Ok, now several months go by, and in the meantime, I'm doing all kinds of "black-hat SEO"

Note: Black Hat SEO is simply doing all of the things that can get you banned by the search engines. I mentioned many of these in the previous lesson.

After doing all of this Black Hat SEO, Google decides to ban my website, which gives me a
"gray barred Page Rank"

and I'm no longer in Google's index of websites. I'm completely gone from Google. So what, right? I mean, you could care less since it's not your website...

Well, guess what? You're still linking to my website, which is now considered to be a "bad neighbor" and you could actually get penalized MAJORLY for linking to me, without even doing anything differently to your own website! That's a scary thought...

Think about that for a minute.

You could actually drop tens to hundreds of search positions without even making any changes to your website.

Ok, here's the good news. You'll remember several lessons ago I mentioned a software program called SEO Elite.

You can actually use SEO Elite to see if you are linking out to any bad neighbors. If you are, then delete their link immediately and I can almost guarantee you will see an increase in your ranking over time, as Google re-crawls and indexes your updated pages.

Let's go over how to do this:

• Open up SEO Elite

• Select project type #4, "Verify that link partners are still linking back."
• Enter one of your link pages into the textbox
• Select Google PR from the checkboxes and click "ok"

SEO Elite will then visit each website that you are linking to and will tell you whether or not they could be a possible "bad neighbor".

How? Well, let's have a look...

Once SEO Elite is finished processing, click over to the report view tab and look at the column labeled "Google PR"

If you notice any websites with a Google Page Rank of 0, this "could" mean they've been banned by Google. Notice I said it "could" mean this. They could either be banned OR, more likely they're just a new website and their Page Rank hasn't been updated by Google yet.

• You'll want to write down which websites have a Page Rank of 0. Then...

You'll need to select radio button 6 within SEO Elite. This option will allow you to see if the website is still in Google's index. You'll want to enter all PR0 websites into the textbox, select the Google checkbox, and click "ok", as shown below:

If Google returns 0 results for the website, that immediately tells you that they've been banned and you should remove their link immediately!

You would be amazed at the number of websites that have no idea why they aren't ranking well, when they've followed ALL of the good SEO practices I've taught. If this is you and you're still not ranking well, I would venture to say that you might be linking out to a penalized and/or banned website.

Let's sidebar for just a moment. I need to explain something EXTREMELY important to you, so pay close attention...

If your website is new or isn't yet ranked, you need to get other websites to link to you. Whether that's in the form of trading links or getting other sites to link to you without you linking back. Getting links is critical, period.

Some will say that trading links will no longer help you increase your rankings. DO NOT listen to those people. If your website is new, the easiest and fastest way will always be to "trade links" with other websites.

As your website gets old and gains more credibility, you can start trying to get 1 way links and obtain links other way, which I'll be teaching you in later lessons. But in the beginning, I still suggest trading links to build atleast increase your Page Rank and get your site out there...

Whether you're trading links with other websites OR getting other sites to link to you without linking back, both will help you increase your website's page rank. And, while I mentioned in previous lessons that was only 1 of many factors in helping you increase your ranking, it is a MAJOR factor in credibility with your customers and website visitors AND also helps Google to visit your website much more frequently.

The more often Google visits your website, the faster Google and other search engines will "re-rank" your website as you add new content and make minor changes. If you have a low then Google won't visit your website very often, which also means you might have to wait for months before Google will "re-rank" your website, based on any changes or improvements you've made to your site.

Problem ...
The problem with trading links is it can take A TON of time. While it's one of the easiest ways to increase your Google Page Rank and get Google visiting your site more frequently, it's hard work to do manually.

Solution ...
With that said, I want to show you a free website that really helps you speed up the process of trading links. There's literally no faster way to get link partners... especially when your website is brand new.

Each member of the website I'm referring to has a "rating", similar to an Ebay rating. The rating will tell you how many link exchange requests they've gotten, as well as how many of those link exchange requests they've actually exchanged links with.

Simply, exchange links with the websites with high ratings and you're virtually guaranteed a response! Plus, all of the contacting of websites is done through our website, so you'll NEVER get in trouble for email spam.

You'll notice the website above has had 26 link exchange requests and has completed 24 of them. They would be a good website to exchange links with.

You should be able to easily get 100s of reciprocal links in less than a week, if you work at it.

The website has been around for several years and has built up a VERY large number of members that are all very active with exchanging links. At this time, I believe there are roughly 49,000 websites listed... More than enough for you to exchange with. The best part is, the service is free. So, take advantage of it while it lasts.

So... what's the website?

http://www.linkmetro.com

Here are two short demo videos that I've created to show you the simple process of exchanging links via this site:

Demo Video 1 (Request a Link Exchange)
Click here to view demo

Demo Video 2 (Approve a Link Request)
Click here to view demo

Again, I highly suggest you take advantage of this completely FREE resource while it's still free.

In the next lesson I'll be revealing the Secret behind specific website's success, so stay tuned!

Until next time, Best of luck with your search engine optimization!

Brad Callen
Professional SEO
SEO Elite: SEO Software