Seven Illegal Search Engine Optimization Technique
Last Update: Tuesday, January 04, 2005.
In this article I discuss seven illegal, or almost illegal, search engine optimization and related techniques.
1. Trademarked Keywords In Domain Names
If you're thinking of registering a domain name that includes a trademarked keyword, think again.
Using someone else's trademark to attract customers is illegal. It violates federal trademark law, which prohibits the use of someone else's trademark, if it causes a "likelihood of confusion" among consumers.
Take Yahoo for example. They objected to 37 registered domains, including AtlantaYahoo.com, DCYahoo.com, Jahu.com and Yhu.com. Read the full story.
2. Trademarked Keywords In META Tags
It's not necessarily illegal to use trademarked keywords in your META tags. But you could get sued, and people have.
It all depends on why and how you are using the trademarked keywords. If you used the keywords in what is deemed a deceptive manner, then you're likely to lose your case.
However, there has been one instance of a defendant who proved to the judge that she had a legitimate reason to use the trademarked keyword. Read the full story.
Here's a short story to illustrate the seriousness of using trademarked keywords in META tags.
I had a client who included the trademarked brand name of a competing product in one of his web pages.
One day, he received a letter from the lawyer acting on behalf of the trademark owner in question.
The letter stated:
"Use of [trademarked term] constitutes federal false advertising, trademark infringements, state unfair competition and is deliberately designed to trade on [trademarked term] reputation and goodwill. Placing the term, [trademarked term], in the keywords and META tags of your site inappropriately and unlawfully draws Internet users to your site."
They threatened to sue, unless my client removed the trademarked terms from the META tags. Naturally, we obliged! ;o)
What was surprising was that we could use the trademarked terms in the visible page body. So we kept the trademarked keywords in the page body.
3. Pagejacking
Pagejacking is copying someone else's web page and submitting it to the search engines as your own, in hopes of getting high rankings. Quite often pagejacking also involves page cloaking.
Pagejacking is no more than stealing copyrighted content. It beats me why people would be so dumb as to try this technique. Don't try it. You will be caught sooner or later.
4. Deep Linking
Deep linking is the practice of providing a link directly to specific content on a web site's sub-page, instead of linking to its home page.
On July 5, 2002, the Bailiff's Court of Copenhagen ruled in favor of the Danish Newspaper Publishers Association, which claimed that Danish company Newsbooster violated copyright laws by "deep linking" to newspaper articles on some Danish newspapers' web sites.
The argument is that in bypassing the newspapers' home pages, Newsbooster links deprive them of advertising revenue. Further, they asserted that Newsbooster is in direct competition with newspapers. Read the full story.
7. Deep Linking Without Permission
If a site you are linking to has stated that linking is prohibited, or requires permission first, then don't link to them. If you do, you're asking for trouble.
6. Trademarked Keyword Advertising
Thinking of bidding for competing trademarked keywords in search engines? Think again!
In January 1999, Estee Lauder sued iBeauty and Excite@Home, saying its trademarks were violated when iBeauty's ads were presented during searches for Estee Lauder trademarked keywords.
When a person searched Excite@Home's search engine for "Clinique," they were presented with a banner ad for iBeauty. In addition, the search returned a list of related web sites, including iBeauty.com.
In August, 2000, iBeauty decided to voluntarily remove the trademarked keywords from its list. Read the full story.
7. Deep Linking Within A Frame
If you link to another site's content by displaying it within a FRAME on your site, and your ad in another FRAME, you're walking on thin ice.
What you're basically doing is "stealing" other people's content to generate advertising revenue. I would recommend staying clear of this practice.
Conclusion
Take care with the marketing techniques you use. If you think a technique can be construed as illegal, search the internet for possible legal cases on the technique. If you can't find any, then it's a good chance that the technique in question is worth pursuing.
You may also like to read my article, "Ten Controversial Search Engine Optimization Techniques." In this article I discuss ten controversial search engine optimization techniques that should be used with caution, or even avoided altogether.


Ten Controversial Search Engine Optimization Techn
Last Update: Tuesday, January 04, 2005.
In this article I discuss ten controversial search engine optimization techniques that should be used with caution, or even avoided altogether.
1. Duplicate Pages
In general, search engines ignore duplicate pages. In extreme cases, they may ban a site.
2. Invisible Text
Search engines consider the use of text that is the same color as the background color as spam. So stay clear of using invisible text.
3. Keywords In Comment Tags
Hardly any, if any, of the major search engines index comment tags, so don't waste time adding them for optimization purposes.
4. Keywords In Hidden Value Tags
Keywords in hidden value tags are considered spam by all of the major search engines, so don't waste time with this practice.
5. Keywords In Style Tags
Very few search engines index the content of style tags, so do not waste anytime on this technique.
6. Link Farms And Link Exchange Programs
Search engines consider link farms and link exchange programs as spam, as they have only one purpose - to artificially inflate a site's link popularity, by exchanging links with other participants.
Do not confuse link farms and link exchange programs with reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking is the exchange of links with individual sites, and certainly an accepted technique for improving your site's link popularity.
7. Links Only Pages
I recommend adding text descriptions to link pages and site maps. Some search engines, such as AltaVista, have been known to kick out links only pages.
8. Meta Refresh Tags
In general, meta refresh tags set for under 30 seconds are considered as spam by search engines. As such, most search engine optimizers use JavaScript redirects.
Having said that, I recently read an article that said the Fast and Inktomi search engines recommend using meta refresh tags, instead of JavaScript redirects.
Are you confused? I certainly am!
So to be on the safe side, I suggest sticking with JavaScript redirects, until there is conclusive proof that search engines accept meta refresh tags.
9. Tiny Text
Many of the major search engines consider tiny text (i.e. font size 1) as spam. Some use of tiny text is fine. Search engines don't like web pages that use a lot of tiny text. The reason is because some webmasters have used it to fool search engines by "hiding" dozens of keywords in a web page.
10. Cloaking
Cloaking is the practice of serving search engine optimized pages to search engine spiders, while at the same time serving un-optimized pages to site visitors.
Cloaking is one of the most controversial strategies in search engine optimization. Major search engines publicly state that they consider all cloaking to be spam. However, many professional search engine optimizers have been using cloaking for years, with much success.
Until there is conclusive proof that search engines do indeed ban sites that use cloaking, I suggest you take care if you decide to use cloaking.
If you want more in-depth information on these and other search engine optimization strategies, read my search engine optimization book.
Conclusion
There are many controversial search engine optimization techniques. There are people who despise the use of certain techniques, such as cloaking. But the fact of the matter is that there are no right or wrong ways to optimize a web page.
What might be considered as spam by one search engine may be accepted by another. What works today may be banned tomorrow.
The art and science of marketing is about testing to see what works and what doesn't. I recommend taking the same approach with search engine optimization. After all, it is just another form of marketing.
You may also like to read my article, "Seven Illegal Search Engine Optimization Techniques." In this article I discuss seven illegal, or almost illegal, search engine optimization and related techniques.


Three Ways To Get Listed In Google
Last Update: Tuesday, January 04, 2005.
In this article I show you three ways to get listed in Google, including one method that is virtually guaranteed to work.
I'm constantly surprised by what I find when dealing with search engine optimization clients.
One of those "surprises" is coming across sites that aren't listed by Google, even though they have been live for many months.
For most Web sites, Google refers more traffic than any other search engine. So it's imperative that your site is indexed in Google.
As of September 09, 2003, Google claims to index Searching 3,307,998,701 web pages. Yet somehow sites still fail to make it into the Google index!
There are three simple methods to getting listed in Google, but only one of these is guaranteed... well almost. ;o)
1. Submit Direct To Google
The first method is to submit your web site via Google's free submit your site form. Just submit your home page and Google's crawler, Googlebot, will crawl the rest.
However, Google do not add all submitted URLs to their index, and there is no guarantee as to when, or if, your site will be indexed.
2. Get Linked From A Site That Google Crawls
The second method is to get a site that Google already crawls to link to your site. So when Google recrawls the web site, it will find the link to your site and crawl and index it as well.
This is Google's preferred method of finding sites to index.
To get another site to link to yours, simply look for a site that links to your competitors and ask them to link to yours. You may have to offer a link back to their site in exchange.
You may like to read my link popularity article, "How To Quickly Improve Your Link Popularity." In this article I show you how to find link exchange partners.
3. Submit Your Site To The Yahoo! Directory & The Open Directory Project Index
The third method is to submit your web site to the Yahoo! Directory and/or Open Directory Project index, which is owned by Netscape.
As far as I know, this is the only guaranteed method of getting into the Google index.
Google has agreements with Yahoo! and Netscape to include the sites indexed in their directories in the Google index. So submit your site to either, or both (recommended), of these directories.
For more information, visit Yahoo!'s How to Suggest Your Site page and the Open Directory Project's How to add a site to the Open Directory page.
Once your site is included in either of these directories, it will appear in the Google index in about 4 to 8 weeks.
So now you have no excuse for not getting indexed by Google. ;o)