With 2012 coming to an end, the world of SEO has changed tremendously if compared to what it was a few years back. Smart bloggers have been successful enough to rank higher with their own SEO techniques, while there are beginners out there who are still hanging on the famous question of keyword density i.e. “What is An Idle Keyword Density” that has not been answered by anyone, and something that doesn’t really need an answer (discussed later in this article).
But with the beginning of the new year 2013, some changes should be made. Therefore, following are three highly practiced SEO activities that one should avoid in the year ahead, and forever if possible. The reason for each is clearly explained.
Commenting For Backlinks
Blog commenting has been one of the top most practiced SEO activities since many years. Be it 2007 or 2012, blog commenting has been a vital part of any site-owner’s career.
The reason for these stats is that many, in-fact most of them, believe that blog commenting can be very helpful for building ‘quality’ backlinks. While I don’t deny the fact that it helps building backlinks, I completely disagree with it when it is preceded by the word ‘quality’.
Reason To Avoid: The reason why I don’t actually comment for backlinks is simple and very easy to understand – Google doesn’t consider them to be of any good value.
A simple way to understand this is by thinking, “What if I comment on a porn site with a link back to my competitor’s site?“. I’m sure you’ve already grasped 70% of the point. The point is that anyone could link to you from anywhere. Knowing this fact, Google simply ignores links from blog comments (it is sharp enough to find out whether the link is from a comment or not). Henceforth, practice blog commenting as a medium to build connections and relationships – not backlinks.
Keyword Stuffing
This is a response to the small question mentioned at the beginning. Keyword stuffing, if given as an example, can be easily explained in the following way.
He has a pencil. His pencil is lying on the table. The pencil is of red color. The pencil is sharpened well.
In the above example, the keyword is ‘pencil’. Just assume an article of 500 words, and imagine the scenario with the same keyword. That explains what keyword stuffing is. It basically shows that the writer is trying to put the main keyword in every possible way. If there’s no possibility to inject the keyword perfectly i.e. with the language sounding perfect, then the writer will just insert the keyword without worrying about the quality of the article. The disaster then begins.
Reason To Avoid – Keyword stuffing has never really been an SEO activity.
It was just known as keyword density which was then used negatively as keyword stuffing. Note that search engine bots are better readers than the actual readers on the blog. They’ll have no mercy for any of your posts that have been stuffed with keywords. A simple solution to this is – be natural when writing. The keywords will appear in a very efficient quantity and you’ll not even know when.
Purchasing Text Links
It is not harmful to purchase banner ads, as those are for promoting special offers/pages etc. on a particular site. On the other hand, text links can be a disaster.
No doubt that there are very reputed blogs out there which sell text links in the form of blogroll links. Blogroll links are ONLY meant to pass Pagerank.
For example, if a PR2 site has a blogroll link, it passes its PR to the linked site. Such links can be both harmful or beneficial depending on the scenario. The link in the previous sentence goes out to a video that explains whether or not blogroll links are harmful for SEO.
Reason To Avoid – Most sites that sell blogroll links often have the heading such as ‘Sponsored Links’ or ‘Paid Links’ etc. If not, then it is obvious that all the links are next to or above/below each other. Given all these scenarios, search engines wouldn’t take more than a fraction of a second to recognize whether the links are ‘paid’ or not. And trust me – Google hates paid links.
Winding Up
All that said, it is clear that gone are those days when such SEO practices were actually needed. Follow the normal on-page SEO tips, be natural, be yourself, wake up to produce quality and you shall rock the search engines stress-free.
Vishal Verma May 17, 2013 at 2:45 pm
Nice post on SEO, Over article syndication also downgrades SEO
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Christa Joe April 16, 2013 at 8:02 am
Link earning was always the key concern of SEO since its inception. Google results are woven around the quality of the link which eventually earns its quality by the number of people it was able to influence.
The more people will share it in their posts, the more will be the quality of a post and better for the users. The bar for the quality of referring links has however increased, due to some unethical activities of cheap marketers in the past but the key notion was always the same.
To provide quality results to users.
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raman bathina April 15, 2013 at 12:50 am
I understand that commenting is not useful in 2013 but i can’t leave this blog with out doing a comment about this post because it tells most useful information about seo practices.Thank you.
Amar April 11, 2013 at 1:38 am
I think commenting on blog will help a lot if the blog on which we are commenting is on the same niche.
Emu Hasan April 9, 2013 at 7:17 am
I loved how you laid out the actions. At times all seems so intimidating but somehow we find out. Many thanks for this info.
Dumitru April 1, 2013 at 12:52 pm
Hi Raaj,
I think blog commenting will newer hurt a website if it will be done right. But you are very right that if doing it in an excessive way and with no reason it can only do bad things.
Thanks for great content. Really easy to read.
Praveen Bhardwaj March 25, 2013 at 12:04 pm
I am one of those who preferred a lot of keyword stuffing to get better results from SEO. But it has been one year since I left the bad habit, and my blog has really started showing on Google more often.
Violeta Matei March 18, 2013 at 4:35 am
I guess paid links still work, if you manage to get them wisely. By this, I mean not to use link networks which sooner or later will be exposed and lose all authority.
Justin Thomson March 4, 2013 at 5:22 am
Well Done Raaj, As the existing three features are really looking dangerous for the SEO strategies. Keyword Stuffing is one of worst way of brand promotion. We maintain keyword ratio in particular web page. Keyword Density must be 1 to 2 percent.
Annie March 3, 2013 at 6:06 am
The commenting practice i’ve used only for making backlinks. I didn’t know that google never consider this thing. Thanks for opening my eyes.
Utkarsh Bhatt March 1, 2013 at 7:46 am
LOL! The reason I came here is because of the backlink I’d get by commenting. Now I think that the stuff you wrote is quite a thing to consider for me. I have to get serious in regarding my blog. Thanks for sharing the stuff. I guess all these things need to be cut from my list of things.
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Dhruv March 1, 2013 at 5:00 am
Well Raaj, I have seen many people using some link building softwares like Senuke, Magic Submitter and many more.. They are ranking well also.. What about this ?
Eicw February 28, 2013 at 11:31 am
SEO has changed dramatically, i really dont know what’s right and what’s wrong or how to do it today…
Jemma February 27, 2013 at 5:04 am
most companies have no idea what they want with SEO but just because they heard it works, they want it. They just want to rank. I think there must be a responsible person from each SEO agency who would educate people about the reality of SEO!!
Tim Potter February 27, 2013 at 12:55 am
Blog commenting may not be the end all be all it once was in reference to back links. Yet it serves a purpose to drive traffic to your blog or website. If you do that then you can hopefully capture the attention of the audience. Back links are vital to your survival as a blogger and getting return readership is also vital. Little weight may be placed on them yet I think some weight is placed. thanks for sharing
Rashmi Sinha February 25, 2013 at 1:49 pm
Google has changed the entire game with all these panda and penguin updates. Now ethical techniques are more encouraged and companies are shunning the black hat technique to remain in the good books of Google as long as possible. Stay clean and stress free and don’t try black hat.
Thanks for this informative post.
Astro Gremlin February 22, 2013 at 12:26 am
All my Page Rank has been the result of leaving comments. Hard to believe Google no longer gives it credence. Wouldn’t my PR drop?
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Martin Cooney February 21, 2013 at 4:08 am
Too true, Raaj
I get people wanting to pay me for text links off my other niche PR4 home page all the freaking time. Now they can easily and instantly purchase a banner ad of any description but the text anchor link is the one I get asked about most often.
Good one on the commenting too – cool if you’re commenting on a related niche site but even I shy away from porn sites, despite you could draw a minor affiliation with my relationships site.
Sue Neal February 20, 2013 at 12:54 pm
Great post, great advice – and I, for one, think it’s wonderful that these old tactics are no longer being rewarded by the search engines. I always found the thought of having to shoe-horn the right number of keywords into strategic places in a post a depressing prospect – takes all the fun out of writing – and reading, for that matter.
Sue
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Servando Silva February 20, 2013 at 12:48 pm
Another one would be creating links all with the same Anchor Text. It looks unnatural and Google knows it.
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Grace Eline February 20, 2013 at 6:38 am
Hello Raaj,
SE Optimisation is a very big task in the Web Marketing.In 2012,Google had implemented many things in his own algorithm,therefore it was very difficult to survive in that year.Now SEO techniques are very changed.By the way your post is good & m still working on it.Thanks a lot.
Ram Shengale February 20, 2013 at 4:30 am
Hey Raaj, thanks for the tips.
I think I’d differ here if I said that blog commenting still works an is a great way of Off-Page SEO.
Here’s why I say this – I started a micro-niche site in January this year and I only made backlinks using dofollow and nofollow blog comments. And that site is now ranking in the top 10 (not yet on the 1st position). This niche is not very competitive but the getting to the first page was also not an easy task.
So I think if you do it correctly, blog commenting still works.
Regards,
Ram
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qadar February 19, 2013 at 8:10 pm
As a newbie, I am confused with the #1 to avoid blog commenting. Did I really need to avoid it or just comment if necessary?
Raaj Trambadia February 20, 2013 at 5:25 am
You see, when you comment just for links, it emphasizes the point that you’re a newbie and you don’t really need that – right?
-Raaj
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King March 13, 2013 at 11:59 pm
One can’t ignore the importance of blog commenting, be it for sharing your views or building relationships with fellow blogger, the only thing is the primary motto of blog commenting should never be just for the sake of backlinks. I hope even the author (Raaj) is saying the same thing. isn’t it Raaj?
Darnell Jackson February 19, 2013 at 3:05 pm
Good one Raaj,
I agree with you.
Posting comments for the sole purpose of building backlinks won’t work.
Trust me I’ve tested it with outsourcers.
However, commenting for TRAFFIC kills.
Here’s a question for you. Do you think blog comments generate better traffic on average than a guest post on a top 50k alexa blog?
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Raaj Trambadia February 20, 2013 at 5:29 am
Darnell, it’s been ages since I’ve been checking Alexa. It does not have importance in my eyes.
Comparing ‘comments’ and ‘guest posting’, I would prefer the latter. However, a long discussion on some popular post might bring in more traffic and that is pure commenting, right?
-Raaj
Raaj Trambadia recently posted..5 Reasons To Quit Your Current Niche Blog
Paul V February 19, 2013 at 12:29 pm
Thats good information. I could leave an anchor link so easily!
I could link anywhere. I never thought of it that way!
Rashmi Sinha February 19, 2013 at 11:47 am
With Google making a swift change in how the whole internet and the virtual world connects, keeping in mind these useful techniques will save a person from unnecessarily doing somethings that is not as effective as they used to be few years back. Thanks for the insight.
Raaj Trambadia February 20, 2013 at 5:29 am
Cheers Rashmi.
-Raaj
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Usama February 19, 2013 at 10:29 am
very nice.! effort is showing from the article. but I will not completely agree with your point of building backlinks. The quality of backlinks also depends the person who is making backlinks. The one should make back links on the site that has good reputation and not on every site that he come across.
Raaj Trambadia February 20, 2013 at 5:32 am
Usama, maybe if you read the article and especially the title again – you might want to change your words?
-Raaj
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Kyle February 19, 2013 at 8:35 am
Guest Posting is the best way to earn links and create a good reputation too in the year of 2013. Making proper use of social media will earn you good quality links.
Raaj Trambadia February 20, 2013 at 5:33 am
Indeed. I’ve seen GWT videos where Matt gives guest blogging the highest priority compared to others.
-Raaj
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Lisa February 19, 2013 at 4:58 am
Raaj – It’s amazing how much SEO has changed in the just 3 years since I’ve been doing it. I’ve also had people still emailing me for paid links, are they serious? I would guess they don’t read up on the current Google changes. Tidbit on keyword density – it appears older websites still have a high keyword density and Google seems to be giving them a pass on it since their websites are around 10+ years old. Have you noticed that oo Raaj?
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Saugat February 19, 2013 at 4:10 am
That is a wonderful post. I also advise not to use any automated software for link building. It can create a disaster.