Alhan Keser

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10 ways to piss off an SEO

Posted on: Thursday, November 20th, 2008


These are various ways in which your average web designer/developer can cause havoc to the mental health of your average SEO. Here it goes, in no particular order:

  1. Forget to place a robots.txt file on the dev server.

    It’s great that Google is already picking up pages and that our dev server is ranking for “cute puppy clothing”.

    Ever heard of duplicate content? Have fun writing out those 301 redirects. If you are not going to secure the dev server with a client login, then at least have the decency to place a robots.txt file that disallows bots from indexing a site before its in its final resting place.

  2. Link to www and non-www versions of a site.

    Search engines are great at figuring out which version of a url to use. No need to worry about a stupid prefix.

    To all designers out there: If you are not going to use a .htaccess file to redirect everything to one or the other, then do not link to both throughout the website. Also: Link to a website using an https prefix without any need to do so. Why on earth would you do this?

  3. Use tables instead of divs and place sidebar coding above page content.

    I really love it when the first 200 words on an html document are just links to other pages. And I especially like it when all you see are a bunch of table width attributes, colspans, <tr>’s and all that good stuff. Reminds me of the old days.

    Today is about clean code and flexibility in design. The fewer the lines of code the better and being able to move elements around freely is key to successful SEO design. Please place the content of a page as close as possible to the <body> tag.

  4. Incorrectly set up a 404 page so that any url gives a 200 status.

    Google loves it when it checks to make sure that your 404 pages do indeed display a 404 status and finds that in fact your server is totally okay with nonexistent urls. That doesn’t look fishy at all.

    If you want to send visitors to a custom 404 page, do so correctly or don’t do it at all.

  5. Link to different pages using the same text.

    We have 10 pages on our website about “free poker”. Let’s link to them all with those words so that users can really see the difference between each page!

    Please only link to a page using anchor text that describes its content most accurately. Make sure Google understands which page truly is about “free poker”.

  6. Create a sitemap that uses images as links instead of page titles.

    Rollover images are a great way to make a sitemap truly captivating. Also, add some Ajax action in there to make it more interactive.

    Hello designer, just keep it simple and link to pages using words that mean something and give spiders and users a clue about what may be on that page.

  7. Create urls that say nothing.

    What could possibly give more insight to a user about a page than the following url: www.mybadasswebsite.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/category1_10251_10201_12559_-1_12551

    (BTW: Don’t bother, I just purchased that domain name.) Either setup your dynamic urls so that more information is passed (while keeping the number of parameters to no more than 2), or just create a rewrite engine that will fix them for you. And don’t use multiple urls to display the same content. One url, one page.

  8. Link to the /index.php page from all pages on a website.

    You cannot imagine the joy that I feel seeing high PR given to the /index.php page. It makes me proud to know that both versions of our home page are doing great.

    Why the need to link to this page? Just link back to “/” and everything will be okay.

  9. Use an entire paragraph as a link to another page.

    This is an awesome way to pack a lot of anchor text keywords into one link…

    ….NOT! Use few, well-chosen words when linking to pages. The subject of a page is a good place to start.

  10. Use H1, H2, H3, or H4 tags in navigational menu links.

    I love seeing the same H1 tags used across an entire site. It really gives it that consistency that I look for.

    Unless you want to say “the most important thing on this page is in fact on another page,” then don’t do this. Please use Hx tags the way they were originally meant to be used: to designate priority. Also, while you’re at it, please do not use <b> or <strong> tags on links either.

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29 comments...join the discussion!

  1. styletime Says:
    November 20th, 2008 at 12:48

    I’m such a beginner that I’m surely guilty of ALL of those 10 on my sites ;) Thanks for the heads up! ;)

  2. thomas Says:
    November 20th, 2008 at 12:51

    Hey, thx for this one. Made me smile :)
    thomas

  3. JMorris Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 10:16

    Great post Alhan! Short, sweet, to the point and humorous! I loved it. I’ve pointed this out to many of my dev friends and I’ve give you a thumbs up. I look forward to more great posts from you. You’re now in my feed list. ;)

  4. Lou Lynch Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 10:31

    Great post, thanks a lot. Can you shoot us a link w/ the correct setup for a 404?

  5. Ryan Martin Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 10:35

    That is actually a pretty good list of easy fixes for beginning SEO’s. Linking to /index.php or even better /Home.html are always a joy to see :)

  6. Miguel Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 10:37

    Considering I am the process of transitioning my blog to its own host, and redesign in progress, this is beyond useful. Thank you!!

    Tagging ASAP for later reference.

  7. Westward Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 12:55

    Great rant! You could have included another item, my personal pet peeve, changing urls without setting up a redirect.

  8. Matt Siltala Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 13:51

    Thanks for making me spit my drink all over myself from laughing, then crying, and wanting to curl up into a ball like a little baby because I have found myself in to many of these situations with web designers. Seriously - awesome rant for the SEOs and smart Internet marketers out there!

  9. John Beagle Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 14:13

    This is a good list to put back in the face of my programmer. But in the past 4 years, there has been some progress made.

  10. Wes@SEOByHand Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 14:18

    LMFAO!

    Pretty useful for beginner SEO’s too, although I do not think that they would find it as funny.

    Best,
    Wes

  11. Luke Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 15:09

    #10 is something that I see a lot and actively try to discourage. It’s nice to find a blog post backing me up.

  12. Great SEO Articles for 11-20-08 | Firing Clients, Google, Wordpress, BrowseRank SEO Aware Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 17:50

    [...] 10 ways to piss off an SEO - For Web Designers [...]

  13. To change or not to change..... that is the question! - WebProWorld Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 19:49

    [...] may be found in 4 lines too, if you want an extended version to my previous post: See point 3: 10 ways to piss off an SEO | Alhan Keser __________________ SEO Workers - Search Engine Optimization Consulting Company | SEO Analysis [...]

  14. Timothy Bowers Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 21:07

    Nice, lol. Thanks for the run down.

    I’m not sure how close this really borders to SEO but something which really annoys me is websites where content has sponsored inlinks, so you never really know what’s a valuable link to the content of that page and what’s just a spammy link to some advertisers websites.

    With all the controversy over how Google marks down your Page Rank for advertisement link through’s on such things as TLA, I had one company offering me the option of doing this on my sites and they stated that Google wouldn’t know they were sponsored links. I declined their offer mainly because I find inlinks within the content frustrating.

    Anyway, thanks again!

  15. Design Notebook 11/23/2008 Says:
    November 24th, 2008 at 06:47

    [...] pretty obvious and some pretty interesting: 10 Ways to Piss of SEO - [...]

  16. Doug Kwong Says:
    November 24th, 2008 at 07:39

    Ahaha, these are great. This rant is great for two reasons:

    1. It serves as a great “Do not” list for beginners and
    2. It’s pretty funny to read for the more experienced SEOs.

    Thanks for the great post!

    Douglas

  17. Marc Says:
    November 24th, 2008 at 08:41

    Here is a big one you are bound to run in to eventually….

    Salesperson tells the client we will definitely get them #1 rankings for all keywords in a month.

  18. lauren Says:
    November 24th, 2008 at 10:12

    i also LOVE IT when designers:

    - use white text over an image background so google thinks were spammers, or use light yellow text over a yellow background so no user could ever read the link
    - makes headers so damn big i have to scroll to see my content
    - puts navigation on the bottom of the page

    but yea, thats a good summary overall.

  19. Tobias Fox Says:
    November 25th, 2008 at 11:06

    Just awsomely like it ;) almost knew all the 10 points, but still lets me smile.

  20. Purple Widget Says:
    November 25th, 2008 at 12:52

    I know this kind of seems like a non-contributing comment but all I think of to say is AMEN!! I loved this!

  21. Adam Says:
    November 25th, 2008 at 15:51

    #4, 7, 8, 10… story of my life. lol… Number 1 is common, too, in a number of variations.

    A few more:

    1 - Change copy first, tell me later (or let me find it myself 3 weeks later)
    2 - Create a new site that duplicates the content of the parent site (allowing me to find it on my own)
    3 - Redesigning the entire site navigation in Flash or Javascript (and allowing me to find it on my own)

    Basically doing anything major design change or content change without asking for review first is a total nuisance.

  22. 10 Ways to Piss Off an SEO | Ask Kalena Says:
    November 27th, 2008 at 22:55

    [...] subscribe to my feed. Make yourself at home :)Thank you Alhan Keser for your hilarious blog post 10 Ways to Piss Off an SEO. I come across Number 4 a LOT and it still makes my eyes water.  Reminds me of the Top 10 Dumbest [...]

  23. تامر الريحاني Says:
    December 16th, 2008 at 04:11

    I would Like to thank you soooooooooo much

  24. Georgy Says:
    December 16th, 2008 at 06:31

    Nice info…thnx a lottt

  25. SEO or Design - WebProWorld Says:
    December 18th, 2008 at 20:40

    [...] higher. But if the company does not mind, why should you? Do you want to laugh? The read this: 10 ways to piss off an SEO | Alhan Keser __________________ SEO Workers - Search Engine Optimization Consulting Company | SEO Analysis [...]

  26. Ron Boyd Says:
    December 19th, 2008 at 00:56

    I LOVE IT!
    What a beautiful piece of art this article is! Worthy of printing off and hanging in the office I think.. !!!
    TY

  27. Shark SEO Says:
    January 20th, 2009 at 08:07

    Awesome article, number 3 is especially true - especially as a coder I hate seeing tables used for layout. In fact, I think I just hate tables.

  28. Andrew Melchior Says:
    January 27th, 2009 at 11:55

    Great post! Loving it. I can think of a time I have been in almost all these situations. Had a client with #1 that caused a major set back.

  29. Mike from Salisbury Says:
    March 17th, 2009 at 13:36

    Great comments, even though I would clearly say I am guilty of a few of them.

    Good info though, cheers

    Mike

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