SEO

10 SEO Tactics That No Longer Work


This article was updated on August 6th, 2020 at 05:57 am

You know what works. You also got to know what won’t, right?

Focussing on YouTube SEO, improved site speed, topics instead of keywords, technical optimization, engagement to improve rankings, building backlinks, making the existing pages longer will be some of the advanced SEO techniques and strategies that will rule in 2018, according to Single Grain.

However, there are some SEO tactics that many of us still use without realizing that they have become obsolete.

10 SEO Tactics that don’t work anymore

So, this year, here are the top 10 such tactics that you should bid adieu to.

1. Keyword Stuffing:

Just a few years back, no doubt, keywords were the best way to ensure successful SEO. Marketers were able to manipulate a page’s ranking on Google’s SERPs with keyword stuffing, simply cluttering content with unrelated and even grammatically incorrect keywords. Google wizened up to this fairly quickly and changed its algorithms to detect keyword stuffing. Today, stuffing your content with keywords can be highly dangerous and can get your website penalized, demoted in rankings and even banned by Google, says a 2017 article by WordStream.

2. Meta Keywords:

Do you remember those meta tags that appeared in the HTML code of a webpage and helped tell search engines about the topic of the page? Those meta keywords date back to 1995. Did you know that they are no longer relevant or even in use? Google and Yahoo announced way back in 2009 that they did not use meta tags in web ranking, making it an obsolete tactic.

3. Exact Match Domain Names:

An EMD is a domain name that precisely matches the search query you want your site to be ranked for. These names are likely drive traffic to your website. However, Google has come up with a new algorithm update, called EMD Penalty, aimed to target and penalize websites with low quality content that are ranking higher in searches because of the keyword advantage in the domain name.

4. Exact Match Keywords in Titles and Meta Tags:

Gone are the days of exact match keywords stuffed in the meta tags, since they no longer are of significance to SEO strategy, apart from providing a means to click through from the SERP. 2018 will see more call to action content in meta descriptions.

5. Exact Match Anchor Text Links:

Did you know that the anchor text is an “exact match” if it includes a keyword that mirrors the page that is being linked to. However, when websites aggressively build exact match anchor text links, a Google spam filter is triggered, since it is unnatural for web pages that link to your website to all have exact match anchor text.

6. Duplicate Content:

As a business owner or marketer, you should always have something unique to share with your readers. Intentionally or unintentionally, using duplicate content may lead to substantially negative results that may also bring some serious consequences for your business. Duplicate content reduces your search ranking and web traffic.

7. Irrelevant “Unique” Content:

Even if your content is real but either not relevant to your target audience or of poor quality, it is unlikely to attract readers. Today’s visitors are quick to hit the back button to find interesting content someplace else.

8. Keywords Heavy Footer Links:

Search engines today focus on the main content of any webpage. It is for this reason that keyword heavy footer links are not desirable anymore, whether they are outbound or internal links.

9. Unnatural Links:

These are the unnatural, artificial, deceptive or manipulative outbound links, for which website owners often pay someone to build on their behalf. Google’s Penguin uses its new determination algorithm, which scouts whether a link was “natural.” Unnatural links are penalized by Google.

10. Site Wide Links:

A few years ago, sitewide links were all the rage in SEO. They are often in webpage footers, and while some site-wide backlinks were legitimate, others were spammy. Sitewide links have lost their importance, since they now have little or no impact in terms of SEO.

Given how frequently Google updates its algorithms to weed out poor quality, black hat SEO practices and outdated tactics, the only way to ensure that you are using the right SEO strategies is to stay updated with changes in these practices.

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