5 Ways to Damage your Search Engine Rankings
Posted by Beth Hrusch on Fri, Jun 25, 2010
Web sites rely heavily on their rankings, and many have worked 
long and hard to achieve impressive visibility with the search engines. Of course, it’s a mistake to rest on your proverbial laurels, especially since Google is constantly changing its algorithms to reflect the latest realities of search.
In a video, Matt Cutts explained the long tail search changes that were recently implemented. This helps to illustrate why businesses have to stay up-to-date with their content, and on top of the changes. Still, there are many ways that a site can hurt itself when it comes to search engine ranking. Most of the time, business owners don’t even know they’re doing damage to their rankings. Here are 5 errors you may be committing and not even know it:
1. You’ve redesigned your website.
It seems like a good idea. Your old site design is getting stale and boring, you’ve got great idea about a fresh new look, improved navigation, etc. But, if you’re making significant changes to your content, your internal linking or want to start using Flash, Ajax or other navigation tools, think twice. Search engines look at the links between your site pages and take a snapshot of them. If you change what they see, the new version may not register as well because it doesn’t contain the links and content that have made you visible in the past.
2. You’re changing your CMS.
Along the lines with a new website design, changing content management systems can create a lot of confusion for search engines. You may recognize that your original CMS no longer serves your needs. However, be aware that a change in the CMS means a change in the templates that format web pages, navigation and the URL structure of pages. Any major changes in content are included with new website software, and that can confuse the search engines. Ditto URL changes.
3. You’ve lost your inbound links.
There are many reasons that you might lose your inbound links. It may be as simple as going offline temporarily. It may be caused by one of the above issues. Links are an essential way for search engines to discover pages and rank them. Companies that can acquire links organically generally fare pretty well regardless of disruptions in the site. But, you can lose links if you change your URL format (for example, .asp to .aspx), or if you aren’t getting links organically (i.e. buying them from other sites). In these cases, the search engines may devalue your site and bump you down in the rankings.
4. You have duplicate content issues.
Duplicate content can occur in several ways. Regardless of how it happens, it confuses the search engines and forces them to make a judgment about which content came first. This sets up a possible scenario wherein you don’t get credit for your own original content. If searches display lists that can be reached in multiple ways, or content is lifted off of another site, you can have duplicate content issues. Anything your website does to make the process of indexing content confusing or inefficient can result in poor search performance for your web site.
5. You’re trying too hard to compete.
By this, I mean that you’re starting to resort to tactics that may get you penalized by the search engines. It’s best not to slip into bad habits when it comes to trying to rank. Regardless of what you see other sites doing to rank, resist the urge. The long slog to the top, using organic methods, is the only sustainable, long term method of ranking. Yes, competition is tough out there, but hiding keywords, redirecting pages to fool the search engines and spamming the web with disposable sites built for monetizing are not the way you want to go. Mainly because there’s no credibility in it (and, by the way, the search engines are onto it.)
Work with your SEO agency and your website developer to avoid these ranking-killers. The first step is to be aware of the possibility that you could be hurting yourself by making major changes to your site. The next step is to make smart changes that will only help you.