Last updated on March 13th, 2024 at 02:52 pm
As an SEO it’s easy to keep so up to date with current methods and practices that some of the basic things to look out for are forgotten. There are numerous factors that search engines look at when ranking a website, and not all of these are positive. Negative ranking factors on any website can stop any SEO campaign dead in its tracks if any of them aren’t dealt with and when overlooked can waste a whole load of effort. With this in mind, let’s take a look at some of the most important negative ranking factors.
· Robots.txt – before optimising a website, make sure you have a look at the robots.txt file. This could be inadvertently affecting the way the search engines deal with the website. Make sure your are not blocking the search engines from parts of the site you want indexed.
· Frames – Very rarely used, and most likely would be noticed but do keep it in mind when initially looking over a website. They affect the way that search engines read the page and can block content.
·Functions – Pages that require a function to access them such a s clicking a button or selecting from a dropdown box will cause the search engines trouble when trying to find the page. Try and avoid these when you want search engines to find content.
· Cookies – If the website requires a cookie to enable navigation this will cause issues with search engine access as crawlers cannot retain cookies. · Dynamic URLs – A lot of product heavy websites still use dynamic URLs. By using URLs with a lot of dynamic parameters in them you are reducing the chance the page will be crawled and indexed by the search engine and you are also not taking advantage of the rewards a good, keyword rich URL can bring. Although a couple of these are obvious ones, overlooking these factors can really hold back any SEO work that is done on a website.
About Author
Ben Hook is a search engine marketer and owner of Navaro, a Search Engine Optimisation Company in Warwickshire helping clients to increase their online visibility.
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I agree with of the factors you’ve pointed out can be the cause of Negative Ranking. But its an irony, Baba! When we start to trim off all the elements and components of modern web are we not going to have plain html page? To reap the optimum benefit of SEO, we need to return to the basic html once again.
Liked your post and done digging too!