As an SEO consultant, I know that Google Page Rank is affected by many important factors. One of the most important steps to improving  a site’s page rank in Google search is to have content rich information that includes keywords relative to your site  and/or blog post.  It is also important to make sure that you post links and subject titles with relevant keywords that describe the subject of your content.

Some bloggers and webmasters try to improve the page rank  and attract visitors by creating irrelevant content on pages and stuffing keywords that have little correlation to the page.  If Google finds that a site has violated their guidelines, they will take action. Some examples of content issues that Google prohibits are as follows:

  • Thin Affiliate Sites
  • Doorway Pages
  • Auto-Generated Content
  • Scraped Content

Thin Affiliate Sites are sites that collect pay-per-click (PPC) revenue by sending vistors to affiliate program websites. The thin affiliate sites provide little or no added value or service to the readers. Most of these pages are either cookie-cutter sites or templates, and do not have any unique content.  As long as the webmaster has  added value for the users and produces meaningful content, there is no issue with using affiliate programs.

Doorway Pages are junk pages created to trick the search engine into inflating a website’s page rank.  The page rank is increased through stuffing keywords for a popular search phrase that is irrelevant to the actual website.  The doorway pages will then often direct readers to another unrelated page through misleading links.

Auto-Generated Content is content produced by a program to increase page rank. In most cases these sites will have random paragraphs of nonsensical text that contain keywords.

Scraped Content is when webmasters duplicate popular web content in hopes that their page rank will increase off the other site’s popular content.  These web pages will frequently update information to maintain the most current content that ranks highly on search engine queries.  Scraped content is a duplication of existing information, which is counted against both sites in the search engine ratings.   As syndicated feeds grow in popularity in the blogosphere, this issue will magnify for search engines.

If you are concerned about your website or have been removed from search engine listings, go to Google Webmaster Guidelines Page.


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