Before you start with your SEO campaigns make sure that you checked the current guidelines put in place by the major search engines to make sure that your SEO efforts will be successful in the long term and not have the opposite effect than you intended.
A "ban" or removal of your whole website from search engine index(es) is not worth the possible but short lived profits made by engaging into methods that are in clear violation with search engine guidelines.
The guidelines are not a law in any sense and breaking them is not illegal, however the consequences of violating them could be just as dramatic for your business.
Google Guidelines on SEO and Google Webmaster Guidelines | |
Yahoo! Search Content Quality Guidelines | |
MSN Search Guidelines for Successful Indexing | |
Ask.com Editorial Guidelines |
Note: You can use this Google Spam Report Form (anonymously) or the form within the Google Webmaster Central interface (not anonymously) to report a site that seems to be abusing Google's quality guidelines.
Not sure if your site was banned? What is the "Google Sandbox Effect"? To find out the answers to those questions and learn what to do, check my resource Search Engine Ban, Google Sandbox Effect, Poor SEO and Reinclusion Request, here at Cumbrowski.com. |
Please note, that those blogs are of personal nature and anything stated by the employees in their posts is their personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the search engine they are working for.
Also be careful with your comments at those sites, if you do something that is considered "gray hat". They can cause as much trouble for you as they can help you. They are usually trying to provide as much information and answers to questions as the can do or are allowed to based on the restrictions of their NDA, which every employee has to sign, just like at every other company.
Matt Cutts SEO Blog - Gadgets, Google, and SEO. Matt in a Google.com employee working at the Googleplex in Mountainview, California, where he is the head of the Google web spam fighting team. He writes about personal stuff and also Google related things at his blog, what makes his blog a "must read" for every serious search engine marketer. | |
Niall Kennedy's Blog - Niall works for Microsoft Search (MSN Search / MS Live Search) and blogs about various topics, which are not always search related. He also publishes an audio podcast irregulary. |
The year 2008 saw a lot of changes, two of the famous search engine bloggers who worked for the search engines Yahoo! and Ask.com are not with their companies anymore. One left by himself and the other one was let go by his former employer during a major lay-off and cut-down of the search engine's staff. Both bloggers continued to blog regardless of the fact that they are not working for a search engine anymore. They still have insights that others do not have and remain an interesting read for most webmasters.
Jeremy Zawodny's blog - Jeremy was until Spring 2008 a member of Yahoo!'s technical development group and writes about anything that interests him. He writes occasional about things related to Yahoo! or other search engines. He expresses his personal opinion at his blog, which is not always the same as Yahoo!s official one. | |
Gary Price's Blog called ResourceShelf.com, where Gary is the main editor. During the day is Gary the MLIS Director of Online Information Resources for Ask.com Search. His blogging partner is Shirl Kennedy and they blog about various internet related subjects, including search engine marketing and general industry news. update: As of March, 2008 does Gary not work for Ask.com anymore. He was among those 10% of Ask.com employees who were laid off during that same month. |
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