We all know that Google visibility is crucial to online success; however an eagerness to appear in the first page of the Google results can sometimes lead you into trouble.

If you experience a sudden drop in rankings for your main keywords there are two likely reasons:

• There has been a change to Google’s algorithm and you have been one of the unfortunate losers.
• You have received a penalty from Google for breaking (or bending) their guidelines.

If you feel your drop in rankings may be the result of some infringement of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines it is important to correct them immediately. I am sure you are aware that Google will never make it that simple for you and many of the reasons they penalise sites is only known to those locked within the walls of Google headquarters. There are, however, some sure-fire ways to get yourself penalised (or banned) by Google:

• Linking into ‘bad neighbourhoods’. A ‘bad neighbourhood’ can include spammy sites, link farms or just generally sites that have no value to the Internet user as a whole. A good rule of thumb is: “if you are in doubt then it is probably best left alone”. If you want to check for sure then do a search for the Home Page in Google and if it doesn’t appear in the first page of the results it suggests that Google doesn’t trust it that much. Check out the Bad Neighborhood tool for help.

• Keyword stuffing. Always write with the user in mind first and the spider second. Stay away from repeating the same keywords over and over again.

• Excessive reciprocal link building. Some reciprocal link building can be considered natural – especially if you share the same topic in a niche. However stay away from unnatural amounts of ‘off topic ‘ reciprocal link building – always make sure your reciprocal links are from trusted ‘on topic’ sites and make your reciprocal links a small part of your overall link building campaign.

• Buying links. It is thought that that buying links can harm your rankings (like most things with Google though it has only been hinted at rather than confirmed!). It is always better to be safe than sorry so try and avoid buying and selling links and you are less likely to be penalised for it.

• Hidden text on your site. An old trick and very likely to get you banned – don’t make the text the same colour as your background, you will get found out sooner or later! The same applies to hidden links on your site.

• Check your site is considered safe. Here is how we check our site is safe:

Go to Google and type in http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=shcl.co.uk (obviously replacing the shcl.co.uk with your site). This we show you this screen which will give you Google’s details on the ‘Safe Browsing’ details of your site:

Other ways to reduce the risk of getting banned or penalised by Google by Google include:

• Make sure the anchor text of any links pointing to your site is varied as possible
• Do not link to any currently banned sites
• Avoid excessive cross linking with any other sites you own
• Avoid over optimisation
• Avoid excessive use of directories
• Make sure your link building increases at a natural rate (about 10% of the total number of inbound links you already have)

The final tip for avoiding Google penalties is:

• Use your common sense!

If you think that your actions could be construed as slightly dubious then stay away. Make your link building look natural and design and optimise your site with the user in mind and remember it can take time to rise up the rankings – patience is a virtue!

Here are some tools and links to help you with diagnosing and solving Google penalty issues:

Bad Neighborhood – Bad neighbourhood checking tool

Google Webmaster Guidelines

MajesticSEO – Backlink checker and neighbourhood checker

Google’s Malware help

Google’s reconsideration of your site page

+++Wayne Barker+++

Microsoft make a number of interesting tools available that are well worth exploring as part of your search engine optimisation activities.

Microsoft are offering more than 20 different tools, broadly grouped into Keyword Research Tools, Audience Demographic Tools, Content Analysis tools, and a few Social and Video tools.

I would recommend starting with the Demographic Prediction tool which gives a breakdown of a user’s gender and age based on Microsoft’s Passport data gathered as users search and browse the Internet.

You can use this tool to view demographic breakdown by key phrase or by visits to a particular web address.

Taking cars as an example, we an see that older men are searching for Jaguar XK8, whereas it is younger women looking for Mini Coopers.

Starting first with the Jaguar searchers, we see a 58:42 split men to women, with disproportionate number of searchers in the 35-49 age group as compared to the general search population.

As for Mini Cooper, we see a majority of younger women, aged 25-34:

You can use this data to better understand your user base, and ensure that your web design is suited to the characteristics of the visitors to your website.  It could also be used to help to shape your keyword strategy;  if it is mainly 18-24 year old men searching for what you think is your keyphrase, but you know your market is mainly 34-50 year old women, then it might be time to rethink your keyphrases you’re using on your site.

The Content Categorisation Engine tells you how how the search engines are interpreting your website, and the broad categories into which your website falls.

Looking at this website, the tool shows a strong level of confidence that this site is about Business, The Internet, People, and Small Business:

The Content Categoristion tool was designed to place appropriate advertising on a particular website, but it can give you a better understanding as to how the search engines are interpreting your website.

The Detecting Online Commercial Intention tool assesses whether key phrases indicate an intention to purchase products, or are simply seeking information about the product.  You can use this tool both to research keyphrases, but also to analyse your own website.

And finally, try out the AdText Writer tool, which generates small adverts for use as Pay Per Click advertising.  The tool analyses your webpages, and comes up with a range of 3 line ads to use in Google AdWords, oops, Microsoft AdCenter.