Naughty or Nice? It's Better to Stay Nice.

By Susanne Svette, IdeaStar Search Engine Specialist

Thinking of being just a little naughty in your search engine optimization practice? Don’t! You really could go to Hell. Google Hell, that is.

Forbes.com posted an article April 30 entitled Businesses Scramble to Stay out of Google Hell. Actually, Google refers to it as the supplemental index, created with the best intentions.

It seems the search engine has so many pages to index, it developed a special place for questionable Web sites. The only problem is they won't tell you the rules so you can avoid ending up there. And, once placed in the index, it could be months before your Web site is allowed out, if ever.

The Forbes article mentioned skyfacet.com as one site stuck in the Google backwater. The diamond and jewelry sales site suddenly dropped from the search engine last year after a search engine consultant made changes, resulting in a substantial loss of traffic and sales.

It seems Google is becoming even more stringent. So it's best to stay as clean as possible – no duplicate copy, buying unrelated links, keyword spamming, etc. – and try not to anger the Google gods.

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