Most Common SEO Mistakes

[EricEnge]

I just posted over in the SEW Blog a column titled the 10 Most Common SEO Mistakes. You can see it here:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/071116-103407

What are the most common SEO mistakes that you see?

[rpedersen]

Like many other people I really appreciate these kinds of lists, short and to the point. Unfortunately this list doesn't really deliver anything that I can sink my teeth into. What I really need to get something out of the article are samples.

"Broken information architecture - These are sites that fail to map the nature of the information they are providing into an understandable hierarchy. Bad for users and search engines."

- Define Information Architecture
- Example of bad structure
- Explanation of why example of bad structure is bad
- Example of good structure
- Explanation of why example of good structure is good

If you can go back and do this for each bullet then I can really get something out of the article.

Thanks,
Ryan

[beu]

Great post Eric!

#1 Broken information architecture - I'm always amazed at how many folks out there don't have a basic site map. This can be a real help for users / engines even when your information architecture is perfect.

#5 Bad redirects - Redirects also reek havoc on analytics making it look like a lot of traffic came from bookmarks.


What are the most common SEO mistakes that you see?
I'd have to go with all Flash sites where the URL never changes or sites with Flash vars, (#anchors) in the url and/or sites with links in non-friendly javascript.

[cryptblade]

I would add multiple domains. This becomes annoying when they don't volunteer information about the extra domains that they have. You could end up seeing everything "seemingly" OK and then find out, after you have done the work, that they actually had multiple domains pointing to the same site - that is, no proper redirects for all of the additional domains pointing to the same site.

[AnthonyCea]

Having a great robots.txt file is a good idea, you mention this:

Duplicate content - It's unbelievable how much duplicate content that some sites create. It's a common killer, and it's a very big factor in poor page rank management.

What is a comprehensive way to avoid duplicate content penalties ??

[BasicECommerce]

I'd have to go with all Flash sites where the URL never changes or sites with Flash vars, (#anchors) in the url and/or sites with links in non-friendly javascript.

I agree whole-heartedly! SE cannot crawl Flash. Many sites use it because you can do cool things with them but horrible for SEO. Any idea how the new and popular Ajax form of coding is read and how they affect SEO? (i'm far from expert on it but i know its becoming a popular function)

[beu]

Any idea how the new and popular Ajax form of coding is read and how they affect SEO? (i'm far from expert on it but i know its becoming a popular function)
Googlebot at least seems to be doing a pretty good job with AJAX properly made for search engines. Be sure to avoid #anchor fragments in AJAX URLs. For more on how to make AJAX friendly for search engines check out Google Webmaster Central.:)

"A Spiders View of Web 2.0"
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/11/spiders-view-of-web-20.html