ustin, the first update for 2004, continued to polish the system with algorithm changes that cracked down on more webspam techniques like abusing metadata and hidden content. This tied up loose ends that the previous update wasn’t able to address. Websites that conducted unethical practices but weren’t impacted by Florida felt the repercussions of their sins at this time.
The update targeted FFAs or Free for All link farms, invisible text or hidden content, and stuffed meta tags. These exploited the search engine’s algorithm for the sake of ranking. It provided websites that employed these tactics with incredible results before Austin.
Here’s an in-depth look at each of these techniques:
Sites that were found to have employed these tactics were penalized, and some were even banned immediately from the search engine. This led to lots of frustration especially for site owners who outsourced their SEO processes to an unreliable agency which cost them their domain’s reputation.
Google has been consistent with its fight against web spam because they want to recommend high-quality websites to users looking for solutions to their queries. It was even said that, essentially, the search engine was the most relevant content; not the most optimized.
That’s not to say, though, that you shouldn’t do all you can to ensure that your website shows up at the top of the SERPs. Here are a few on-page SEO tips to help you do just that: