Search Engine Editorial Guidelines

Search engines have changed. The major engines now strive to provide the best search experience on the Web by directing searchers to high-quality and relevant Web content in response to a search query. Read these guidelines carefully.

There is much to be read on the web and other resources however understanding the basic direction that the development of search engine technology is taking will pay off. Following these simple guidelines your site will be sure to avoid penalties, if not now then in the future. Much investment is being poured into search engine technology so it's a good idea to start providing what the search engines are looking for now before backtracking in the future.

Pages Search Engines Want to Included in their Index

Original and unique content of genuine value
Pages designed primarily for humans, with search engine considerations secondary
Hyperlinks intended to help people find interesting, related content, when applicable
Metadata (including title and description) that accurately describes the contents of a Web page
Good Web design in general

Unfortunately, not all Web pages contain information that is valuable to a user. Some pages are created deliberately to trick the search engine into offering inappropriate, redundant or poor-quality search results; this is often called "spam." Major search engines do not want these pages in their index.

Pages that Search Engines do not Want Included in their Index

Some, but not all, examples of the more common types of pages that most engines reject include:

Gambling (casino, betting) or Pharmaceutical (viagra, other drugs) web sites
Pages that harm accuracy, diversity or relevance of search results
Pages dedicated to directing the user to another page ("doorway pages")
Pages that have substantially the same content as other pages
Sites with numerous, unnecessary virtual hostnames
Pages in great quantity, automatically generated, with minimal content or of little value
Pages using methods to artificially inflate search engine ranking
Pages with text that is not easily read, e.g., text that is too small or is obscured by the background of the page
Cloaking or stealth; a technique used by some web sites to deliver one page to a search engine and a different page to all other users
Excessively cross-linking sites to inflate a site's apparent popularity
Pages built primarily for search engines or pages with excessive or off-topic keywords
Misuse or inaccurate use of competitor or brand names
Duplication of content, either by submission of multiple pages with same content, submitting the same content from multiple domains, or submitting the same content from multiple hosts
Pages that use excessive pop-ups, interfering with user navigation
Pages that seem deceptive, fraudulent or provide a poor user experience (Descriptions that are not relevant to the page content)
Pages that result in a 404 error
Domain names, titles or descriptions that are vulgar, obscene, or appear to violate our policy against content, products or services deemed to be of questionable legality or that are otherwise objectionable

Content that is illegal or fraudulent, or sites with content, products or services deemed to be of questionable legality or that are otherwise objectionable, including:

Sites that advocate, depict, glorify or promote the following: bestiality; cannibalism; incest; necrophilia; pedophilia; prostitution; rape; torture; hate (sites that contain content threatening harm)
Sites that sell or give away the following: automatic or military-style assault weapons; falsely-obtained passwords; fake ids; warez; prostitution services; illegal drugs; prescription drugs without prescriptions; Cuban cigars
Content that infringes on the rights of a third-party

It's all about user experience

These policies are designed to ensure that poor-quality pages do not degrade the user experience in any way. As with each individual search engines guidelines, each engine reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to take any and all action it deems appropriate to insure the quality of its index.