For many years, brands have targeted search engines in an attempt to garner additional traffic and attention. While the nature of search engine optimization has changed over time, the end goals and benefits have not. Being visible in key search results matters because it allows anybody who is successful to reach their target audiences.

Unfortunately, some tips and advice from by-gone eras remain in the broader culture of SEO advice. As search engines continue to optimize their algorithms and protocols, some tips linger in the minds of gurus that are no longer viable.

To dismiss these wasteful efforts, we’ll be examining some guidelines and tips for SEO that no longer hold any value. Keep reading to find out more.

Keyword Stuffing

Long known as a viable tactic for boosting search visibility, the more overt practices of keyword stuffing have thankfully faded from notoriety in recent years. However, people are still pinging servers with a variety of modified methods that don’t differ all that much from the original and blunt approach.

Targeting irrelevant keywords or thinking that a specific number or percentage of words must be for a targeted SERP can actually lead to search engines like Google thinking you’re trying to manipulate your rankings maliciously. As such, using keywords in a natural sense that conforms to good writing techniques is the name of today’s game.

Link Buying

It’s amazing that some people still engage in the act of buying links, but believe that it happens to this day. The art of paying money in order to generate backlinks and boost search engine reputation once did pay dividends, but the gross and overt act of buying thousands or even millions of low-quality links at once no longer provides benefit.

In fact, such behaviors often get identified by search engines almost immediately, leading to a penalization of your website by entities such as Google. Some forms of competitor sniping even involve people buying links on behalf of their competitors so that their rankings plummet once search engines notice the activity. Steer clear of buying links!

Content Spinning

Another useful tip that once governed content creation and marketing was the use of existing content in order to make – or “spin” – new content variations for one’s own use.

Most of the time, this was done via software that would produce relatively nonsensical content that substituted words with synonyms. Ultimately, spinning content produces inferior outcomes that still require heavy manual editing, which begs the question of why it’s still be used today.

Domain Buying

In the past, some brands would attempt to purchase domains with keywords in them – whether those keywords were directly relevant to the niche in question or simply impersonation of competitors with higher name recognition.

In the years that have passed since this tactic began, search engine algorithms have continued to evolve immensely. There is effectively no benefit in trying to get a leg up on Google or Bing with these tactics today as their algorithms can see beyond these elements and no longer use them for ranking factors. Ultimately, offering content or products that an audience finds useful is the key to ranking well: shortcuts like buying domains based on keywords no longer produce value for brands.

When all is said and done, SEO requires ample time investment and a keen eye for changing trends. While all of the aforementioned factors once played roles in boosting visibility in search, this is no longer the case today. As such, abandon these useless habits and focus on what actually works in modern-day SEO!