Don't mislead users
Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2025 5:51 am
If it's unavoidable that the content is very similar (e.g., with product variations), use canonical tags . This allows you to mark one of your product variations as the original and link to that URL on all other variations. This way, the search engine won't get confused and won't have to wonder which of these variations is important. Use different anchor texts for your links
Make sure you vary your anchor text and don't always use the same hard, keyword-optimized anchor text for a URL. Hard, keyword-focused link text may give users too little background information about the content behind the link (UEO!) and is extremely annoying to search engines because it's simply unnatural.
You no longer have to laboriously search through your usa cell phone number list anchor texts; you can easily display them in the XOVI Suite's link tool .
Cloaking , markup abuse , hidden content and misleading redirects are practices designed to
to show different content to the search engine and the users or
to give users false impressions.
Cloaking
Wizard pig with invisibility cloakCloaking occurs when different content is displayed to the user and the search engine. The search engine can be differentiated from the user by their IP address ( IP cloaking ) or by their user agent ( user agent cloaking ). The goal is to trick the search engine. This is obviously an attempt at manipulation and is considered a black hat SEO measure.
Markup abuse
Pigs with awards and star ratingsFor example, you run an online store and each product page has markup that displays the number and average number of stars in the search results. What you should NOT do is display the number of ALL reviews from your store for the product.
Likewise, if you have good reviews on Google My Business, that's great! These reviews apply to your business as a whole; so use them on your homepage, but NOT on a product page.
Make sure you vary your anchor text and don't always use the same hard, keyword-optimized anchor text for a URL. Hard, keyword-focused link text may give users too little background information about the content behind the link (UEO!) and is extremely annoying to search engines because it's simply unnatural.
You no longer have to laboriously search through your usa cell phone number list anchor texts; you can easily display them in the XOVI Suite's link tool .
Cloaking , markup abuse , hidden content and misleading redirects are practices designed to
to show different content to the search engine and the users or
to give users false impressions.
Cloaking
Wizard pig with invisibility cloakCloaking occurs when different content is displayed to the user and the search engine. The search engine can be differentiated from the user by their IP address ( IP cloaking ) or by their user agent ( user agent cloaking ). The goal is to trick the search engine. This is obviously an attempt at manipulation and is considered a black hat SEO measure.
Markup abuse
Pigs with awards and star ratingsFor example, you run an online store and each product page has markup that displays the number and average number of stars in the search results. What you should NOT do is display the number of ALL reviews from your store for the product.
Likewise, if you have good reviews on Google My Business, that's great! These reviews apply to your business as a whole; so use them on your homepage, but NOT on a product page.