Avoid these outdated SEO tactics

There are thousands of guides online for SEO. However, the problem is very few people correct or place notices on older articles with outdated techniques. When someone new to the practice applies these old practices, they risk penalties and other issues. Here is a list of outdated SEO tactics that everyone should avoid:

Article directories and link directories

Both article and link directories are useless today. Due to spam and the fact that these lists did not provide any value to visitors, the search engines began de-emphasizing links from these sites. Links from some directories even qualify as spam and can result in secondary penalties. Article directories met the same fate, thanks to abuse by marketers.

Exact match

There was a time when an exact match domain would automatically rank for the keyword phrase. After noticing the abuse of these domains, Google adjusted the algorithm, and now exact match domains rank the same as any other domain. The only drawback is that exact match domains are now considered spammy by most search engines.

Link exchange

Another practice that Google frowns upon is reciprocal linking. Often, one website will place a link to another website on the sidebar or link page in exchange for a link from another site. The practice adds no value to the user, so Google ignores links that are not in-content. The same goes for guest blogging which Google considers similar to buying links.