Keyword Stuffing: Overloading a webpage with excessive keywords in an attempt to manipulate its relevance for specific search terms. This results in unnatural and often unreadable content, leading to a poor user experience.​

Example: Repeating the term “best running shoes” numerous times within a single paragraph, making the content awkward and difficult to read.​New York Post+1Latest news & breaking headlines+1

Cloaking: Presenting different content to search engine crawlers than what is shown to users. This deceptive practice aims to rank for specific keywords while delivering unrelated or low-quality content to visitors.​

Example: A website shows search engines content about “free movie streaming” but directs users to a page selling unrelated products.​

Hidden Text and Links: Incorporating text or links that are invisible to users but readable by search engines, often by matching the text color to the background. This tactic aims to manipulate rankings without affecting the user interface.​

Example: Embedding white text on a white background containing keywords or links to manipulate search rankings.​

Link Schemes: Engaging in practices like buying or exchanging links solely to boost a site’s ranking, rather than earning links through merit. Such schemes violate search engine guidelines and can lead to penalties.​

Example: Participating in a network where websites agree to link to each other to artificially inflate link popularity.​

Duplicate Content: Replicating substantial blocks of content across multiple pages or domains to increase keyword presence. This can confuse search engines and dilute the value of original content.​

Example: Copying and pasting the same article across various sections of a website or on different websites without modification.