Don’t Say “I Hate You Google” Stop Making These SEO Mistakes

Does “I hate you Google” often comes to your mind when you see your rankings are dropping constantly and traffic is declining day by day? Do you think — Google hates you?

But that’s not the truth! Google only loves quality content. Content that fulfils its searcher needs and provides them with a good user experience.

Google’s ultimate goal is to provide the most relevant result to its searcher and make them happy. If your content is the most relevant and helpful, Google will love to give you the #1 position on its result page.

You will be holding that position until your content provides a good user experience and if you failed to do so, your page will start going down and other helpful content will climb up.

Instead of saying “I hate Google“, you should follow the best practices and avoid the mistakes that cause your rankings and traffic to drop.

In this post, I will be going to give you a clear view of some of the serious mistakes that you might be making that is throwing your site’s SEO performance down.

Mistake 1: Slow Loading Speed

Loading speed is something that highly impacts the user experience.

Your visitors will not be going to wait until your website loads fully. What they will do is, skip your website and open the other result from the SERP.

This action clearly shows Google that the user did not find good content and had a bad experience on your website so he/she quit and open another result, Google will throw your site down there and promote the other page.

Good web hosting plays a vital role in the loading speed of a website, make sure you host your site with a hosting company that provide blazing-fast servers.

Bluehost is one of the best web hosting providers for hosting WordPress sites, it is officially recommended by WordPress.org. Consider shifting your web hosting if your loading speed is slow and choose Bluehost to host your site.

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Here are some other tips that you can use to get fast loading speed:

• Start using CDN to distribute your website cache version to different locations and help your readers to access your site from the closest location. It will significantly improve your loading speed.
• Prefer using a low number of plugins, 15 to 20 is enough.
• Use a good WordPress cache plugin, WP Rocket is the best cache plugin available for WordPress sites.
• Choose a lightweight WordPress theme that will help you to achieve fast loading speed. I recommend and personally use the GeneratePress theme.
• Compress your images before uploading them in WordPress. Or, you can use any WordPress image optimization plugin that will automatically compress your images when you upload them to WordPress media.

Mistake 2: Low-Quality Content

You might have heard this “Content is king” and it is actually true, Content is king. Google loves and promotes sites with high-quality content that fulfils searchers’ intent and provides them information on what they are looking for.

Gone are those days when you can rank with thin and low-quality content, Google became too smart now.

Here are some tips for writing high-quality content on your blog:

• Do a well-research about the topic you are going to write on your blog.
• Open top three Google search results on the same keyword and identify what they have covered and what they missed. Write a detailed article covering all those topics that your competitors covered but in more in-depth and also cover what they’ve missed.
• Proper interlink your content with your existing relevant articles.
• Write a more in-depth article than all other pages which are ranking on the first page.
• Do proper use of images, screenshots and videos.
• Add FAQ section and cover related questions that people are asking about your topic.

Mistake 3: Choosing Expired Domain Without Well-Research

Starting with an expired domain is not a bad idea, it can help you to rank faster and gain authority.

But you can also fall into a deep pothole when you choose an expired domain without proper research about the past of that domain.

There are plenty of things that you should consider checking before selecting an expired domain to start your blog such as:

• Check the sources of the backlinks of the domain(if any backlinks are available). It should not be getting backlinks from toxic, adult, low-authority, spammy websites. Or else, you will get penalized by Google or won’t be able to rank if you start with that domain.
• Check the spam score of the expired domain before buying it. Don’t select a domain that has high spam score.
• Check what kind of content was being published on the domain in the past, you can check that through the Wayback machine tool.
• Find out if the domain got hit by any Google algorithm update.

Mistake 4: 404 Not Found Pages

Google as well as users hate to see the 404 not found page…

It mainly happens when you have broken links inside your content or add incorrect internal links into content. But whatever the reason is, Google hates this and can penalize you for this issue.

Make sure you use proper internal linking structure within your site and keep an eye on broken links to update them as soon as they appear to avoid any issues.

There are plenty of broken links checker plugins available in WordPress which can make it easy for you.

Mistake 5: Duplicate Content

This is the most common mistake beginners make in their initial days. They copy content from other blogs and then think to get ranked on Google but it is completely against Google’s guidelines.

Google prefer ranking original content on the top position of their search results and having duplicate content issues can lead you to big trouble in future. It may also bring a Google penalty to your site.

So, instead of saying “I hate Google“, work on writing original and quality content that Google loves, it will surely help you in achieving higher rankings for your targeted keywords.

Along with Duplicate content, Google also penalizes websites that have the following type of content:

• Stolen Content: Sometimes original content gets stolen from others if you found anyone stealing content from your site and published on theirs. Then make sure to file DMCA complaint and ask Google to remove stolen content by proving that yours is the original content.
• Spinning Content: This is done by online writers, who spun the content and sell it to other websites for a cheap rate. Have you ever bought any cheap articles and published them on your site? If yes then there are chances it might be a spun article. Google will penalize your site for that or it might bring some legal complications to you as well.
• Over-Optimized Content: Optimizing content for gaining high rankings is a good approach but over-optimizing content can end up bringing a Google penaly. So, instead of saying “I hate you Google“, create natural content and optimize it under Google’s guidelines to avoid any issues in future.

If you have any of the above-mentioned types of content then start working on them to make them original, highly qualitative content by following all Google guidelines to keep on the safe side.

Mistake 6: High Downtime On Your Site

Again an issue where your web hosting plays a very important role.

Let’s assume, someone made a search through Google and luckily your website is ranking on the top. User clicks on your result to open the site and read the content, but what? Your website is down…

The user will go back and open another article, Google will smell that there’s some issue with your website, because of that, the searcher has quit the site and opened another result. Google will demote your site and promote another site with good content and authority.

So, always prefer hosting your site with a reliable web hosting provider that provides reliable uptime. I recommend choosing Bluehost as it gives a 99.99% uptime guarantee that will ensure your website will stay up always.

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Mistake 7: Keyword Stufing In Content

Adding your targeted keyword in the content is a good SEO technique but overdoing it is called “Keyword stuffing” and Google hates this. It seems like manipulating Google’s algorithm to achieve higher rankings and traffic.

Google consider content with keyword stuffing, as poor content and do not provide them with a high ranking on the search result pages.

Make sure you follow the recommended keyword density when writing your content, add your keyword only a few times. I recommend using the RankMath SEO, it will guide you where you need to insert your focus keyword and shows your keyword density also.

Mistake 8: Issues With Robots.txt

Robots.txt is a very important file in a website from the SEO point of view.

Robots.txt file allows you to tell search engine crawlers which URLs are accessible for crawlers and which are blocked for them.

Robots.txt file is easily customizable according to your own preferences but make sure you have the knowledge to make changes, if not done correctly it can bring indexing issues and even penalties from Google.

Mistake 9: Misusing Anchor Text

Using the same anchor text again and again when building backlinks, comes under the manipulation of search engines for gaining higher rankings. Google became too smart now and easily smells this kind of trick.

Google easily identify it that you want to get ranked for specific keywords so building backlinks with the same anchor text, will penalize you for this.

Instead of misusing anchor text, you can use the variations of anchor text that relay around your content’s topic or make sense of where the links are added on other websites.

Always make sure all your approaches are looking neutral to Google, it should not sound manipulative just to rank higher if you want to be on the safe side.

Mistake 10: Your Backlink Profile

Your backlink profile matters a lot in SEO, Google hates websites that are linking to low-authority, toxic and irrelevant websites.

Google promote websites having good backlinks from trusted and authority websites whereas, it demotes website getting backlinks from irrelevant and toxic websites. Make sure you get your backlink audit once every 3 or 4 months to keep your backlink profile safe from toxic domains.

If your domain gets backlinks from some toxic domains, there are high chances that it will bring a Google penalty, consider using Google disavow tool to disavow those backlinks and be on the safe side.

Here are some other tips for you to get a natural and healthy backlink profile:

• Always consider acquiring backlinks from trusted and authority websites within your niche.
• Do not participate in link exchange because it is against Google’s guidelines.
• Do not ever purchase backlinks from Fiverr or any other site that offers cheap backlink building services that costs less and create tons of backlinks quickly.
• Disavow toxic domains pointing to you(if any) through Google disavow tool.
• Conduct a backlink audit once every 4 months to keep an eye on your backlink profile. You can use Semrush to perform backlink audits for your site, here is 14-day Semrush free trial to get started with Semrush.
• Do not misuse the anchor text, don’t use the same exact matching anchor text every time you build backlinks, rather diversify your anchor text.
• Build no-follow backlinks also that will make your backlink profile looks natural.

Mistake 11: Linking To Irrelevant Sites

Linking to other related websites from your site is completely a good approach in SEO but you should take care of some points when following it such as:

• The site you are linking to should be relevant to your niche
• Never link to low-authority websites
• Check for the spam score before linking to any external sites
• Only link where it makes sense linking
• Use nofollow tag when you are linking to sites you don’t trust

Follow the above-mentioned rules when linking to other websites to keep yourself on the safe side. Google penalize websites or drop their rankings if found the domain linking to irrelevant or low-authority sites.

Conclusion: I Hate You Google To Google Loves Me

As a beginner, we made tons of mistakes throughout the journey. But it is completely okay to make mistakes, everyone makes. Important thing is, how fast you realize your mistakes and correct them.

These are the mistakes that you might be making that is causing issues to your site in ranking, also if you made any of the above-mentioned mistakes you may get penalized by Google.

If you avoid making all the above-mentioned mistakes or correct them if you made any, there are high chances to achieve higher rankings and traffic to your site.

So, instead of saying “I hate you Google” make sure you follow the best SEO practices to make your site Google’s favourite.

If still any queries are left in your mind, throw them in the comments section below…