There are well over a hundred elements that factor into the ranking of a web site.

The technologies above are used in developing the formulas for determining the rank of all pages. These technologies make it possible to weed out keyword spammers, text cloakers, and more of those tricksters out there who attempt to exploit the weaknesses of the search engines for their own gain.

The best advice you will see anywhere regarding Search Engine Optimization is this: Do NOT attempt to trick the search engines.

The major search engines know far more than we do when it comes to their search technology, and if they catch a site doing something that artificially boosts it's rankings, it's very, very easy for them to simply remove your domain from their records than it is for them to tell you to stop doing bad things.

Yahoo! and Google don't play games with unscrupulous sites. They will ban, without warning, any site that is identified as possibly damaging to their search engine results. There are no warnings and no second chances.

Using simple methods to gain better rankings is usually the best policy.

Make sure your keywords appear in your meta tags. Make sure your keywords appear in your site text. Be sure to start a link exchange with other sites in your field. Avoid gratuitously repeating keywords on your pages, avoid including your site on "Link Farms". Avoid posting text on your site that matches the font color to the site background color.

These are just a few tricks that can get your site in trouble with the search engines. Penalties for bad practices range from very low site rankings to outright banning. If your site is banned, it likely will remain banned forever. There is no obligation to include any site on any search engine. It's the site's responsibility to be properly formatted and compliant, not the search engine's.

All of these tips are simple, yet proven techniques that will help your site within the search engines and help prevent your site from being blacklisted.

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