Search engines are way more intelligent now than they were 5 years ago, which means that ranking high now is getting more difficult than it was before. The reason for the increasing difficulty is attributed mainly to search engines closing the loopholes which allow users to “game” the system.

Here are some tips on what to avoid if you want to keep your website indexed and well-performing in Google:

1. Having duplicate content on-site: If you syndicate content from different areas of the internet or if you simply plagiarize, you cannot really be penalized. But if you have two exact pages of matching content on your website, search engines will take notice and might penalize your website. This measure makes sense because even though search engines cannot really decide who originated a certain piece of content, they definitely keep track of content on your website.

2. Keyword stuffing in title tag, keyword tag and content: If you use a high keyword density i.e. 10% or more, you can expect Google to penalize you. As long as the sentence reads naturally, it is fine. But if you use your keywords 10 times in the same sentence, you will definitely set off red flags.

3. Linking to bad neighborhoods: Bad neighborhoods are websites which contain duplicate content, are junk websites or are simply link farms which add no value (other than links). Even though you get penalized to a lesser extent if you have a lot of crappy links pointing to you, you can suffer major penalties if you link out to other bad neighborhoods. Make sure you check who you link out to in advance, it can save you a lot of hassle later.

4. Using only 1 anchor text in link building: Try building 10,000 inbound links to your website in a relatively short period of time using the same keywords. What you will experience is that your website ranks near the top of Google, stays there for 2-3 weeks and then vanishes. Although you are not de-indexed, you will be facing a Google filter, activated to stop spammy and automated link building.

Make sure you stay away from such measures if you want your website to provide you dividends for a long time to come. Risky SEO might provide a good short-term return, but definitely crash and burn.