The world of Search Engine Optimization is complicated for many reasons. For example, it is well known that the Google algorithm takes into account more than 100 factors in ranking a web page. In addition, search engines treat their algorithms as highly proprietary for two main reasons: (1) they don’t want their competition to know what they are doing, and: (2) they don’t want web spammers to design sites to get rankings that they don’t deserve.

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Here are the top 10 worst SEO ideas, and an explanation as to why they don’t work.

1. Relying on keyword metatags:

Deserves the number 1 spot, simply because this stopped working 3 years ago. Search engines rely almost solely on user visible text on your site in order to determine its ranking. Text that is not user visible, such as the keyword metatags, stopped being significant years ago, because the Spammers made them abused them so badly. So take the top few keywords that your page is focused on, plug them in here, and then forget about it.

2. Stuff keywords in invisible text:

Definitely deserves the number 2 spot, because it can and will get your site banned. This includes text written in the same color as the background, or that is drawn way off the user visible page. These schemes are trivially recognized by search engines, and are treated as the act of a blatant Spammer. Don’t do it. Ever. Learn The Art of Keyword Selection.

3. Purchase Links:

This practice is still incredibly popular, largely because there are many people who get away with doing it, and it helps them with their rankings. The problem is that the it is in the strategic interest of the search engines to defeat this practice, and they are working hard to do so.

4. Horde Page Rank:

This is one of my favorites, because it’s one that most webmasters don’t understand yet. This is because it changed over the past year or two. The concept people have in their mind is that page rank is a key part of site rankings and linking to other sites “leaks page rank” from your site. However, the world has changed. Page rank is a minute factor in ranking these days. Establishing, and reinforcing, site relevance is a huge factor in your rankings. You can do this by linking to pages and sites that are relevant to yours. Do link to relevant content.

5. Swap Links:

Another oldie, but not goodie. Search engines want links to represent endorsements. Swapped links represent barter, and they are trivial to detect. Don’t swap links for the purpose of building page rank. It’s a waste of your time. However, do swap links with sites that are highly relevant to your business, if these sites would be valuable to your users. Building your relevance in ways that are good for visitors to your site is always good. Of course, if you can get these relevant sites to link to you without linking back, this is better still.

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