Worst SEO mistakes you've made?

**Learning Newbie** · 02-15-2007, 08:41 PM

So as not to embarrass anyone, I'll start first.

After a night of drinking wine by the fire and making well laid plans, I felt really smart and inspired, and bought a domain name and hosting account. Only, I made a typo in the domain name. For a minute this was proof of our success and our bright futures, but then the next morning I realized why nobody had taken that domain!

Your turn. The goal here isn't to make us laugh, it's to point out things we should try not to do. What's the best web mistake you've learned from?

**Kirtan** · 02-15-2007, 08:50 PM

This...
htttp://www.gx-affordable-web-design-and-hosting-services.com
domain was the BEST mistake i have made so far. Considered as having keywords in url is super important and bought that domain and start doing SEO. Achieved #1 in MSN and about #20 in Yahoo. ****! I am no more promoting that domain and fwding it to another mistakenly bought domain.

**overdrive** · 02-15-2007, 10:45 PM

I started to drink one night and figured I would do a little seo until the alcohol kicked in. Well after a few more drinks I started to mispell everything and take out all the titles of pages because I had no idea what I was doing at that point. Needless to say, by the time I was done, I had lost 12 pages and most of my titles were mispelled. The biggest thing was that google crawled my site the next day and took the misspellings. It was fun getting that back into the right order!

**ADAM Web Design** · 02-16-2007, 12:05 AM

Worst mistake I've ever made? That's a tough one. I'd honestly have to say the worst mistake I ever made was in assuming two SEs were right and one was wrong when I had a site that ranked #1 for a keyphrase in both MSN and Yahoo!, but #64 in Google. Took me six months to realize that the site was struggling in Google because of the way I had coded it at the time. I more or less fixed it up (as well as I could at the time) and it has been fine in terms of ranking since.

Could I improve it? Yeah, I could. Absolutely. But I'll do that when I have to. Right now, I don't.

**overdrive** · 02-16-2007, 07:34 AM

Been there and done that, isnt it so fun dealing with the big three!

**David Eaves** · 02-16-2007, 08:47 PM

Setting up a blogger blog and deciding to build up links to www.seoco.blogspot.com instead of http://seoco.blogspot.com and then trying to rectify it, the blog doesn't know weather it's coming or going, one minute it's on Google with the www. the next minute it disapears a few days/weeks later it will appear again without the www. - total balls up!

**bjornenki** · 02-19-2007, 04:47 AM

trying to implement SEO before really understanding it. lol

**mastermemei** · 02-19-2007, 07:23 AM

Getting mixed up with the categories when I'm submitting my site and blogs.

**Learning Newbie** · 02-19-2007, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bjornenki

trying to implement SEO before really understanding it. lol

Everyone else think about this for a minute. bjorneki has shared some valuable advice with us.

**chrishirst** · 02-19-2007, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bjornenki

trying to implement SEO before really understanding it. lol

May have been a tongue in cheek post but it is absolutely correct.

**Kirtan** · 02-19-2007, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bjornenki

trying to implement SEO before really understanding it. lol

Did the same mistake in choosing domain name.But after reading "7 Days(?) to Traffic" newsletter.

**MysteryLeo** · 03-12-2007, 03:36 AM

submitting to directories. what a waste of time. and i think it hurt my yahoo rankings

**princess06** · 03-13-2007, 11:41 AM

submitted too much in article and press release directories which cause my back links to suddenly increase too much... it affected my SERPs.

**willcode4beer** · 03-14-2007, 03:10 PM

The worst SEO mistake I've made is worrying about SEO instead of creating more content.

**Learning Newbie** · 03-14-2007, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MysteryLeo

submitting to directories. what a waste of time. and i think it hurt my yahoo rankings

Can you expand on this? How do directory submissions hurt Yahoo rank?

**Learning Newbie** · 03-14-2007, 04:47 PM

Another mistake: hiring this guy to do free "copyedditing."

( It's actually a pretty funny parody site making fun of Craigslist. )

**unlisted80** · 03-15-2007, 01:21 AM

wow..a lot people make mistake..what happen? .. so far i haven't make any mistake yet

**taketherisk** · 03-15-2007, 03:58 AM

Well it was long time ago but i used iframes... *laughs at self*.
Oh and submitting to directories

Nothing dramatic.