Search Engine Optimization is critical for the success of a website. Ignoring search engines and how they apply their rules can result in significant loss of traffic for your website. Plenty of words have been written about what to do for search engine optimization, but not that many words have been written about what mistakes to avoid when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. This article will show a few of the biggest mistakes to avoid when it comes to SEO.

1) Duplicate Content

Do not build websites that only offer duplicate content. Make sure your website has unique character and content. If you use content that has already been published on other websites make sure to add additional pieces to make it look more unique. In general your website should have at least 60% unique content to pass the duplicate content filter. The more unique content the better the site will be off.

2) Outgoing links

A single page should not carry too many outgoing links to other websites. The danger is pretty high that a website is considered a link farm if too many outgoing links are present. If all a website has to offer are outgoing links search engines might not see any value in that website and therefore give it a low ranking or even remove it from the index completely. A safe number is to have 10 or less outgoing links per page to avoid any problems (this is a "rather safe than sorry" approach).

3) Search Engine Submission Services

Do not use one of those search engine submission services that promises to register your site with thousands of search engines. This is considered search engine spamming and will result in penalty. If you do want to submit your website to search engines - do it manually. Even better - just link to your site from another one that is already frequently spidered and indexed by search engines. The search bots will then find your website anyway.