There are plenty of examples of good SEO, but what about those examples where companies have clearly gone too far in the wrong direction? While doing some competitor research over the weekend I came across some obviously bad SEO, which even has the potential to get the client a google penalty. This site clearly has had someone do some onpage SEO because nested in the footer, you can see the following code :
<div class="footer-seo"> many links </div>
The site in question is HarleyMedical.ie has a really nice design and decent navigation, site structure.
above the fold view
But let’s have a look at the full page view:
full page view (click to view)
There seems to be some large port of text at the bottom of the main page. The big worry is that they have have over 280 links on their home page. And on the sub-pages it averages closer to 160 links per page.
These links are clearly targeting keywords and it doesn’t appear that they are using them as a navigational aid. We all know links are important. Of course you should link to your some of your more important internal content from the home page, but basically having a keyword stuff sitemap at the bottom of the page really won’t help you rankings. In fact it could possibly have negative effects.
Here is a zoom in on those famous links:
200+ links in the footer
Currently it doesn’t seem like they have a penalty from google, they are ranking well for [cosmetic surgery] on google.ie and some other terms. Also they have around 150 pages in the index. We would see this SEO tactic as “high risk SEO” which would have the potential to have a domain banned from google.
A further SEO look
As for off page SEO , HarleyMedical doesn’t have many links, but they have gone the route of submitting some “basic press releases“. These types of links can be helpful for new websites, but what you really need is some good, relevant, trustable links.
There is also a potential issue with having similar content on their .co.uk domain, and it does appear that at least one other domain has taken a copy of their content as well.
And one final tip, fix the canonical URL issue 
5.11.2009
Hey Paul, I had a quick look at that site and I disagree with your analysis.
While I personally might have a different design/seo approach I don’t think it’s fair to highlight this site as “bad SEO”.
I don’t see anything that you’ve pointed to being deserving of a penalty, and I wonder if the div did not have seo (or even footer maybe) in the classname and the content was styled differently would you still have felt this was “bad”.
Google says you should use keywords “appropriately and in context” and avoid “lists or paragraphs of keywords, often randomly repeated”.
The site is using keywords presented in relevant content in an explanatory way which leads to further information about the item.
The site is ranking fairly well for some random phrases I tested, as you yourself point out.
If this was my site, I would be upset that you had written this unsolicited review and said that it might be deserving of a penalty. This is not to take away from your right to state your opinion of course.
I still owe you lunch, let me know when you’re about next
5.12.2009
Hi Frank,
Thanks for stopping by.
The links in the footer here are purely for SEO value, and not being used as a navigational aid. This also will take away from the user experience. You might say they are not there for a ‘normal’ user, but then in this case they should be simply left out.
I have dealt with sites, who were subjected to a penalty and (it’s my idea that) it was because of such tactics. In one case there was significantly less links in the footer, but they were done in such a way that it looked liked the user was again trying to target keywords.
As for the Google line on links, they recommend around 100 links per page [source].
Generally what happens in a penalty is that a number of flags are set off, and one of them could (and most like is) do with the number of links on a page.
The whole reason for posting this is to give an example of over SEO, and to highlight the possible dangers in it.
As for the review, I think it is important to highlight such features, as too often you hear what is ‘good seo’ , and it’s harder to come across bad examples. Either way I understand your point on it and I know where you are coming from.
Paul
P.S. -> as for lunch, will let you know ! Will be back for OCC on June 12th.
5.20.2009
Have to agree with you Paul. Its doesn’t look like a natural linking process, and their link profile is too strongly weighted towards link text. A natural link profile will have a mix of followed and no followed and link text which is not as obvious i.e. “click here”, and related keywords. that said, they are in a competitive market, and are probably lining Google’s pockets as well, along with the various other medicals out there that pay big dollars for PPC.
That’s the sceptic in me that says google tend not to bite the hand that feeds them.
5.20.2009
Hi Paul,
I really think that their SEO was overdone, and as you say not natural. These tactics may work right now, as with all SEO, it may not work over the long run.
1.9.2010
Brilliant article about google. I’m frankly stunned that it has not been said earlier to such a great length.