It is important to keep in mind as you go through creating your website that you be sure to keep in mind how your onsite content can affect the optimization of your sites performance in Google’s search engine. On-site is essentially any content on the website or webpage itself. 33% of Google’s search engine algorithm for determining a websites or webpages authority and page rank is based off a site’s or page’s onsite content. Content that can potentially damage your websites ranking can include duplicate text content, invisible assets, cloaking or redirecting, keyword stuffing, and links to websites/webpages with bad content.
Duplicate text content can occur on a website when the same text content appears at different URLs, often when multiple versions of the same page exists for one reason or another. This can include URL Parameters, Printer-Friendly versions of the same page, and session IDs (generated for each user who visits the page in question) among other possible sources (Moz, n.d.)
Keyword stuffing is an SEO technique where the keyword is repeated in the webpage body text very often to make the webpage or website seem more relevant to that keyword or topic. However, Google’s analytics are aware of this and can check the page for how often a keyword is used. If this is found then it will generally decrease the authority of the webpage for that keyword.
Another form of onsite content that can have a negative impact on your website’s page rank and authority is cloaking. Cloaking is a form of SEO in which there is different content accessible and viewable for search engine bots and most average viewers of content cannot see it. This can hide content that someone wants the user, but not a bot to see (for example illegal content) (Smarty, 2008).
Any links that you have on your website/webpage that go off site can also affect how your page ranks. If there is a link on your website to any website that is hosting illegal or shady content (gambling, adult content. etc.) then your webpage is likely to lose ranking on Google because of the untrustworthy links.
References:
“What Is Duplicate Content?” Moz. Moz, n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2016. <https://moz.com/learn/seo/duplicate-content>.
Smarty, Ann. “What Is Cloaking & Is All Cloaking Evil?” Search Engine Journal. Search Engine Journal, 05 Sept. 2008. Web. 18 Dec. 2016. <https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-cloaking/7596/>.