1. Don’t Deceive Your Users – Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. The practice of presenting different content or URLs to users and search engines is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”

2. Don’t Deceive Search Engines – Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”

3. Don’t Participate in Link Schemes – Everybody knows that links play a big role in ranking your site in search engines. What everybody doesn’t necessarily know is that the quality and relevance of links count much higher than the quantity of links. Participating in link schemes can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results.

4. Don’t have Duplicate Content – Creating multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantial duplicate content can result in a drop in rankings or even removal from a search engine’s index.

5. Don’t Keyword Stuff – Keyword Stuffing refers to loading a web page with keywords in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in search results. Typically, keyword stuffing will be found in lists or paragraphs of keywords, hidden text, hidden in title tags or alt tags. This practice results in a negative user experience and can harm your site’s ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.