We can always learn from the mistakes of others. There are always lessons to be learned. Here are a few mistakes and pitfalls that others have made with search engine optimization with their websites.

In February 2011 Overstock.com was penalized by the search engine giant Google for unethical gaming. Overstock offered discounts to college faculty members and students if they linked their .edu pages to Overstock’s website. Since educational pages generally don’t link to commercial sites they had higher ranked links with search engines.

Google found out about Overstock. com’s tactic and quickly shut it down. While it initially did make it a top option on Google, it now isn’t shown on Google for most searches for at least a few pages because of its penalization. Google has changed their tactics to have strict penalties for companies, services, and websites who try to artificially up their results through unethical SEO techniques.

Unethical SEO practices are generally referred to as “gaming”. Gaming is not a new concept to search engines like Google. Most of these sites were thought to just be spam sites.

We now know that even big-name companies can be caught in the trap of gaming tactics. Google recently slammed J.C. Penney for using unethical SEO tactics. J.C. Penney was involved in a black hat link farm, which allows them to bump their rankings quickly using links.

J.C. Penney, for example, was recently called out for their SEO gaming techniques. They used black hat link farm techniques to get ahead of their competition on search engines. Link farms are designed so all links on the page hyperlink to the rest of the sites of the group, thus upping their link usage.

Link farms are a form of spam. Link farms connect and form a lot of links that are unrelated, and there are usually a long list of links to go with it. While it initially boosts up the site’s rankings, when they are found they are quickly banned off of search engines completely.

Hearing these stories can help us know the importance of using and finding the right Boise SEO company. Choosing a company that has ethical and professional standards can help you and your company from falling in to pitfalls like Overstock.com and J.C. Penny ran in to. Taking the time to thoroughly investigate your company can save you from having to work with a company who uses underhanded SEO techniques.