Google’s Webmaster Guidelines are Serious Business.

Chapter 3 covered these few topics.

Site Readiness

• Types of links

• Dynamic Page Optimization

• What are Doorway Pages /Cloaking

Types of links

One-way linking is when a random user posts a link to your site on their own page.  Reciprocal linking is when one user posts a link to your site, and you reciprocate and post a link to their site.  Triangular linking, a non-linear reciprocal type of linking,  is when three links are shared from three different sources.  Of course the link cannot be shared on their own site.  So think of passing the link to the right or left.  *Note* These practices have been recognized by Google, and they do not factor these linking practices into rank any longer.  

Dynamic Page Optimization

Dynamic pages are web pages that have their construction controlled by an application server.  Dynamic pages often require cookie data, session id, or a query string before the page can load.  If I understand what I read correctly, then the page changes from user to user (hence the term: dynamic).  Many search engines cannot read dynamic pages though.  If I were going to create a page, I would avoid this.  It’s not search engine friendly.  Although it is visitor friendly, we need it to be friendly to both the user and the search engine.  

What are Doorway Pages/Cloaking

Cloaking refers to when a webmaster creates one page for the search engine crawlers that index your page and determine your rank and then a separate page for everyone else.  Cloaking is the act of offering different versions of your site based on either agent name or IP address.  These techniques are also not encouraged.  Google understands when it’s being tricked and does not rank these sites.  The reason many people began using cloaking though was because their pages used either flash/splash/videos or other types of sites that cannot be crawled.  Therefore, they will not rank.  The ethics of whether or not these practices are ethical is still up for debate.  Again, this is another practice I would avoid.  Doorway pages are similar to cloaking, but these are gateway/bridge pages.  These type of pages are sometimes referred to as portal pages, jump pages, gateway pages, and entry pages.  These pages are usually optimized for specific keywords or phrases.  Their sole purpose is to rank high.  This is another practice that Google frowns upon.  

To ensure you do not violate any Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, please visit this link here.