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Many people will do anything do get on Google's first result page. That's why some webmasters regularly come up with new spam methods to get on Google's first result page.

Phillip Lenssen recently reported two new methods that might be used by some people to get top 10 listings on Google.

Spam trick 1: Get higher rankings in Google's local results

It seems to help if the address of a business is close to the city center or the main station. If a business gets a post box close to these locations and submits that address to Google Maps, it will be listed higher in the local results on Google.

As the local results are usually displayed above the regular listings in Google, this could be a way to get many clicks.

Spam trick 2: Get higher rankings in Google's regular results

This trick is somewhat hard to believe. It seems that some webmasters hire cheap Chinese workers to get higher rankings on Google. As strange as it sounds, these webmasters pay couriers on bikes to drive to various Internet cafes, search for their keywords and then click on the listing of the webmaster's site.

Over time, the listings go up. Actually, Google does have a click tracker in the result URLs. Until now, it had been unclear for what purpose Google uses this tracker. If this story is true, Google might use the number of clicks that a listing gets to determine the ranking of a web page.

Will these methods work for your website?

The local search trick might work but it will probably be difficult for most webmasters to hire an army of Chinese bike couriers. In general, you shouldn't use spam techniques at all. So far, Google has detected all spam methods sooner or later.

Websites with spam techniques are usually banned from Google's index. You might get a small advantage for some time with some spam techniques but you're risking all rankings of your website.

The difference between spammy SEO methods and ethical SEO methods

If you use spammy SEO methods, you will quickly get high rankings on search engines. Unfortunately, Google will completely remove your website from the search results as soon as they find out that you use these methods:

If you use ethical SEO methods, it will take longer until you get high search engine rankings. However, your rankings will grow steadily and you'll get a much better performance in the long run:

Do not use spammy SEO methods to increase your rankings on Google. It will backfire on you.

If you want to get high rankings on Google, you should make sure that your web pages can easily be parsed by Google's robot. You must make sure that your web pages have been optimized for the right keywords and that enough other websites link to your site.

A discussion in an online webmaster forum indicates that Google might have invented a new ranking penalty for websites that rank well for popular search terms.

What has happened?

During the last few weeks, some webmasters noticed that some of their long term position 1 or position 2 rankings in Google suddenly ranked at position 6.

The problem affected well established websites with a long history. The dropped web pages had long time rankings for popular search terms, usually on position 1.

Why has Google done this?

It is not exactly clear yet which factors cause that ranking drop in Google's results. There are two theories:

1. Google now considers usage data when calculating the rankings.
2. Google now has a better understanding of word and phrase relationships.

If different usage data is the reason for the change then web pages with a higher click-through rate would get higher positions. However, some webmasters reported that even web pages with high click through rates have been downranked.

The penalty also seems to affect web pages that are listed with an appealing title and a description that is very relevant to the search term so it might be that the click-rate is not taken into account.

We think that it's more likely that the word and phrase relationships are the reason for the ranking drops. It seems that web pages with too many inbound links using exactly the searched keyword as the anchor text were affected by the filter.

If the link to a special web page always uses exactly the same anchor text then the word variety is probably extremely low compared to the competing websites in the top results. That indicates a manipulation of the anchor texts and Google applies the filter.

What can you do to avoid that filter?

When you build links to your website, make sure that you use different but related keywords for the links to your site. If you overuse the same link text, Google might discover a manipulation.

This month, the Google Webmaster blog published an article in which Google's Maile Ohye officially explained what it takes to get a high ranking in Google's search result pages.

Inbound links are important but content is even more important

Google's Maile Ohye writes the following about inbound links in his article:

"Inbound links are links from pages on external sites linking back to your site. Inbound links can bring new users to your site, and when the links are merit-based and freely-volunteered as an editorial choice, they're also one of the positive signals to Google about your site's importance."

Nothing new here. If many related websites link to your site, and if these links look natural, this will help you rankings on Google a lot.

However, links are not the most important ranking factor. Maile Ohye gives a concrete example:

"Let's say I have a site, example.com, that offers users a variety of unique website templates and design tips. One of the strongest ranking factors is my site's content. Additionally, perhaps my site is also linked from three sources -- however, one inbound link is from a spammy site.

As far as Google is concerned, we want only the two quality inbound links to contribute to the PageRank signal in our ranking. "

The website's content is mentioned as one of the strongest ranking factors. The inbound links are additional. That makes sense. The content of your website tells Google what your website is about.

If you want to get a high ranking for the keyword "used cars in dallas" but your web pages are about microwave ovens then you won't get high rankings for that keyword.

For that reason, it is very important that you optimize your web pages for the keywords for which you want to get high rankings before you try to get links from other sites.

Google analyzes over 200 ranking factors

According to the article in Google's blog, Google analyzes more than 200 signals (we call them 'ranking factors') to specify the position of a web page in the search results:

"Given the user's query, over 200 signals (including the analysis of the site's content and inbound links as mentioned above) are applied to return the most relevant results to the user."

It's a simple two-step process

Getting high rankings on Google is a simple two-step process:

1. You must optimize your web page contents so that Google can find out what your website is about. Optimize your web pages for your keywords so that Google knows that your website is relevant to these keywords and your topic.
   
   
2. Other websites must confirm that your website is about that topic. That's what inbound links are for.

It's as simple as that. If your website passes Google's analysis of all ranking factors, it will get a top 10 ranking.