Selling PageRank

Some sites have gone so far as to sell PageRank - i.e. selling links on highly ranked pages. You can sell links (i.e. advertising), but you cannot sell links for stated purpose of increasing Google Pagerank.

Doorway Pages

A few years back, doorway (or gateway) pages were as common as normal pages - these are usually small pages, crammed full of keywords, designed solely for purpose of gaining high rankings. They usually look awful and a site which uses a lot of doorway pages is likely to be penalised.

Excessive Cross-Linking

Some webmasters create multiple site, often with identical or similar content. They are then heavily linked together with sole purpose of increasing Pagerank. Not recommended. If you have several sites, inter-linking is fine, but in moderation as with all search engine marketing techniques.

Submitting multiple URL's from same site

An example would be for a webmaster to submit mysite.com and mysite.com/index.html to Google database, thereby essentially trying to get two search results for same page. If Google doesn't find a new site quickly anway, just submit your index page ONCE!

SEO Software

Don't use unauthorised computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate Google's terms of service. Google does not recommend use of products that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

If you follow these guidelines and steer clear of excessive search engine marketing techniques, you should be fine. Just remember to create a site with is faithful to product or service you are providing information on and you should be fine. Concentrate on exchanging quality links with similar sites and don't get too obsessed with your Google Pagerank. Quality, returning traffic is goal.

Both examples above are for major search terms around which a site is built. I have a page ranked #1 for "hairdresser", but don't expect Google to give my site a double listing. My site is not about hairdressers, it is about happiness.

What should you do if you want a double listing for your website?

1. Make sure your website is about a specific topic. "Things" is too broad, unless you want people searching for "things" to find you (And quite a few people actually do search for "things"!).

2. You might have been told to optimize each page of your site for different search terms. That is good advice. Each page should be optimized for exactly what page is about. But if your website as a whole is about a certain topic, make sure that most of it is optimized for that topic, too. Both your visitors and search engines will better understand what you are about. Make sure you have plenty of pages of content related to your main site theme.

3. Seek inbound links to several pages. Most webmasters make mistake of seeking links only to their home page and maybe to their newsletter sign-up page. I sell four ebooks and give away a free ebook. I have two newsletters and an online class. I have many topical articles and a couple funny photos. I seek links to anything I think people might enjoy, and that tells search engines my site has depth.

4. Notice a common thread in advice above. Content is king. If you have plenty good content, developed around a major theme, and webmasters want to link to it, double listings are very possible.

5. Don't over-expect. Google will give double listings only for major themes, not for all 1,476 search terms your site is listed for.

Why does Google give double listings? Who knows, but as a searcher I find it handy to see both home page and a highly-relevant deep link.

How long will Google keep giving double listings? Who knows, so this is just a caveat that they could change their policy day after this article is published.