Which Outdated SEO Tactics Are Still Being Sold, and Why Do They Fail?

Last updated: 11 October 2026

If you run a business website, you have probably had this proposal land in your inbox. Fifty city pages, two hundred directory submissions, ten guest posts on sites that exist only to sell guest posts, and a fresh exact-match domain to point it all at. The price is attractive. The plan is from 2012.

Here is the short answer. Most tactics that once moved rankings quickly are now named, in plain words, in Google’s spam policies, and the systems that catch them are automated. At best they get ignored. At worst they drag the whole site down, and cleaning up costs more than the tactic ever earned.

Key facts

• Google’s Search Central blog announced three new spam policies on 5 March 2024: expired domain abuse, scaled content abuse and site reputation abuse.
• Google said on 26 April 2024 that its March 2024 changes cut low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 45%, against the 40% it had expected.
• Google’s Search Central blog said on 19 November 2024 that no amount of first-party involvement or oversight makes third-party content acceptable if it is placed to exploit the host site’s ranking signals.
• Google’s December 2022 link spam update announcement said SpamBrain can detect both sites buying links and sites used to pass outgoing links, and neutralises those links.
• Google’s spam policies page, last updated 28 August 2026, lists low-quality directory or bookmark site links as an example of link spam.
• Google confirmed in September 2009 that it does not use the keywords meta tag in web search ranking.

This article goes through the tactics we still see in proposals and on sites we inherit: keyword stuffing, bought links and private blog networks, exact-match and expired domains, city doorway pages, mass-produced content and rented space on big sites. For each one you get what Google’s own policy says, why it stopped working, and what replaced it.

Why are tactics from ten years ago still being sold?

They are still sold because they are cheap to deliver and easy to count. Two hundred directory links fit nicely in a monthly report. A useful page that earns three good links does not look as impressive on paper, even though it does far more.

There is also a lag problem. Many of these tactics did work once, and some still produce a short bump before Google’s systems catch up. That bump is what gets screenshotted in sales decks.

The rules are not hidden. Google publishes its spam policies for Google Search, and the page names almost every tactic in this article by name. Sites that break them, in Google’s words, “may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all.” If a proposal includes something on that list, ask the seller to explain why it is safe. Most can’t.

Does keyword stuffing still work in any form?

No. Google defines keyword stuffing as filling a page with keywords or numbers “in an attempt to manipulate rankings”, and one of its own examples is a block of text listing the cities and regions a page wants to rank for. That is exactly the footer we still find on trade websites every week.

The quieter version is the keywords meta tag. Google said back in September 2009 that it does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking. We still find plugins filling it in, and still see audits that count it as a missing item.

What replaced stuffing is boring but it works. Write for the question the searcher actually has, use the words your customers use, cover the related points a good answer needs, and stop. If a sentence only exists to fit a phrase in, cut it.

Do bought links, PBNs and link exchanges still pass value?

Mostly they pass nothing, and you are paying for nothing. Google’s link spam rules cover buying or selling links for ranking, excessive link exchanges, automated link building, and low-quality directory or bookmark links. Private blog networks are simply bought links with extra steps.

The bigger change is how Google handles them. In its December 2022 link spam update, Google said SpamBrain could now detect both sites buying links and sites used to pass outgoing links, and neutralise them. In practice that means the links often stop counting without any warning. You keep paying, the report keeps showing new links, and the rankings never move.

Our honest view: a manual action is the rarer outcome. The common one is wasted money and a backlink profile that makes any future clean-up harder. We wrote more on that in how past SEO work can still hold a site back.

What replaced it is earning mentions: original data, useful tools, expert quotes for journalists, and real partnerships. Our outreach work is built around pages that deserve a link before anyone asks for one.

Is an exact-match or expired domain still a shortcut?

An exact-match domain gives you a memorable name and nothing else. Google reduced the advantage of low-quality exact-match domains in 2012, and a name like best-cheap-plumber-london.com now mostly looks less trustworthy to a human than a real brand would.

Expired domains are the more dangerous version. In March 2024 Google created a policy specifically for expired domain abuse: buying an expired domain and repurposing it “primarily to manipulate search rankings by hosting content that provides little to no value to users.” Google’s examples include affiliate content on a former government agency site and casino content on a former primary school site.

Buying an old domain is not banned in itself. Buying one for its links, then pointing it at your money site or filling it with thin pages, is the tactic the policy describes. If you inherit a domain through a real merger or rebrand, redirect it properly and keep the content relevant.

What is wrong with a page for every town you serve?

Nothing, if each page is genuinely different. The problem is fifty pages that swap the town name and keep the rest. Google’s doorway abuse policy names “multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page” as an example.

We see this most with service businesses: plumbers, solicitors, cleaners, clinics. The pages get indexed, sit on page three, and dilute the site. Sometimes Google just picks one and ignores the rest.

What replaced it is fewer, better local pages. A page for a town earns its place when it has something only that town needs: real projects completed there, local regulations, a team member based nearby, reviews from local customers, travel times, photos. If you cannot write three paragraphs that would not fit any other town, you do not need that page. Our local SEO service usually starts by merging these pages rather than adding more.

Can you still publish content at scale with AI or spinning tools?

You can publish it, but volume for its own sake is now a named policy breach. Google’s scaled content abuse policy covers “many pages generated for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings and not helping users”, and it explicitly includes scraping and rewriting through “synonymizing, translating, or other obfuscation techniques”. Article spinning, in other words, is listed by name.

The policy says “no matter how it’s created”, and that cuts both ways. Google’s February 2023 guidance on AI content says appropriate use of AI or automation is not against its guidelines. The method is not the problem. A thousand pages nobody needed is the problem.

The results of enforcing this were large. Google said on 26 April 2024 that the March changes produced 45% less low-quality, unoriginal content in results, more than the 40% it had predicted.

What replaced it is a smaller content plan with something new in every piece: your own figures, your own process, a real customer question answered properly. Our content marketing work starts from what buyers ask, not from a keyword list.

Is paying for a page on a big website still worth it?

Not when the point is to borrow that site’s rankings. This tactic, often sold as parasite SEO, places third-party pages on a strong domain, such as coupon or casino reviews on a news site. Google’s site reputation abuse policy took effect on 5 May 2024 to stop it.

Some sellers then argued that their pages were fine because the host site edited or approved them. Google closed that gap in a November 2024 update to its site reputation abuse policy, saying the content breaks the policy “regardless of whether there is first-party involvement or oversight of the content.”

Genuine sponsored content, guest columns from real experts and advertorials are still fine when they are labelled and links are marked as sponsored or nofollow. Paying to rank on someone else’s reputation is not.

How do you check whether your site still carries old tactics?

Start with what Google can already see. Check Search Console for manual actions, then look at your backlink profile for paid placements, networks of similar sites and old directory links. Then crawl the site for near-duplicate location pages, thin tag and archive pages, and footer keyword blocks.

Look at traffic history next to Google’s update dates. A drop that lines up with a spam or core update is a strong clue. Our guide to the signs that a site has been hit by a Google penalty covers what to look for.

Then decide what to fix first. Removing or merging weak pages and disavowing links you paid for usually comes before building anything new. It feels like going backwards. In our experience it is often what lets the good work finally show.

If a proposal on your desk includes any tactic from the table above, ask how it fits Google’s published spam policies. If the answer is vague, walk away.

If you suspect your site already carries some of this history, start with an honest look at your links, your location pages and your thinnest content before spending on anything new. An independent SEO audit is the cheapest way to find out what is holding the site back and what to clear first.

About the author

Shabir MS leads SEOValley Solutions and has worked in search since 2005. These days most of his time goes on how brands show up in AI answers, and on separating what the data actually shows from what gets said at conferences. Read more from Shabir MS.

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