Sometimes, it happens that despite all your efforts - including every possible keywords, omitting stop words, writing attractive content - you find your website or webpage at the bottom of SEO rankings (not even in the first 10 SERP).

When something like this happens, you should look out for poison words or forbidden words in your page title, meta description or meta title keywords. These are the words, which you should never include in your web page (be it its title or description) in order to enhance the SEO rankings of your website.

What are Poison Words or Forbidden words?

Poison Words is a special name given to some words or terms, which (if used in your website) create a doubt about your website among various search engines. So, if your website (its title or description) contains such words, then Search Engines would look at it with mistrust, suspicion and doubt.

So, these words do have an effect on the SEO rankings of your website. Plus, it is also  believed that these words effect the PR (Page Rank) of your website as well. And, that is why, it is advisable not to use these words in your website.

Effects of Poison Words on a website’s SEO rankings

Poison words are considered harmful for your website. It is believed that if your website (its title, meta description or title ) contains these words, then it will result in:

• Low page rank of your website.
• Low SEO rankings of your website.

Using these words would create a negative image of your website in the mind of Search Engines. Plus, a lot of experts also believe that using these words in your web pages, where google ads are displayed, would automatically stop your google ads.

The reason given is that these words result in low quality content of your website. And that is why, these words decrease your page rankings.

But there is one more small, but very important thing about Poison Words – They don’t kill the SEO rankings of your website, they just bury your web pages in SERP. So, your website, if contains poison words, will remain on SERP, but at a very low position.

Poison Words: Are they fake or myth?

There are plenty of  webmasters and SEO experts (well..they say they are) online, who firmly believe that these words are fake and have no effect whatsoever on a website’s SEO rankings. Some of them, even, have their own theories.

I would really not like to comment on their work. But I really do feel that Poison Words do exist – and of course, are not a myth. Google and other search engines are very biased in computing the Search Engine rankings of the websites.

For example, Google is a bit biased towards informational websites.

And, these days, Google is taking some strict actions to enhance its user experience.

For example, it has banned .co.cc websites and has also banned the use of Google Adsense on traffic exchange websites.

Moreover, these things are not just happening on Search Engines. A lot of other websites are also taking strict actions to control spamming.

For example, Hub pages won’t allow you to write about any traffic exchange website, or website suspicious in nature. It will automatically remove your post, and can also ban your account.

So, I personally feel that Poison Words do exist. Though, I can’t prove their existence,  as no one has a definite list of Poison Words or Forbidden words. After all, you can never know the inside secrets of Search Engines, can you ?

Do Poison Words really hurt a website’s SEO rankings?

Yes, I do think that poison words can be harmful to a website. Google and other Search Engines, do have an objection with certain words or phrases.

They feel that certain words or phrases can harm innocent users and, thus, should be dealt with properly. So, including these words, in your website, will certainly affect its SEO rankings.

But, I do feel that these words don’t have such a disastrous effect on your website’s SEO rankings. After all, searching for a poison keyword can show your website at the top of SERP. Right?

But, this doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. And I personally feel that this ban on Poison Words makes Internet, and Search Engines, a much better place for us.

Note: You must avoid fake list of Poison words, on various different websites. There is no specific list of Poison Words.

Thus, in order to avoid Poison words, make sure to provide only quality content on your website. Do not make false claims on your websites. Doing this would not just ensure higher SEO rankings of your website, but will also bring free traffic on it.