I came upon this old article from June, 2000 and found it interesting to recall what the issues were back then. The article was from my old newsletter - archived at http://www.leaderspost.com

10 Ways To Rank Poorly in Search Engines

1: Repeat submission - Submitting too often can be worse than
not submitting often enough. If you do submit too
frequently, your page will be penalized and it may be
kicked out entirely.

2: Repeat keywords - Too many repetitions of your keywords are
seen as spam by search engines and can cause your site to rank
lower or be banned.

3: Too many keywords - Some search engines now look for
"themes" when ranking a site. If you try to be "all things to
all people" the strength of the really important words will be
diluted and you won't rank well for anything.

4: Tiny text - It used to work but now will hurt you more than
help you.

5: Same color text and background - It used to work as well but
now will get your site banned.

6: Database driven sites - Search engines can't follow the "?"
marks in the URL

7: Submitting too many pages - Can be seen as spam by some
search engines. Just submit the pages from the major sections of
your site and not every page in your site. The search engines
send out spiders for that.

8: Incorrect use of Frames - Search engines can't follow
frames, so make sure your designer uses the <noframes> tag

9: Using Flash on your default page - Flash is cool if you have
a high speed internet connection but the search engines can't
watch movies - they need text in order to index your site.

10: Fast Meta Refresh - Some use this trick when using
"doorway" pages. Search engines are on to this trick too.

WOW! Was that really 7 years ago?