What are the biggest SEO myths?
As one consultancy puts it...
-- Quote
The world of search engine optimisation (SEO) is filled with mythology and misinformation.
Because it is an entirely online industry, it has one of the most active web communities. This includes forums, blogs and online debate but also endless badly-written articles, misleading guides and just plain lies.
-- /Quote
http://econsultancy.com/blog/2994-5-most-annoying-seo-myths
There are interesting lists of myths on some well-respected SEO expert sites...
http://searchengineland.com/top-ten-organic-seo-myths-12052
http://isedb.com/20100506-3583.php
http://searchengineland.com/36-seo-myths-that-wont-die-but-need-to-40076
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/some-opinions-on-the-seo-myths-realities-fight
Some of these myths, if they are indeed myths, are also common beliefs in the Mahalo community and some are even enshrined in Mahalo policies.
Some of the things said to be myths in the articles above include:
- It is important to update pages frequently
- It is important for pages to have 250 words
- Quality of content is the most important thing
- Link-building efforts are critical
I'm no expert but what these articles say certainly fits with what I've observed on Mahalo and on other sites.
What do you think are the biggest SEO myths, and why?
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M$11 Answers
That said, and at this moment, you only need to do your SEO for Google considering the Market share they have. The best SEO practices may differ from one search engine to another but all in all they have something in common. If you do your SEO well for Google it is most likely that you will also rank well on other search engines. Here is one source that I recommend reading. Pay particular attention to the two guides that are provided by Google on this page. This is all you need to know about SEO, well at least 85% of it :)
SEO For Dummies
To answer some of what you mentioned:
- It is important to update pages frequently - Myth. There is no need to update pages frequently. What you need is a posting frequency that is consistent. Articles should be relevant, well written and unique and if at all possible keyword optimized. Obviously, if you do not update at all, you are bound to be overtaken by those who do.
- It is important for pages to have 250 words - Opps. There goes Twitter :)
- Quality of content is the most important thing - It is important but not the only thing. This is one of those myths as I have mentioned above.
- Link-building efforts are critical - Not a Myth. Search engines judges a websites reputation by the number of "quality" and "relevant" inbound links. These are like votes towards your website and the more quality "inbound links" (backlinks) you have the better.
Personal experience and a lot of trial and errors, plus research
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M$A. SEO is all it takes for traffic and revenue
1. While SEO makes a url in top ranks in search, it doesn’t guarantee traffic and revenue.
SEO is the first step. Quality, updated content, value proposition, perceived image/branding are the next.
let’s name an website X.
Even if website X is the top in SEO for a certain search term, if I clicked on it and found that it’s not updated (for e.g. current US president is Ronald Reagan) or lack of quality (for e.g. lack of content, no reference, bad grammar etc..), I will not stay there (i.e. high bounce rate), for sure I won’t click on its ads.
If repeated occurrences of bad experience of website X, I may have formed an image about the website (i.e. brand of low quality, not updated etc..). In the future, I won’t even click on it even if it’s at #1 of PageRank.
2. SEO is not the only way for traffic and revenue now. Another way is through sharing, marketing (for e.g. Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg etc..)
Good quality, updated and useful contents are more likely to be shared.
As an analogy to product sales in a supermarket, SEO is like shelf position of a product, while it may help sales, quality/brand of the product is important factor on whether someone will really buy it.
B. There are proven SEO tactics that will always work the same.
1. Google’s PageRank/SEO in a way is a voting system to determine popularity, usefulness of a website. As peoples find ways to beat the system, Google has to keep it evolving, dynamic to uncover really good, popular website and incorporate new technologies (for e.g. video, social media etc..).
2. No SEO “experts” know for sure how PageRank works. Most are analysing through analytics.
They may not know all the parameters involved. This makes the analysis not robust and sometimes contradictory. It’s worsened by ever-changing and secretive PageRank method.
3. SEO tactics that worked in the past may not work now, that not worked in the past may work now.
For example, I ask in this question about Google Caffeine, the new Google indexing system.
Some of the insights provided by an SEO person on what may now be good SEO:
“fresh, unique and caffeine friendly content websites over stale and excessively linked content websites”,
“keep on building links to your website around the theme and work on adding new content to the website”,
“Social Media Links would get you some express link popularity”.
Hope this helps.
website in text, usage experience
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M$
I would think these two myths are the mothers of other myths.
Peoples first believe “SEO is the most important”, then “SEO guys know how to do it” before committing $ to buy their SEO services and following religiously of what they say to boost SEO.
SEO guys have incentives to spread these two myths :-)
These are the most dangerous too as we may have subconsciously (including me) believing them without knowing it. I need to always remind myself: this and that SEO tactic is not conclusive, there are contradictory findings etc here and there..…
“SEO guys monitoring and answering SEO questions, putting their links on”, I see this too on my SEO question. Sometimes it happens after I tweet the question out. I’m OK if they provide quality content and friendly, helpful answers, otherwise I’ll help them to get negative publicity, haha.
For example, on the Google Caffeine question, the SEO guy just puts “LOL, then a link”.
I comment with a “thank” for his insights (the link does have some insights) and point to his company “great success story” of achieving 3rd page in PageRank :-)
I'm not sure anyone actually believes the things that you say are the biggest myths. :)
Still this is the most insightful of the answers given by a long way.
Most of the other answers are depressingly thin, some people used their answers to try to promote themselves rather than address the question, and they're all entirely lacking in evidence to back up their claims.
Typical SEO guys maybe? :D
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M$
someone who says they have all the answers is probably an idiot, but i don't think any of us are saying that. i agree that rules are always changing, for instance google search algorithm changes constantly and it's not made public, so a lot of this is just guesswork based on analytics.
The comment was not directed towards anyone here. Actually, I like this question as it makes peole think about SEO in a different way.
What works today won't work tomorrow, and if someone tells you they have a surefire SEO system that will boost your online revenue you can be pretty sure that person is lying. How can you be sure? Because that person is talking to you about SEO. You might as well ask, "Does my life insurance agent really like me as a person?" No of course not. And all these arrogant SEO 'experts' are in that same exact league. Actually, I think they might be a little lower on the food chain. You do need a license after all to sell life insurance, but any loudmouth with greasy haircut and a blog can act like he knows all about SEO.
Nobody knows what is going on right now with regard to writing and the internet. If someone did know, you can be sure they wouldn't be telling YOU about it--they'd be busily getting capital together to cash in themselves. Right now the internet is saturated with content of every kind--quality content and horrible content, content written and spun by computer programs, content that is duplicated a gazillion times over in a gazilion places. The problem is not, "How do I drive traffic to my content?" The problem is, "How do search engines and devices weed out content?"
If you find some search engine trick that works for awhile, rest assured 12 people in a foreign country will steal your content immediately and slap it up on a website that you can't trace to anyone, and by the time you file a complaint properly the content is no longer hot anyway. SEO is already a dinosaur concept. SEO is not the solution anymore, it's the problem.
What will likely happen IMO, and fairly soon too, is that new electronic devices like iPad will just start to filter out about 90% of the content currently on the web, and we'll have something similar to the days of paper publishing. That is, you can slap up whatever content you want, but it won't get read unless you sell it to a major publisher or corporate content provider, just like writers used to sell articles and stories to paper magazines.
iPad is already doing this, quietly, by making back end deals with content providers and weeding out lots of people like us right at the design level. Buyers don't mind because they don't WANT to see 90% of the junk on the net, they want something more like a virtual version of Barnes & Noble.
So I think big changes are coming, and coming fast. I wouldn't waste a dime or a minute on SEO advice right now. Position yourself as a WRITER not a marketer, and start making some good connections.
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M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
I have a little experience in SEO, with GREAT HIGH-RANKING results IN VERY COMPETITIVE KEYWORdS following this that are called "myths" in some of the articles you posted:
- provide good high quality pages&content
- update it daily because the topic requires it
- search partners of the same topic in order to provide to my visitors any other good info about what they are search-ing -> the so called "link building"
In my opinion this 3 points are essential not only because worked with my site but also because I know that google have quality raters ;) or is this a myth too?
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M$
He didn't say he agreed with those things one way or the other. He said they were examples of what some authors called "myths" and asked you to provide your own examples of "myths", which you did not. By the way, I don't think anyone is denying that "quality" of content is important or that "link building" is important. The question, I believe, is do they deserve as much hype as they get, and the point is that no one knows for sure what algorithm is used by Google (and/ or other search engines).
