Darren Rowse is back at it again with yet another Group Writing Project. This time the theme is “Top 5…” posts. Write a post, get some free links, and maybe $1001.
So, here is a look at the top five biggest SEO myths I see people spread, and why they are wrong.
But they promised me top 10 results
I hate to admit it but I do think Jason Calacanis has something going with his “anti-SEO” attitude. There are very few SEOs out there that are ethical and don’t promise top results for every keyword in the book. Heck, if I got a penny for every time I see an Adwords ad that says “Get in the top 10 results with our SEO services” I’d be one rich nerd!
If you are thinking about hiring a search engine optimizer you better read everything on their site. If they promise “ultra results for any keywords” run away as quickly as possible. There are very few SEOs who can do that on a consistent basis, and even they get it wrong sometimes.
My page is 100% optimized
Back in the 90s you could get away with writing 50 words and get great rankings as a result, but nowadays things are a bit different. You can’t really say “you need x words to get high rankings” because search engines are so smart. They look at the whole picture: your titles, header tags, links, keywords, domain name, file names, etc.
No matter how optimized you think a page is, there is always something extra you can do.
I know PageRank is 99% of the Google Algorithm
As I said the other day, PageRank is an incredibly small part of the Google Algorithm. Don’t be too concerned with that 0-10 number.
The only time it is really important is if you sell text links or sell your site. Just like with Alexa data, people make PageRank seem like the perfect indicator of how good a website is, but in reality it is pretty worthless for most things.
Page titles are unimportant
Unimportant? Unimportant?!? They make all the difference in the world!
Page titles help the search bots rank your page, webmasters use them for anchor text, and your titles help your visitors know what your page is about. Page titles are probably more important than the actual content of your page, they are the first thing your visitors see.
Just think about it for a second and you’ll understand what I mean.
I can spam my way to the top
Well.. I don’t know if this is technically a myth or not… Spamming can get really great results in a short amount of time (in days), but search bots are not stupid and 99% of the time they will pick up on it and punish your site’s rankings within a week or so.
I tend to think the Google bot (not sure about the other bots) has two stages. First it will take a really quick look at your brand new content, extract your keywords, and rank you right away. Your page could very well be ranked in the top 10 for a very popular phrase, but after a few hours your ranking will probably disappear.
I think the ranking disappears because the bot will come around once more, take a more in-depth look at your page and go “crap, this page sucks, why is it ranked so high?” or “wow, this page rocks!”. If the page sucks it will get tossed into the depths of Google hell, and if your page rocks it will keep its rankings for good.
Of course, if you’re in a heavily spammed niche (like the Viagra and herbal remedy niches) there is always spam sites in the top 10.
Please subscribe, or else I will cry. Do you really want to make a programmer cry?
May 8th, 2007 at 1:35 am
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May 8th, 2007 at 9:27 am
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May 8th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I learned something here today!
May 8th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
It is always good to hear from visitors when a post helps them out
May 8th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
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May 8th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
[…] Top Five Search Engine Optimization Myths […]
May 8th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Great tips to know..thanks!
May 8th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
You’re welcome
May 9th, 2007 at 8:18 am
[…] Top Five Search Engine Optimization Myths by Jeremy Steele […]
May 9th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Great tips. Thanks!
May 9th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
It is hard to believe that some people will do these things. Well, not really that hard, but that they are believing they are doing good by them.
May 9th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Well, SEO is a bit like science. 99% of it is guessing (or BS, depending on how you look at it lol)
May 10th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
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[…] Top Five Search Engine Optimization Myths - A list of some of the top SEO myths, a pretty popular post, mostly because I wrote it for ProBlogger’s group writing project. […]
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May 18th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Thanks for a good overview that is consistent with what I feel about the subject. You know, we hired one SEO company to promote us on Google with our highly competitive keywords. They had a great promotion texts… This ended up in their refunding our money - they did not understand the seriousness of our business and competition…
With PageRank - I was troubled as my sites went from 3 to 5 then again to 3 to 2 to 4. Not with multiple streams of marketing channels we are not so busy with that, but having 4 or 5 is always a good sign.
May 18th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Yeah, PageRank is pretty nuts at times.
This domain used to be a PR 5 during its peak a couple years ago, then I stopped working on it for a while (school and life got in the way), and now its a PR 3. One of my other blogs was a PR 4, then a PR 2 then a PR 3… darn Google can’t make up its mind heh.
Thanks for your input,
June 10th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
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June 18th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Thanks for the infos. It really helps.
btw, yeah spamming your way to the top maybe possible. You won’t anything here but time.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
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