I love SEO. I love talking about SEO. Most non-SEO folk you talk to are generally very nice people. They may not understand everything you say, but they often nod their head and smile. The open-minded may even ask you to look at their site.
On the other hand, there's the non-SEO "expert" (loosely defined as someone who has a cousin in marketing) who represents a different beast altogether. Well intentioned but misinformed, they believe SEO is urban legend, no better than a Ponzi scheme.
Here's what I have to say to a few of the worst offenders.
1. SEO is a scam
What the friggin' what?
The above screenshot of organic traffic to Moz's own website shows the kind of success many strive for, but it is neither unusual or unattainable for folks that consistently invest in SEO as a marketing strategy.
Sadly, many business owners have been approached by less-than-ethical marketing vendors who promise SEO services but basically deliver nothing. If you are paying $49/month to a service that promises you top rankings in Google, it is almost certainly a scam.
That's not SEO.
Perhaps this most harmful of myths stems from those seeking quick and easy wins with little effort. Indeed, there are cases of SEO wins that meet these criteria, typically when a site has easily correctable technical problems. In other cases, SEO involves real effort and commitment which often pays additional rewards beyond the increase in traffic.
2. Google will figure it out
No. No they friggin' won't.
Here's what many webmasters see far too often when they trust search engines to do their SEO for them.
The temptation of many website owners and developers is to throw as many URLs as possible—sometimes millions—at Google's crawlers and pray that their mysterious algorithms will magically deliver these pages to valuable users. Alternatively, even sites with a handful of pages expect search engines to do all the heavy lifting.
Google is smart, but not magic.
What's forgotten in this equation is that Google and other search engines strive to mimic human behavior in evaluating content (and no human wants to sort through a million near-duplicate pages) and use human generated signals (such as links and engagement metrics) to crawl and rank results.
Every page delivered in search results should be unique, valuable, and more often than not contain technical clues to help search engines sort them from the billions of possible pages on the web. Without these qualities, search marketing is a game of chance that almost always loses.
3. We did SEO once
Congratulations. Buy yourself a cookie.
It's sad to see organic search traffic fall over time, but all too often that's exactly what happens when no effort is applied. Continually maintaining your SEO efforts is essential because of:
- Link degradation (a.k.a. link rot)
- Publishing new pages
- Evolving search engine algorithms
- The competition moving ahead of you
- Outdated content
- ...and more
For a small minority of sites, SEO doesn't need continual investment. My father-in-law's auto shop is a perfect example. He has more business than he needs, and as long as folks find him when searching for "Helfer Auto" he's happy. In this case, simply monitoring your SEO with the addition of a deeper dive 2-3 times per year may be sufficient.
For the rest of us, one-and-done SEO falls short.
4. Link building is dead (again)
Sigh.
Recently the SEO world got worked up when Google's John Mueller stated link building is something he'd "try to avoid."
Many misinterpreted this to mean that link building is bad, against the rules, and Google will penalize you for it.
In fact, nothing has changed that the fact that search engines use link authority and anchor text signals heavily in their search ranking algorithms. Or that white-hat link building is a completely legitimate and time-tested marketing practice.
Weighting the Clusters of Ranking Factors in Google's Algorithm by Rand Fishkin
I'm certain John was referring to the more manipulative type of link building, no doubt encountered frequently at Google. To be fair, this type of non-relevant, scaled approach to links should be avoided at all costs, and search engines have taken great strides to algorithmically detect and punish this behavior.
Marketers build links in a number of natural ways, and attracting links to your website remains darn-near essential for any successful SEO undertaking. If you need help, we write about it frequently.
5. I want to rank #1 for "magic keyword"
No. No you friggin' don't.
Look, here's a personal example. I really want to rank #1 for "SEO" because Moz offers SEO software. Because of our Beginner's Guide to SEO. Because SEO is our lifeblood.
But we don't, and it doesn't matter.
Moz typically ranks #2-3 for "SEO". It sends good traffic, but not nearly as good as the thousands of long-tail keywords with more focused intent. In fact, if you went through our entire keyword set, you would find that "SEO" by itself only sends a tiny fraction of our entire traffic, and we could easily survive without it.
The truth is, when you create solid content focused around topics, you almost always receive far more (and oftentimes better) traffic from long-tail keywords that you didn't try to rank for.
The magic happens when visits reach your site because the content matched thier needs, but not necessarily when you matched the right keywords.
6. Google hates SEO
Some days, it feels that way.
In truth, Google's relationship with SEO is much more nuanced.
- Google readily states that SEO can "potentially improve your site and save time" and that many SEO agencies "provide useful services." Google even advises "If you're thinking about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better."
- Google published their own SEO Starter Guide. While a bit out of date, it certainly encourages people to take advantage of SEO techniques to improve search visibility.
- Google Analytics offers a series of SEO Reports. Keep in mind, these are almost laughably unusable due to the handicapped data quality.
While Google seems to encourage search engine optimization, it almost certainly hates manipulative SEO. The type of SEO meant to trick search engines into believing false popularity and relevancy signals in order to rank content higher.
In fact, many of the myths in the post boil down to some folks' inability to distinguish between hard-working SEO and search engine spam. Which leads us to:
7. SEO is dead, because Google Answers
It's scary for SEOs when we ask Google a question and see an actual answer instead of a link, as in the example below. It's even more frightening when Google takes over entire verticals such as the weather, mortgage calculators, or song lyrics.
With the flip of a button, it seems Google can wipe out entire business models.
Screenshot hat tip to Dan Barker
In reality, search growth and traffic continues to grow for most industries. Consider the following:
- World Internet and search activity continues to rise, particularly in the mobile sector. This generally indicates that more users are performing more searches on a greater number of devices.
- MozCast reports only 4.9% of Google searches result in an answer box.
- A recent study by Stone Temple showed that 74.3% of Google answer boxes contained linked attribution, while the rest was public domain knowledge.
Anecdotal evidence further suggests that even when presented with answer boxes, a large number of users click through to the cited website.
People want answers, but at least for now they also want their websites.
8. SEO is all tricks
Really? This is plain sad. Somebody make me a sad salad.
"Tricks" is what professionals call bad, manipulative SEO that gets you penalized. The problem, I believe, is the first thing any developer or marketing manager hears about SEO is something close to "put more keywords in the title tag."
If that's all SEO is, it does sound like tricks.
Real SEO makes every part of content organization and the browsing experience better. This includes:
- Creating content that reverse engineers user needs
- Making content more discoverable, both for humans and search engine crawlers
- Improving accessibility through site architecture and user experience
- Structuring data for unambiguous understanding
- Optimizing for social sharing standards
- Improving search presence by understanding how search engines generate snippets
- Technical standards to help search engines categorize and serve content to the right audience
- Improving website performance through optimizations such as site speed
- Sharing content with the right audiences, increasing exposure and traffic through links and mentions
Each of these actions is valuable by itself. By optimizing your web content from every angle, you may not even realize you're doing SEO, but you'll reap many times the rewards.
9. PageRank
Actually, I like PageRank.
But it's still a flippin' myth.
PageRank was an incredibly innovative solution allowing Google to gauge the popularity of a webpage to the point that they could build the world's best search engine on the concept.
Despite what people say, PageRank is very likely still a part of Google's algorithm (although with severely reduced influence). More than that, PageRank gave Google the ability to build more advanced algorithms on top of the basic system.
Consider concepts like Topic Sensitive Page Rank or even this recent paper on entity salience from Google Research which highlights the use of a PageRank-like system.
The source of many bad myths
So why is PageRank such a bad myth?
- Toolbar PageRank, the PageRank most SEOs talk about, will likely never be updated again.
- PageRank correlates poorly with search engine rankings, to the point that we quit studying it long ago.
- PageRank is easy to manipulate.
Fortunately, Google has moved away from talking about PageRank or supporting it in a public-facing way. This will hopefully lead to an end of people using PageRank for manipulative purposes, such as selling links and shady services.
If you're interested, several companies have developed far more useful link metrics including Majestic's Citation Flow, Ahrefs Rank, and Moz's Page and Domain Authority.
10. Social activity doesn't affect SEO
At this point, I barely have strength left to argue.
Explaining this myth could take an entire post, so I'll boil it down the bare facts. The basic argument goes like this:
"Google says they don't use Facebook likes or Tweet counts to rank websites. Therefore, social activity doesn't matter to SEO."
This statement is half right, but can you guess which half?
It's true that Google does not use metrics such as Facebook shares or Twitter Followers directly in search rankings.
On the other hand, successful social activity can have significant secondary effects on your SEO efforts. Social activity helps address two of the major tasks facing SEOs:
- Search engine discovery and indexation
- Content distribution, which leads to links and shares
Perhaps no one explains it better than AJ Kohn, in his excellent Social Signals and SEO.
Stolen with permission from AJ Kohn
Successful social activity puts your content in front of the right group of users, increasing visits, engagement, and brand signals like the number of users searching for your site. Finally, the simple act of more influencers visiting your content can lead to more links and further sharing, and the cycle repeats itself. All of these secondary effects can significantly boost your SEO efforts.
More myths from SEOs
We asked several folks on Twitter about their least favorite SEO myths. Here are a few favorite replies.
@CyrusShepard That Google doesn't use any visit/engagement/traffic data in any way in their search quality systems
— Rand Fishkin (@randfish) February 20, 2015@CyrusShepard the one that still bugs me the most is PageRank
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) February 20, 2015@CyrusShepard The disavow tool is useless. :)
— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) February 20, 2015@dan_shure @CyrusShepard How about "you can absolutely, unequivocally rely on the canonical tag... even when set up perfect" :(
— Bill Sebald (@billsebald) February 20, 2015@CyrusShepard you should have x number of keywords in your keywords meta tag, you know, the tag you don't need.
— Chris McElroy (@SEOpn) February 20, 2015@CyrusShepard That SEO is something that can be done once and then your site is magically all-good for rankings nirvana for the rest of days
— Christian Bullock (@ChristianBk) February 20, 2015@CyrusShepard that there is no point getting more than one link from the same domain as it doesn't pass anymore value.
— Tim Grice (@Tim_Grice) February 20, 2015@CyrusShepard That you can pay an agency $100/month and “rank #1 for everything!”
— Brandon Hassler (@BrandonHassler) February 20, 2015@CyrusShepard That it's easy. If it's that damn easy, how come Google invest huge amounts in providing *relevancy* (algos, patents, tech)?
— Tony Dimmock (@Tony_DWM) February 20, 2015@CyrusShepard Google favors pages that run AdWords. I roll my eye whenever I heard this from a "subject expert" and they've died in my mind.
— victorpan (@victorpan) February 20, 2015@CyrusShepard Bonus myth, SEO is dead! :)
— Hardik Oza (@Ozaemotion) February 20, 2015@CyrusShepard That everything out of Google’s PR mouth about SEO is truth
— Erica McGillivray (@emcgillivray) February 20, 2015@CyrusShepard I don't stand a cliche that has become a myth for having being so badly used (also by Google: content is king cc: @randfish
— Gianluca Fiorelli (@gfiorelli1) February 21, 2015@CyrusShepard PPC plays a role in SEO ie if you pay to play, google rewards organically. Sad how often I run into this.
— Damon Gochneaur (@DamonGochneaur) February 20, 2015@CyrusShepard JSON-LD / Microdata / https://t.co/9u0ueDBJF3 / Rich Snippets automatically add your listings to SERP / Knowledge Graph
— Simo Ahava (@SimoAhava) February 20, 2015What SEO myth drives you nuts? Let us know in the comments below!
Hey Cyrus, excellent post.
In the last few months, I've had 4 separate clients ask me about some SEO "fact" they've read in an "authoritative" post online. And yesterday, I sat in an annual corporate review meeting (3.5 hours worth) with directors and business consultants and was asked "I've heard SEO is dying. Tony, what's your take?".
I must confess, I used the "F" word in my response.
Having gone through with them the results of my companies work and the huge profit / revenue increases they've experienced over the last 12 months, they promised never to listen to BS again.
Friends:
Here's the rub..
There's way too many "popular" online publications that publish guest posts from people who frankly know jack about "SEO".
Why is this a problem? The posts (and authors) perpetrate miss-information, through ignorance or to get more clicks. On large blogs, these garbage posts can get 500+ tweets (at least) within hours. Go figure..
So while publishers continue to post garbage, SEO myths are repeated. Again and again, day after day.
The answer? Either:
1) Call them out for sharing miss-info. Seriously! If you follow me on social, you'll know I do exactly this.. or
2) Don't RT or share them. Problem with "garbage" shares is that those who share rarely even read what they share..
Do you have clients asking the same?
Prove to them that what they've heard is BS (3 times I've used that term, feel the frustration?!) by getting them real results. Not rankings, I mean increases in market-share, revenue and profit.
What will they say then? "We're not happy that you've got us these results and we're all 'in the money' because I heard that [insert SEO myth BS here]".
Friends: make sure you're the *only* one they go to, to get clarification (if they need it). Don't let some "click-hungry" online publication (or "SEO" ass-hat) do it for you ;-)
Do the above and SEO BS would not be as wide-spread.
Simples..
Great post! Here's what I personally do to separate the professionals from the others (to put it politely):
Whenever someone says "SEO" or "doing SEO" or "hiring an SEO person," I ask him or her to stop and explain exactly what they mean without using the word "SEO."
If he or she starts talking about using various tricks to get to number one in Google, run away faster than the knights in Monty Python's "Holy Grail." He or she does not know what they're talking about.
If his or her answer contains something resembling these three parts, then you're talking to someone who knows what they're doing:
1. Helping search engines to crawl, parse, and index your site in search engines as well as rank in search results for desired, relevant search queries
2. Maximizing the website's contribution to the company's business and marketing goals
3. Growing the brand of your website (and company) online as well as gaining and converting traffic through various methods
Buddy, you're on the friggin' money! Wonderfully said ;-)
Mind if I steal that list for my job description? This is wonderfully written and hit the nail right on the head.
What do we say to our clients when they say, "How come I'm not ranking on the first page for these keywords, but so-and-so is?"
Anyone who tells you SEO is dead doesn't understand what SEO is.
1000 thumbs up.
I agree with this thought Cyrus!!
Anyone who tells that Traffic data/engagement and visit doesn't matter to improve search ranking. Infinite Thumbs Up Rand.
Love your line infinite thumbs up Cyrus :)
Tony, your last point resonated with me the most:
"Friends: make sure you're the *only* one they go to, to get clarification (if they need it). Don't let some "click-hungry" online publication (or "SEO" ass-hat) do it for you ;-)"
This is one of the main points to make in client interactions. Tell them that you want to be their DIGITAL MARKETING / INTERNET MARKETING team/consultant on anything that has to do with the web, SEO, or even traditional marketing. This opens you up as the top resource whenever they get a call or email from that SEO a$$-hat. You can explain to them the reality of what is being pitched to them and explain any truths, lies, or misconceptions that the salesperson has tried to make them believe.
This can help boost cross-sell opportunities for your company, increase trust with your clients, and ensure that your client is not engaging in black-hat tactics behind your back.
Thanks Joseph! You've summed up things perfectly :)
The struggle we sometimes feel is in having the tenacity to say what we need to say.
But, if we don't (and aren't true to them or ourselves) we walk away kicking ourselves later.
The right (best-fit) clients need us to be brutally honest with them and sometimes that means (respectfully) disagreeing with them and setting them straight.
It's all about one word: conviction. If we have that, are humble, show respect and work our arses off for them, we'll be the last online consultants they ever need to speak to ;)
Keep charging, champ!
Precisely! Rarely have we had a client that we really wanted to work with walk away after having told them the truth about what we believe about their website and online marketing strategy. Heck, if they didn't believe us, it's probably best they work with someone else who will tell them whatever they want to hear and get them no results!
You are totally correct. There are so many people that write about SEO that no nothing about it. It seems that once someone wrote that "SEO is dead", everyone jumped on that and started writing this as well without knowing the truth. But, this seems to be the way of "news". Very few people actually research and find the truth before writing.
I too have had a few clients and several potential clients ask if SEO really works. Of course it is my job to convince them and show them that it does work and most of them have come to understand how important it is for their business.
When Cyrus asked us what was the "Modern SEO Myth", I replied:
"Content is King".
I think that that statement, which is fundamentally right (but every myth/legend has a truth in its origin, like King Arthur's legend) has become a sort of meaningless mantra that many don't even understand what it means and what it implies.
And I had enough experience to rightly suspect that what many present me as "great content", in reality is just sufficient and - even worst - not consistent with the audience they pretend to target.
Gianluca - indeed! The phrase "content is king" is far too vague and the less scrupulous SEOs around have come to understand this as "more is more" when it comes to content, thus churning out a never ending amount of crap. Relevance, context and promotion must be considered for content to be effective.
"Content is king"
Every time I hear people say that phrase, they make it sound as though they're announcing something new and revolutionary. Um, no -- "content" has always been "king." Marketing has always just been about putting "stuff" in front of people to convince them to buy. Catalogues, e-books, commercials, fliers, free samples, video, and everything else yesterday and today.
Besides, if anything is truly the "king," it's the customer. Every single thing that marketers do is to get the customer to buy. We serve at his pleasure.
Content is the mailman, showing up consistently as long as he's fed mail, he can bring you great news, horror, spam, it's all about what he is fed. Create a penpal with each of your audience members and you shall utilize the mailman effectively.
/residing outside the box, sincerely, the anomalous one
Great point Gianluca. I added your tweet to the post!
I think I actually would go even farther and say that I disagree that content is king (if by "king," people mean "the most important thing for every organization or potential consumer"). Content can be a powerful strategy and a powerful tactic, but there are plenty of organizations for whom content investments are actually a poor decision relative to other places they could put their dollars/people/efforts. Likewise, while content can be a powerful influence on consumer behavior, it's not the only or always the most influential factor.
To me, "content is king" doesn't mean anything. It's like saying "if you're not winning, you're losing" or "mobile isn't everything, it's the only thing." These are phrases that are so hyperbole-filled, and so fundamentally lacking in context or application that they've almost entirely lost meaning.
Rand, what are some examples of organizations for whom content investments are not a good decision? As a content marketer, I'm curious.
Content is King is often used, but knowone really thinks about it. Many people don't believe it, often it is misunderstood. And of course, there is no black and white, there is no one and only thing you have to do.
Now a bit content: Content is King is used so often and I think the first guy was that one: (https://web.archive.org/web/20010126005200/https://w... - amazing, in germany there was no internet available in most (even big) citys in 1996, but content was king.
"Content is King"
OK My biz is not SEO. So don't bite my head off :) I guess well structured content is good, but too much is off putting. Alas, video is great for rank right? Most sites should be more multi-media in 2015, I see vlogging sites along with other quality online video sites etc, or just (professional) video content combined with good content crawling better, than without?
Transcript is the magic word - what should google now about a video. Content is King is just misunderstood. It is not enaugh to have a lot of "unique" Content, you'll need value :)
"Social activity help address [...] search engine discovery and indexation [..] content distribution, which leads to links and shares."
You can substitute "social activity" with pretty any form of advertising because they probably make you achieve the same results. (tv advertising? huge visibility->views->links+mentions->discovery+indexation+rankings. The same applies to newspaper ads, paid guest posts, billboards and so on)
Social activity affects visibility, not SEO: they are completely different things. You can get incredibly visible without having noticeable SEO benefits. (it happens a lot!)
When every kind of ads lead to the same "possible indirect" SEO results, than nothing really affects SEO because the same benefits apply everytime, everywhere, in every scenario
Hi Danilo,
Thanks for the perspective. While I totally understand where you're coming from, and we agree on several points - especially about visibility - I'd simply counter with:
• https://moz.com/search-ranking-factors
• https://www.searchmetrics.com/knowledge-base/rankin...
We both agree that you can get incredible visibility without SEO benefits. That, my friend, is what I call a wasted opportunity :)
Social visibility works best when combined with intelligent content optimization.
I agree with some parts of what you're saying here Danilo and disagree with others. I agree that:
I disagree that:
All very irritating SEO myths, but the most annoying is the notion that SEO is dead or dying. It is mostly heard from those who do pure marketing or 'brand awareness', in my experience. My argument is always that if you don't have a technically SEO adapted website, there's so many missed opportunities. Even a canonical in the wrong place can muck up the most sparkly of offsite campaigns :(
Since SEO and its definition changes so much, I would personally consider content marketing etc which drives traffic to a site and affects its overall organic ranking comes under the term of SEO. It's not dying or a scam, it's evolving.
Quite exciting really!
Maybe those ones who are talking about SEO and death should read your comment. Evolving is here the keypoint and I guess everyone woud agree with you.
Hi Cyrus,
Once again you have written a marvelous post, it's a great topic. My favorite SEO Myths are
Keword Density - great one :)
Keyword Density always makes me laugh, damn just be natural!
Perhaps I would add that no follow links are useless. I would rather change that for a notion that no (one) follow your link :)
No (one) follow your link is a nice notion :)
Shariq Add one more here :D B2B has nothing to do with Social Media Marketing
That's also a nice one Salman. When someone say this to me I reply that businesses are made of people and people are found on social media, it's just the matter of how you engage them
My point exactly, I wonder how can one progress without social media support
Thanks for the post.! it's great.! After reading completely, we can not stop thinking about the myth 10. We think that social media is very important for SEO. What is your opinion of this?
Social media is a set of modern communications channels that can be used to transmit "content" and communications to an audience. As such, it can be used, in this context, to publicize "content" and news so that more people hear about you and then link to you. And those links can help your rankings.
So, social media helps rankings indirectly, not directly.
(Exception: People who +1 content, Google+ pages, and websites while logged into their Google accounts can sometimes see stuff from those sites and pages rank higher in personalized search results while logged into their Google accounts.)
The SEO is not dead , I think that is the future and the content is key. Good content and that has value to our customers. What do you think?
I agree. The content is already a very important part of the SEO. A content that contribute value and with a suitable relation of long tails is the base. Although neither the best content of the world without the support of a strategy of linkbuilding and social networks can sustain
Great post, Cyrus.! In our company dedicated to SEO a high percentage of investment in advertising and marketing. It is the best investment of all but we have to be patient and constant because the SEO gives long term results . The ROI is very high. !!!
Great post - we need to get this type of information out there, the perception of the SEO industry (and SEO in general) is still fairly damaged out here at the moment. I hear we've done seo in the past so why do we need to do it again all the time, almost as much as I've done SEO in the past for a few months and it didn't work for us - so it doesn't work in our industry. I think we also need to get accross the cost of a decent seo campaign - people still approach me wanting me to carry out some monthly work for them fro £100 a month and it's hard for them to understand that this is a marketing function and £100 a month goes virtually nowhere. I've been talking to a number of SEOs at the moment who seem to be steering away from content marketing and even social media marketing as a backlash to the current trends in the industry and I'm concerned it's these guys that will once again damage the perception of the industry after they can't replicate in the following months, the quick wins they get in the first couple of months of work.
All you need to do is look at the chart there for #1 and know it's not a scam! A white hat strategy is going to get you results. Great post.
#11 On-page SEO is dead.
All myths you mentioned are really just myths.
What bothering me, are facts who are becoming myths. E.g. page sculpting. No one is talking or mentioning page sculpting nowadays, so it quietly becoming a myth. But it's not a myth, your own research shows that. Best explained in an excellent video presentation by Matthew Brown - Learn from the Herd
Excellent post. My actual favorite SEO myth revolves around Adwords..
"Google tells me Adwords is better than SEO".
Or "the digital agency I just met said Adwords is the cheapest way to do SEO".
Dammit Google!
Sadly, many of these myths are perpetrated by those who gain to profit from selling Adwords or Adwords management services.
I friggin love this post!
Agree on EVERY one of these and I think if we put our collective minds to it, we'd double the list.
I want to rank #1 for "magic keyword" No. No you friggin' don't.
HAHA! I burst out laughing. So true. If only we could dissociate "long tail" from "you're just giving me crap that's easy to rank." That would be so nice.
Classic post - instant classic.
Definitely evergreen. This topic will go on forever and these answers will be relevant for years to come.
Awesome post, i agree with most of the points, specially number 4!!
Link building is more alive than ever, but MUST be well done, otherwise Penguin will enjoy a good breakfast using domain as butter :-)
" using domain as butter "
Link building is even more important because link degradation destroys existing links.
I got hurt indirectly by Penguin a few months after it came out, because some of the sites linking to me were hit by penguin - and when they couldn't fix it, they gave up and let their domains expire. Boom, there went links to me. So I had to rebuild. The safest thing is to slowly build some links every single month because every month some old links will disappear because the domains they were on will expire (because the webmaster has given up or just lost interest).
You will probably love this https://seostupidity.com/
For the Italian audience, here is the Italian translation: https://www.ideawebitalia.it/seo/7057/
Great post
Real SEO is very much alive and kicking....I would suggest Old SEO (gaming Google) is what is dying. The big change is that it is no longer easy to make quick bucks by offering cheap quick fixes. The quick fix mentality is the reason these myths are propagated.
No substitute for a considered, focused approach to your website marketing.
Hi
One myth about SEO in eCommerce website owner is that "SEO boost sales directly". During my interaction with clients, they directly ask me, My sales increase 2x if I assign double hours than current monthly hours?
Website or brand trust, product price, quality, stock, customer review have no importance for them. Sometimes in the first meeting(before reviewing their sites) they say like... If I will give you $1000, how much ROI I will get?
The one that got me recently was finding out that a client had been told that "they'd need to redesign & rebuild their site from scratch to fix their SEO."
Yep, that always works out well, especially when the site is already bringing in a respectable amount of qualified organic traffic.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say. I did SEO......for a week......by myself......once. Nothing happened. Really?! I dieted......for one. Nothing happened.
It is so frustrating to explain over and over that it is a continual process. It takes time and effort and helps you gain traffic in the long run.
Totally love 2, 4 and 6 and every single year you see all kinds of blogger write about this myths.
Thanks Cyrus, great post. You could start a series of posts about SEO myths and bad (or outdated) SEO that's still being sold to clients as the proper thing to do. Still too much of that out there!
Great post, and you bring up some interesting points. I am currently in a battle with several clients about some of these topics- we have one client that actually said to me that he does not want any long tail or focused keywords even though they provide 90% of his current traffic, and instead wants to focus entirely on one broad keyword. I am going to send him this article. You graphics for some of the explanations are great as well. Thanks for sharing!
Keep your clients focused on measurable objectives, such as revenue or conversions, and you'll never have them give you shit about SEO.
Easier said than done, but I've found that steering people away from ranking reports/obsession is the key step. Once they start measuring your performance in things like leads, transactions etc, you'll never hear "number one on google" again!
I heard an interesting myth about links/link-building the other day from...something I had heard for the first time that really made me pause and think about SEO.
The myth was: once you have so many links, you really don't need any more. No numbers were thrown out (as this myth will vary for different industries), but is there really a point where you have so many links that it really doesn't matter in your rankings if you get more?
Obviously, smart marketers would still pursue content marketing activities and social activities that helped them grow a tremendous link base.
I think On-Page SEO is most important part rather than spam link building.
I have wanted to go out on my own with an independent website in order to get away from the Etsy Marketplace where I am 1 in over a million Sellers but I know that if I am not able to draw traffic my money is wasted. Your article is amazing, totally over my head but nonetheless amazing.
SEO is a continuously evolving industry. there is no one time recipe for SEO algorithms change everyday and you need to adjust your strategies accordingly.
The myths will find a way to survive. What you’re likely to hear from the so-called experts is a million tales of what body parts they think are still moving, and which ones aren’t. You’ve provided an excellent list that really nails down what SEO is all about. Google is smart but not magical. Part of the problem could be that marketers are constantly trying to figure out Google’s next move.
I constantly work with clients to convey the reality that providing valuable content and information, in ways that will allow their customers to find, share and act on that information, can never be challenged by Google or any other search engine. We just have to keep finding new ways for our clients to reach customers who can benefit from their products and services.
I want to print out this post give it to everyone. Ever. (Okay, maybe not to go that far, but thank you for saying what so many of us think on a daily basis). It's normal to feel frustrated by stuff like this - we're far from alone.
A physician who gets told by a patient what to do after watching an episode of Dr. Oz? A mechanic looking at a jacked up vehicle who hears, "Oh yeah, my buddy fixed it for me last week in his driveway. He knows cars and said it was X"? It's very much the same boat we're in, and it presents a unique challenge.
No matter what you do, there will always be people who know just enough to be dangerous or, more often than not, have false impressions. So, we do our best to empower and educate. Keep fighting the good fight :)
When I tell people that I take care of my company's SEO....... "Oh, so youre like a professional web spammer?"
All respect is lost after that.
I recently had a client complain that we hadn't improved their Alexa rank enough...
I've gotten at least 8 of these directed my way at one point or another!
I actually make it a habit to talk in terms of traffic and ROI...and that SEO is just one tool of many that can help achieve those results.
Erica McGillivray hit the nail on the head with her tweet. I'm by no means an expert as I have only been in SEO for a short while but the fact I see companies and SEOs living and dying by Google's quotes and PR statements is shocking. Can you say "Corporate Agenda"?
I often encounter problems when adressing myself as someone who works with SEO. I believe that most people are uneducated in search marketing and the whole concept of pull marketing, that they just don't know what is what.
Most of my colleagues in the same industry where I am from, are also often very young and that tends to create some mistrust. But focusing on what SEO really is and how it interacts with a clients marketing strategy, is the key to convincing that SEO is a valid area within online marketing.
Thank you Cyrus for calling out the myths that I too can recognize!
Another perl in the form of informative article on SEO. I think SEO is not Dead it is a continuous process with ethical tasks. its dead for spammers.
My pet peeve is marketing firms that sell SEO as a simple matter of stuffing keywords into page content and meta tags. Drives me nuts!
Couldn't agree more Donna!!
I'm usually not a big fan of "Top 10" posts, but this one is well done, Cyrus! The use of the word "friggin" makes it happen! :) The myth that ticks me off the most: running AdWords helps aid your organic search performance (facepalm).
One of my biggest nags: "SEO can easily be sprinkled like magic fairy dust on top of a new website AFTER the built."
Great article to kick off the day Cyrus! I think we've all heard at least a handful of these myths floating around and some of them have been so perpetually spread that they're believed to be true. From experience, clients often get frustrated when they don't see the SEO efforts equating to payoffs instantaneously. Digital marketers understand that SEO is not a magic pill that will skyrocket your rankings in one day. With consistency, however, and learning the right strategies for your company you can see remarkable results (as Moz demonstrates). Thanks again for sharing!
SEO is a dark art is something I hear a lot. It's not
Warning, my comment may burst your SEO Bubble.
There is no such thing as SEO.
‘SEO’ is an industry created term, good marketing, communication and web development is what will get your site positioned well in Google.
And on that bombshell...
I like the way you think. As I wrote here on Moz recently, "SEO" is not a function unto itself but a collection of best practices in existing marketing, PR, and web development functions. I look at "SEO" perhaps an abbreviation (for those specific functions in addition to "search engine optimization" itself).
There is no such thing as walking.
"Walking" is a term coined by shoe companies to sell more shoes. It's really just a combination of moving your feet around in optimized manner to propel you from point A to point B.
So many parents waste countless hours on "teach your kids to walk" scams, when they would get more value by simply promoting leg movement best practices.
;)
I'm fairly certain walking isn't a term coined by shoe companies....not a great analogy.
If you would like to reply to my point of how an accumulation of good content, web development, web masters, PR, advertising, user experience, video marketing, brand awareness (to name a few...) will result in web pages ranking (well) within Google and how SEO is just a industry coined term I'd be very interested in hearing your opinion (rather than the walking thing which didn't really work...)
Maybe you could submit a post about it?
Sure. A far better debate can be found in the comments of Samuel's post. (An excellent post, by the way, even if I don't agree with all of his points) And you can find my specific response here.
I've seen this debate enough to know we'll likely never see 100% agreement, and that's okay. If you're meeting your marketing objectives with web development, PR, advertising, etc. that's cool. I'll just pack my SEO boots and keep on walking. (get it? walking? too much?)
Bonus: For a great read about the orgins of the term SEO, Bob Heyman did a writeup about it over at Search Engine Land.
https://searchengineland.com/who-coined-the-term-seo-14916
agree on your points.
100% agree - there is no thing like "living" - just a term used by .... comon
Headdesk plus Facepalm... cannot find anything else for commenting this.
I'm a little confused about the graph in #4. It credits 7.24% to social metrics. And then in #10 you say that Google doesn't look at social metrics.
Regardless, great post!
Fair point! I included the chart to illustrate the influence of link metrics, which hasn't changed since the chart was first published.
On the other hand, our understanding of Google's use of social metrics has changed and evolved considerably. That said, I believe the 7.24% might be closer to a fair representation of the secondary impacts of social activity, as opposed to the direct impact of vanity metrics.
Ah, I see. That makes more sense!
Thank you Cyrus,
Perhaps you should add a question when somebody feeds you a myth.. what does SEO mean to you. Most un-informed but well intentioned people I speak with think SEO is as you stated 8. SEO is all tricks to get your results higher in Google (most will never mention any other search engine unless they are perhaps in a different country).
It is at this point I love my line, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It isn't magic. It is giving the search engines (all of them) the best material to work with in a way they can best understand it.
BTW just have to say you're very high on my list of favorite Mozzers!
Take care,
Don
Excellent point Don! Never thought of using the Socratic method in that way before, but it's brilliant.
Google SEO Starter Guide link was dead for me, here's the PDF of it https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.goog...
(C'mon Google get your redirects right)
Hello Ciro,
It is true that SEO is surrounded by myths.
One is you have to register or be in Google. That's not true, if we have a good website, Google will find us and we will index without we tell.
Another great myths out there, is that having many links is better than having a lot of content. Although the popularity of our website is very important (external links to your website), what matters is the quality not the quantity of content.If we ignore all the myths that run around, our website can be seriously affected.
Very good article!
First of all thanks for such a beautiful post. Actually I have a question regarding this. We always talk about lots of things that Google will detect any spam activity that you do to improve your ranks. But when it comes to a news related searches (any recent update or News) Google doesn't seems to be that much smart.
Actually recently I analyzed some results for few news related queries on Google. When I analyzed top ranking website I found that the websites are very poor in terms of authority, content and backlnk profile. Most of the websites that were ranking had no quality (even related) backlinks, no domain authority, duplicate content, No markups, even they were not properly optimized in terms of SEO.
Still they are ranking well for some highly searched queries, may be they are using some kind of Black hat or Spam techniques to manipulate the Google's algorithm.
Now my point is, Why Google is not able to detect such types of Spam websites? If someone have any solution or information regarding this, please share with me.
Mine would be that "SEO isn't marketing". So many people in business, and frankly who claim to do SEO, that don't think SEO is an integrated part of a marketing strategy and can be done in a silo. If you "do SEO" then you "do marketing" and as such you should have a well rounded view of how it fits into other online and offline marketing efforts. Yes, it's up there with some of the most technical forms of marketing at times, but it is marketing nevertheless.
The amount of SEOs which don't even have a basic grasp of PPC, let alone any other types of marketing, never ceases to depress me.
Rank #1 for Magic Keyword
I had a client last year, he stopped with SEO because he didn't Rank #1 at his "Magic Keyword" - it was positon 5 from nowhere (bevor SEO - no ranking on that topic).
Organic Traffic increased 900% (!) in 6 month (a lot of technical and onpage failures) and he said: "SEO has brought me nothing". A lot more customers - but they didn't came from position one of his magic keyword.
Thats SEO live i guess. We talked a lot to him, he simply didn't want to understand or even listen, it was just 4 positions to bad!
SEO is all trick
You could say: SEO is all a cheap trick. We do our cheap tricks and see websites get well in ranking, right?
Google Answers
hard discussion in germany. How would it be, if google would answer here as much as it does in US? A massseosuicide would go on i think.
I think I heard everything of these Myth. An interesting thing is, we can hear (here in germany) that linkbuilding is dead and SEO is only Linkbuilding...
Great post, like to say as usually.
Andreas I work from the UK and India, and its almost the same story here :)
What winds me up signs strapped to traffic lights on my way to work saying "Get No1 in Google Call ***** *****" ...Does really great for our industries reputation!
Plus the old I need to rank for for the one killer keyword!
Great post, Cyrus. It's a fun read but on the other end a very important one.
For me the greatest SEO myth that I taught to myself is, all the google's algo updates are mainly targets google.com (US) & co.uk (UK) and it takes very much time to target other regions i.e. .com.pk .co.in. Is it true?
Thanks
Excellent point. As Dr. Pete pointed out, international SEOs often get to sit back and watch what's happening before it ever hits their region. So that myth is likely true.
Here's his deck: https://www.slideshare.net/crumplezone/the-world-of-google-us-vs-europe
Thanks for your feedback, Cyrus. So this is not a myth :)
And thanks for the Dr.Pete's deck, will have a look at it.
For #4, I think what Google is pushing for many years is that don't build content for links, build valuable content for users and the links will come naturally. A good analogy is that when an academic paper is written about a topic and is deemed the authoritative paper on that topic, it will be often cited in other works. These are the links, and the more you have, the more visible the paper (or website) should be. These papers, don't solicit links--they are earned.
I am not a world-renowned SEO expert but have learned a thing or two about it over the years. SEO is definitely not dead, but SEO innovation died a long time ago. The basics haven't changed in years: link building, content, long tail keywords, bla bla bla. Same $h!t, new day. Take this post by Cyrus for example. It makes for interesting reading but it did not unearth any new ground in the SEO space.
To a large extent, it totally feels that way to me sometimes. Small actions used to have much bigger consequences back in the days when Google's algorithm wasn't quite so sophisticated. Today there are innovations, but they feel smaller in scope.
80% of all SEO can be learned in 2 years.
The next 20% takes 10.
80% of all SEO can be learned in 2 years. The next 20% takes 10. ~ (c) Cyrus Shepard 2015
I have been working in online media since the early 2000's (specifically natural search). A all these newbs who have been doing SEO for 5 years can't yet grasp the bigger picture.
Great article, some of the things to bug me:
We used to be number 1 why arent we know (the old management did black hat techniques to get to number 1 and we was penalised) - I don't fancy doing that again - so lets not try and cheat this time
We all ready have a link from 'x' whats the point - it won't add any more benefit
Whats the DA of the site we have got a link from..um nope - we get links to try drive traffic which converts, the rankings benefit of a link is a bonus, but I am not paid of links - from sales - so I go after sites to work with that our customers or potential customers are to try and drive them to our site to convert.
Several tweets about PPC helping rankings as myth... I personally believe this to be true but not as a direct correlation. It's the same theory as social... it doesn't directly help your SEO and rankings but can effect you site traffic and usage data which we KNOW does help! Don't throw out the bay with the bath water!
A statement that is not a myth but a common misconception which bothers me is,
"I don't believe in SEO."
Now I have to admit, last month I finally lost my cooth when speaking to the manager of a doctor's office when I responded,
"What, like SEO is Santa Claus or something?"
The doctor lost faith in SEO after previously being penalized by Google Penguin. So I explained that he was engaged in manipulative practices, not practices that relate back to fundamental marketing concepts.
As long as all of your SEO efforts relate back to fundamental marketing concepts and the world wide web is merely a channel to facilitate this, you're not very likely to be penalized by the death star.
Don't you love it when you actually achieve #5 that they want you to magically switch to a complete different keyword and then rank #1 for both?
but this post is already a good time, I dared to comment, many still continue to claim that content is king, well I think it still is king, and even more with the viral power of social networks, good content can take millions and visits literally, if you use social media wisely.
Why is it that statements made by Googles' reps appear to need interpretation
Are they being intentionally ambiguous?
A while ago it was about guest blogging, now questions about linkbuilding
Who or what is responsible for perpetuating the myths or is there some denial about SEO
Nice article Cyrus Shepard. Our social media activities plays huge role in getting ranking in google.
Thanks Cyrus for such a delightful read. I was smiling till the end. The real problem is with the people in the SEO Industry. Majority of people hardly know 10% of things in SEO and claim to be an expert. They also try to enlighten others with their improper knowledge. Unless such people instead of teaching others , learn SEO properly nothing good can come out.
No surprise that in India, every person who doesn't get a job want to make a career in SEO. Why? Because its a simple job data entry job that even a 10th pass out can do and claim to be an Internet Marketing professional.
I loved this post so thank you, I agree with the long tail keywords, many of my clients want to rank for generic keywords, yet a lot of extra traffic can be gained by targeting long tail keywords so it was great to see this highlighted in the article.
This article was really helpful as I am new to SEO and marketing. The 'one and done' portion was the most helpful though, as it will help me and our business to grow and keep our traffic up. Thanks for this great blog post!
SEO is never dead but it's evolving- perhaps not the way that we want it to be (like the eradication of spamming/blackhat techniques) but SEO is here to stay. Good read :)
Nice article!
The problem we come up with the most of the times is myth no3. It is a common sense to some brands that SEO is an one-off procedure - maybe the fact that some companies sell SEO services like packages is a marketing deterioration for SEO's. For example, "take this two-month SEO package to increase your traffic" - and the client forms an idea that SEO is something to buy for two months and win the competition.
We sometimes struggle to convince some brands that SEO is a constant effort time consuming procedure and that is the point where some brands feel anxious about the time needed to become competitive.
Anyway, I also agree with the most of the other myths you mention! Good work!
What a article Cyrus Shepard ! I am totally agree with you. I also think that, "SEO is dead". You wrote clearly about that topic.Google 16%+ result is showing in there search result. Thats normal people love it. But i am little bit confused about adsense publisher. Who really earn as google partner. What will be google adwords ? I believe that content marketing is now Boss with social signal. Its a most important part for ranking on google. By the way This content is really amazing in 2015. (y)
Great right up here Brad, however I did observe in point no 5 where you talked about "I want to rank #1 for "magic keyword", the label on the screen shot (1000 more visit from long tail keywords) actually should be termed LSI keywords (i.e latent semantic index keywords). These are keywords related to the term "SEO".
However, for long tail keywords, there should actually be more than 2 words in the keyword phrase. You can see sample long tail keyword research for the term "make money online" here: bit.ly/1C97UKf
You can also request on that page for the free e-book containing the full list of over 300 long tail keywords researched for that search term.
All great points Cyrus :-) thanks
*in my experience... especially #5 ---> I want to rank #1 for "magic keyword"
.
I have to agree with the Tweet about the knowledge graph magically appearing if you use sameAs, not quite that easy!
Hi Nice article. I like you idea " Its better to work for many long tail keywords with less competition then work for one generic keyword with higher competition. Its best way to get more traffic and more traffic means chances to increase business. Thanks
PageRank will continue to be a topic as long as they keep updating it.
Cyrus, Well done! Good reference to the SEO zeitgeist and an excellent resource to share with SEO clients.
Google PAGERANK is DEAD... well, almost... but wait!
PageRank has no real use anymore ——— except as a vague barometer of the gross value of all the links pointing into a page. Giving us ONE NUMBER that has no KEYWORD relevance factor, but still... it's a **NUMBER** that can tell you **something** when comparing two pages or two sites in a very gross sense... very quickly.
PageRank is just a METRIC, a tool, but only a very vague and generalized one.
. . .
PageRank - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank —— Wikipedia?
PageRank is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank websites in their search engine results. PageRank was named after Larry Page, one of the founders of ...
Somebody, please, update that wikipedia article?
Yes, we may be beating a dead horse here, but...
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear...
When the student is unready, you, the teacher, can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink; you can beat a dead horse, but it doesn't do anything but make a disgusting mess. — G.
-- EDIT --
I do pay for monthly subscription$ to Majestic's Citation Flow, Ahrefs Rank, and Moz's Page and Domain Authority. Yet, I still want a free, easy, and simple, GOOGLE-generated number to compare pages, from time to time, for competitive checkups on various websites,
Hopefully, until something else just as simple comes along, PR is a BENCHMARK number that comes from Google and allows comparisons on a level playing field, across competirors and across time, and it's FREE.
Remember the Altavista! There is no search engine but Google, and PageRank is it's only prophet!
—— Nostalgically, he mused, with an Ironic-Sardonic Sanguinal-Melancholia, then exclaimed: "Put that in your Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Baidu, Ask, Dobpile, and DuckDuckGo!"
First of all, I should be thanked to you for this great post. You're perfectly discussed the value of choosing long tail keywords and the general misunderstood of new comers SEO folk.
But one more thing I would like to add with your last phase which is about "Social Activity" or Social Signals.. Though social signals won't help me directly in SEO. But it creates a brand popularity as well as for the post. It's not only about a good number of links you get. Thus now.. google likes it and give social signals a thumbs up. It also helps in SERP as well. :)
I personally hated to see Page Rank go. Sure, google wanted to shit the emphasis to a more pragmatic approach when they initiated panda, etc... That pretty much spelled the end of Page Rank. Maybe the google guys were correct in their assumption that webmasters were becoming to obsessed with the concept. At least domain authority can still be measured. Anyway well written, specific content is what they wanted in the end with the idea in mind that this would engage comradery within like industries and, if good enough, get the attention of the big boys in those industries.
Hey Cyrus, do you want to add more myths to the list? Try mine - 116 SEO Myths to Leave Behind in 2015
Hi,
i think both are needed, good content or link building alone itself, doesn´t bring so much imo
oops... wrong post... no way to delete?
Linkbuilding is dead again? I don't think so, I think it is still very important...
Congrats for this article!
Most of the points you have mentioned are ringing a lot of bells, as this is what I am hearing from a lot of clients. Especially the first point where companies try to get to the top of ranking through SEO by investing a very few dollars and end up saying SEO does not work.
Mostly agree with this article ... I've been involved in the industry for 15 years and high-end SEO now for more years than I care to mention .... It's hard for serious SEO's because the industry is full of charlatans constantly jumping on the bandwagon looking for an easy buck. End result is while experienced SEO's are trying steer clients on a serious sustainable SEO campaign they are at same time bombarded with misinformation, numerous emails promising them the 'magic' SEO package and lots of marketing people who are far better at talking and pitching than they are at actually delivering a SEO campaign!!!
Excellent post Cyrus, I literally have this convo everyday, might make a script out of this post - "if caller says seo is dead proceed to script"!
I think some are just frustrated that they forcefully programmed their mind to believe that SEO is dead
Awesome post.
SEO has never been a SCAM, it just so happens that the industry is full of morons!
Glad to see number #10 in your list. Social signals do count inevitably and will count even more in the near future. And I don't mean to hurt your feelings Cyrus, but in google.co.uk moz ranks #9 for "seo"!
A myth I've seen with some of my clients - "SEO isn't helpful" or "SEO can't help my business"
This is probably a subset or moreover a consequence of #1. SEO is a scam.
I LOVE this article! Especially number 5..If I had a dollar for every time a client says they want to rank for the singular keyword instead of the longtail, I would be hangin' with Bill Gates ( or at least a bevy of models in Vegas with a tie around my forehead and my clothes disheveled and a shoe missing after a night of fun with Mike Tyson and a tiger in the room with a scent of rum around me ) After I show them the longtail matters more, It's winner winner, chicken dinner! Thanks for a great post!
I think some are just frustrated that they forcefully programmed their mind to believe that SEO is dead
Most absurd SEO Myth: Years ago when I told my software engineer friend that I am in SEO. You will be shocked to hear what he used to think about SEO is that "An SEO just clicks on websites all day to send traffic to websites he is assigned."
Hey Cyrus,
Awesome post and interesting myths :)
My favorite myths is "Title" . Sometime google taking title according to the relevancy of what search term the user type. So, the title we are making does not make any sense.
If google takes title according to searchers, H1 or from content, then what is the meaning of title ? I think title should not be replaced.
Great post, Cyrus!
5. I want to rank #1 for "magic keyword"
I started my day with this from a client... and what they want to rank for, no one searches. Gotta love it.
Phenomenal post! This could actually help me explain what SEO is and what it isn't to potential clients!
#1 that there wasn't SEO going on before 1997. Yes there was, we just called it GMWOTFPOTSE but SEO is shorter
Excellent post, Cyrus! With regards to the point #6, many less-than-necessary educated folks in the digital marketing space mistaken SEO as "Search Engine Manipulation". So, when Google revamps their search algo to deliver better results which affect their campaigns badly, they tend to draw these cringe-worthy conclusions - SEO is Dead/Google Hates SEO. When you hear stuff like that, all you can do is *facepalm*
For me the most absurd SEO myth is: "Social Media does not play any role in B2B platforms"; which I strongly disagree with most of my senior fellows.
Awesome post Cyrus!
I agree with the points you've made throughout and only have one question for you (and or the Moz dev team) regarding #10. I completely understand the value points such as quicker page indexing and that social sharing certainly plays a huge role in content distribution which can ultimately deliver strong results for SEO. But if there is little to no ranking value related to social posts, likes, shares, etc., then why does OSE provide this information in such a prominent spot in the dashboard?
Is this why you mentioned that #10 would need an entire post to thoroughly explain? ha haa
Good question. I'd say there are a couple of reasons. First being that the social shares for a URL can tell you loads about the popularity of that content, and the social visibility of the page. When I am creating content, I want to research other popular pages, perhaps on my competitor's site, and this is one easy way to do it.
Second, high social activity is correlated with higher rankings, even if there is not a direct relationship. So we would expect pages with high social shares to rank higher than pages with no social shares.
Finally, it's included with OSE simply because a lot of people are interested in the data, and that seems like the perfect place to include it :)
Oh absolutely! Makes perfect sense. I believe we are on the same page. I will be here with a fresh bag of popcorn & a smile awaiting a post from you dedicated to social activity and how it does or does not affect SEO. =) Thank you again for your expertise and reply Cyrus! Truly appreciate it
I agree with this article about SEO, currently the link building is dying
One I heard this week: "The internet (and SEO) is the wild west. There are no rules".
Really?! I guess someone better tell all those sites that were hit by Penguin, Panda, or any other algorithm update, filter, or penalty that their suffering is all in their heads.
Actually, I don't think the person who said that to me really believed it. They were angling for a written guarantee of rankings in some ridiculously short time.
i think SEO will never die until Google stop showing organic result and that is impossible. yes one thing is for sure that by such algorithm updates google trying to attract SEO client move to PPC. but at the same time many smart SEO company get success to provide better result in SEO. now a days SEO needs proper research, link audit, and quality work if you put this 3 thing together than no one can stop you.
Cyrus,
Nice compilation of myths.
I agree many have believed that SEO is dead, or is dying. One of my clients even told me to change career as Google is starting to eliminate SEOs. He even gave me the article where Matt mentioned something like Guest Blogging is dead.
I even know people who are still relying on PR, although I'm still confused if this matter is true that PageRank is what matters the most when building links.
SEO is more alive than ever , so we must not overemphasize and try to gain Google . All we have to ask ourselves is made where will the SEO in the coming years ?? SEO will become more Social yet ??
What you think?
Nice topic Cyrus,
These myths are viral since Panda and Penguin has been launched. But as you mentioned, SEO is still there and its advantages are still important. The only thing has been changed here is the way Google determine the importance of your website.
Congratulations. This is a very good post. We totally agree with your points
Good, thought provoking article and made me feel better reading it :) This may sound odd but I think it is sometimes easier to view SEO as a religion with Google as god (probably their ultimate aim). Us mere mortals sit here and try and work out god's intentions for us, with many of us waiting on his every word to try and eek out some sort of advantage. Others of us simply test, make adjustments and move on. As Google never says exactly what is going on, people are left to make their own assumptions and we all know how the masses like to argue about their assumptions on particular subjects. With my SEO work and I am sure for the majority of the readers of this post, we do not just go on the word of 'god' but try and test and make our way according to what works. So when people come out with throwaway comments like 'seo is dead' etc etc we have demonstrable evidence to prove otherwise and this can be very annoying. Hence the need for this article. Thanks :)
This is what I'm mystified about the SEO thing. There was a post on a SEO forum re ranking domain with 4 hyphens?
Some replies were so naive, stating you don't need to worry about the domain, insinuating that using a domain with 4 hyphens is ok let along one. In this day an age, it goes beyond SEO and into BRANDING!
https://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/white-ha...
Thank you very much for sharing SEO knowledge is very rewarding for beginners like me :)
Articles about SEO Myth's tick me off. :)
Wow.i follow your all method and usefor my website,thanks for share nice suggestion.
This is some great stuff and for sure "SEO Myths"
Thanks for sharing! :-)
Pittsburgh SEO Magician
https://www.PittsburghSEOMagician.com
Thank You for sharing this valuable information.it will definately help us who have very limited knowledge about SEO.
Again Thanks,
i think seo link building is not dead. now days high quality back link is more important.
1. Adsense is google's own, they have their own privacy policy and they are seen only in good website. So a website has Google's ad will rank higher .
2. Blackhat Seo is still good and working fine, you just don't know the actual tricks :P
1. Adsense is more likely to cost you ranks in Google. It certainly doesn't help you rank higher. That's a fallacy.
2. I spend an ungodly amount of time reporting spammers to Google. If your clients are satisfied with 2 months of performance per year, keep doing what you're doing.
1. I'd counter that study after study shows a negative correlation between the amount of Adsense ads on your site, and your rankings. Put another way, the more Adsense ads a site displays, the lower we expect to see them ranking.
2. Yes, there are blackhat techniques that work, if you are very clever and don't care about long term results. That said, blackhat has gotten so difficult in the past few years that many die-hard practitioners have closed up shop. Very, very hard to make a living dealing in blackhat these days (unless you're selling it to other marketers) and it certainly doesn't make the Internet a better place.
You can't be serious, what's with the page-layout-algorithm ... and how should that work? The more Ads the better you rank?
Hi
I don't agree with this article about SEO. But yes, I believe that SEO is more effective with well written content rather than link building.