Exploring The Top 5 SEO Myths and Shenanigans

Search engine optimization has always been quite a complex and diverse topic, full of much debate, that’s constantly changing and evolving. Business owners are often times left confused when trying to tackle their own SEO, as there have been hundreds of myths and falsified facts that have been freely distributed about search engine optimization over the years. Some of these myths held a pinch of truth, although no longer apply due to outdated information and updated algorithms, while others were simply rumors and opinions that never held a pinch of truth to begin with. Web designers and SEO consultants often times have differing opinions, expertise, and experience regarding search engine optimization. Combine this with the growing amount of blogs, forums and social networking sites and you have the perfect environment for creating myths, and spreading them like wildfire!

SEO Myth #1: If You Build It, They Will Come!

Explained: The misconception that once you construct a website and host it live online, that large amounts of targeted, qualified traffic will come.

The Truth: This is by far the greatest myth in SEO or web development history, and one that still makes me chuckle today. The common cause of this myth is outdated information, a non-realistic or over-optimistic site owner, but most importantly, a true lack of understanding and education of how the internet works. In the ancient early 90′s, the internet literally had a lack of websites and information. (Hard to believe, I know) In those times, known as the Web 1.0, simply submitting your site to the search engines would have landed you on the first page, if not the top, of the search results. Nowadays with the millions of web pages submitted daily, proper SEO and web design techniques are required to even be indexed by the search engines – which does not necessarily mean you will be found in the search results for any given keyphrase!

SEO Myth #2: SEO is All About META Tag Optimization!

Explained: The misconception that search engine optimization is simply the correct use of your web page META tags and descriptions.

The Truth: Again, in the early days of the internet, META tags were critically important to your site rankings, that is however, until the search algorithms became more and more complex. Some META tags are still important today, such as your description and title tags that search giants display in their results pages. However, most tags such as keyword tags are far outdated and obsolete.

SEO Myth #3: You Must Pay For a Search Engine Submission Service For Best Results!

Explained: The misconception that a website needs to submit every page, to hundreds or thousands of search engines on a regular basis for better search result rankings and a swarm of targeted traffic.

The Truth: In the early days of the internet, this common myth held a bit of truth. Nowadays however, search engine submission is not required at all. It certainly does not hurt by any means, but indexing by the major search engines can be achieved much faster by simply having links on other popular sites that point the search spiders directly to your site. Search engine submission services misrepresent this common myth as it is in their best interest that you believe their service is needed. Hundreds and even thousands of search engine sites have been developed with the intention of simply gathering your personal information for sale to third parties. The fact remains that the majority of internet browsers use only the top 4 search engines; Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Ask.

SEO Myth #4: The Most Important Aspect of Ranking High is Google PageRank (PR)!

Explained: The misconception that you must have a high PR in order to rank well within the search engines, specifically, Google.

The Truth: Even some so-called SEO experts have a misconceptioin of PR. Although PR plays a role in Google rankings, the extent is still unknown. Google sees high page rankings as sites with more authority, therefor it makes sense that they would place these sites higher in their results. However, It’s also a fact that web pages with a low PR compete for the top spots for highly competitve keywords on a daily basis. The fact still remains that PR plays no role for ranking on Yahoo! or Bing.

SEO Myth #5: SEO is All About Keywords and Using Them Everywhere and Anywhere!

Explained: The misconception that by simply using keywords and keyphrases that you wish to rank for throughout your website, you will rank well.

The Truth: Overuse of keywords is labeled by the search engines as keyword stuffing. Your web pages can be penalized for this, fall lower in the rankings, or at the discretion of the service, be completely de-indexed altogether. These are obviously results that you do not want to experience. Search spiders prefer natural useage of keywords, in natural flowing sentences, to properly analyze content and correctly categorize it within their index.

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