Biggest Myths in SEO.
Over this past week, a colleague of mine at Tunapanda requested help in setting SEO on a clientele website she was working on. As my norm with all digital strategies, I did dive deep into basic research based on the kind of website at hand.
According to WordPress team, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and refers to techniques you can use to help ensure that your site ranks high in the results of search engines such as Google.
The SEO world changes almost daily. New algorithms, guidelines, and tools are introduced so quickly, it’s enough to give even the most experienced SEOs a challenge. This constantly evolving search landscapes has rumors and myths that need to be addressed. Here are some of them that I came across I thought I should share with you;
14. Meta tag Keywords improve rankings
Meta tag keywords help provide data to search engines about a web-page, and back in the day, were actually used by some search engines as ranking factors. But are they still used today? No. In fact, google’s Matt Cutts has made it publicly known that “Google does not use keywords tag in web ranking.”
13. Search engines don’t follow “nofollow” links.
Search engines spiders use links to “crawl” the web for indexing; however, some links will pass PageRank and anchor text(if they have the “nofollow” attribute). However, “nofollow” links are still followed by search engine for indexing purposes.
12. Being a Google AdWords advertiser helps your organic rankings.
Some SEO conspiracy theorists like to believe this myth; however, in reality Google’s rankings algorithm is nothing more than a math problem. A highly complex one, but a math problem nonetheless that does not factor in your advertising spend.
11. Quantity of inbound links is more important than quality of inbound links.
When it comes to your search rankings, links are like votes of popularity in the school of SEO. However, some class clowns have tried to game the system by building a large quantity of links.Google, however, views this as “link spam”. In addition, not all links are created equal — some pass more PageRank than others. Therefore, it’s better to have a handful of quality inbound links than a large quantity of not so cool links.
10. Exact match domains rank higher.
Buying exact match domains for your top keyword (i.e “crossovervehicles.com”) actually used to work for a little while-until spammers started buying them up for the sole purpose of serving ads. Now, you can no longer get strong rankings only based on your domain name.
9. Anchor text is dead
While anchor text may not be as important as it was in the past due to link spam, it’s certainly not dead and is still an important factor for ranking.
8. Links in press releases are bad
Google announced that links in press releases were considered “paid” links and therefore, part of a “link scheme.” This sent waves of panic through the industry, as many thought they would now be penalized by Google for putting links in their press releases. However this proved to be not true: while Google says that links in press releases should be “nofollow,” they have also gone on record saying they have “identified ‘a lot’ of the top Press Release sites and ignores the links but doesn't penalize those who are using them.”
7. Guest blogging is bad.
Writers and marketers guest blog for a multitude of reasons- not just to build links. And google realizes this, so they aren’t going to penalize your website because you contribute a guest post to a few blogs periodically. However, like many things, it should be done in moderation and in a non-spammy way(like not using overly-optimized anchor text links or keyword stuffing your post.)
6. Social signals are the key to SEO
Studies have indeed that there is high correlation between social activity(like facebook likes and shares, Google+s) and high search rankings. But correlation does not equal causation, nor does Google actually use data from Facebook or Google + to determine rankings.
5. AuthorRank is here today.
AuthorRank is a way that google will rank authored content by an author in search results based on their authority on a particular topic. However, the Authorship rich snippet does not currently have a very wide adoption(only 3.5% of Fortune 100 companies have adopted it)- which is required before AuthorRank can even be rolled out.
4. XML sitemaps help your rankings.
XML sitemaps help search engines to find and index your your content quicker and more efficiently. But, while they are a best practice, they won’t help you get higher rankings.
3. Schema is a ranking factor.
Schema markup helps search engines to better understand your content, such as whether it’s a video, or a recipe, or other type of content. However, according to Google, it will not improve your rankings.
2. Hummingbird is a gamechanger
Hummingbird is Google’s new search engine algorithm that is based on semantic searches-for instance, mobile searches that ask questions (“Where is the best place to get pizza?”). When it was rolled out, the SEO community waited with bated breath for the expected impact on search results- but that impact never happened. In fact, the change was hardly noticeable.
- SEO is dead
Every time a major shift to the SEO landscape happens, someone proclaims “SEO is dead!” from mountain tops. The truth is, SEO is just constantly changing tactic and industry. In fact, the only constant- in life and SEO- is change. So SEO is not dead, it’s just evolved to be a part of everything we do as marketers.
