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SEO Myths and Scams
By Lee Eldridge of Snap Promotions
I'm not an SEO expert, but I've spent a lot of time over the years reading about search engine optimization, and search engine marketing. I've also played around with onsite optimization and link building. And I've definitely come to a few conclusions that I thought I'd like to share. Before I do this, I think it's important to point out one thing. You need to understand that Google's top priority is to deliver the best search results. And while plenty of people have attempted to game the system over the years, overall Google still delivers the best results for it's users. Scam #1: Guaranteed Number One Ranking in Google
If anybody calls you or emails you and claims that they can guarantee you a number one ranking in Google, you need to run away as fast as you can. There are no guarantees in search engine placement, and anybody who says they can guarantee it is a liar or a thief. Or both. Now it's not all that difficult to get high rankings on non-competitive phrases. But non-competitive phrases aren't likely to drive you much, if any, traffic. So ranking #1 in Google for a phrase that nobody uses doesn't do you any good. Scam #2: Submitting Your Site to 100,000 Search Engines
Companies charge money for submitting your site to thousands of search engines. And they claim that this will help drive traffic to your website. First of all, I can't imagine that there are really 100,000 search engines on the Internet. And even if there are, who cares? Google, Bing and Yahoo make up by FAR the majority of searches that are conducted on the Internet. If you add in AOL and Ask, then you now have accounted for more than 90% of all searches. I've seen estimates that all the rest of the search engines account for 8.5% of searches. I doubt that it's that high. Now you also need to understand how search engines work. They scour the Internet for pages to index into their listings. And then they re-scour the Internet looking for more. If you have a brand new site, you can visit Google, Yahoo and Bing and submit your site to be indexed. Or add a few backlinks to your site, and the search engines will find you anyway. I'm not going to dive into link building here. There are tons of resources online about building links to your site. Scam #3: Approved Google SEO Firm
Companies will call and either imply that they're working for Google, a Google partner, approved by Google, or endorsed by Google. Hang up. Google does not endorse SEO firms. Myth #1: Keyword Density Matters
It's long been a myth about the importance of keyword density. Some experts tell you that you need your keyword phrases to make up a certain percentage of the copy on a page. If your density is too low, then you won't rank well for that phrase. If you have it on a page too many times, then the search engines will think you're spamming them to increase your rankings, and you might get penalized. I've seen examples of a site have great search engine placement for a competitive phrase even when the phrase was only on the page once. And I've seen plenty of examples of sites with very high keyword density not get penalized. Why did this happen? There was probably a time where keyword density mattered. Before backlinks and social media, the search engines figured that if a phrase was on a page multiple times, that this was probably good. People figured this out and starting spamming pages with keyword phrases. The search engines figured it out, and made it pretty much a non-factor. Get the phrase on the page at least once, but make sure your copy is setup for a good visitor experience. Not a good search engine experience. Then move on. Myth #2: You Must Update Your Site
Now there are certainly benefits for your visitors if you update the content of your site, but plenty of websites rank very well despite old content. Google really doesn't care. Myth #3: PageRank Matters
If you don't know what Google PageRank is, consider yourself lucky. It is a worthless measurement of the value of your site to Google. Even Google says it's unimportant. They'd probably like to take it back. There's plenty more, but that's enough for today. And happy marketing!
Lee Eldridge has been involved in marketing for more than 20 years. He's the co-owner of the promotional marketing company Snap Promotions out of Lawrence, Kansas. As a promotional marketing products specialist Eldridge is known as an innovative leader within the promotional products industry. Lee writes for his company's blog as well as Love Promos and his personal Kansas City Chiefs Blog.
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Excellent intel, as far as the scams go. It is a pity folks keep falling for those, and you are doing the community a service by alerting them about those scams. But your myths are less clear-cut. Keyword density DOES matter, actually, though not in the same way as it did in 2004. I call it relative keyword density. For example, if your page is overrun with the wrong keywords, you will have a hard time ranking for those that do matter to you. Even today, keywords are how search engines determine relevance (as opposed to prioritization) and that won't change as long as A.I. isn't a reality. Ditto for PageRank; it isn't as important as it used to be, but still essential. Google downplay PR to discourage artificial PR building. They probably wish they hadn't blabbed about it in the first place.
 | | nick Jan 26, 2011 09:27 | |
Some wise words in this intel for sure!
i have rewrite it on my blog http://ghobro.com/internet/promosi/mitos-dan-scam-seo.html . thank to inspire me.
The copyright for this content entitled "SEO Myths and Scams" has been specified by the contributor as:
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This intel was contributed by Lee
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