10 Crippling SEO Myths Debunked

Jack Clark · Apr 4, 2012

Here are 10 SEO myths that need to be put to bed:

#1 - The meta keywords tag influences rankings. This is well known and any good SEO will laugh in your face if you try to tell them otherwise.

#2 - You should judge an SEO's performance by tracking your ranking. This is something all people new to SEO do. Tracking rankings really isn't helpful, unless you are the one doing the SEO. As a business owner, you need to be tracking the increase in organic traffic generated from the SEO campaign, but more importantly, the increase in conversions (both online and offline) from organic search. NOTE: If your SEO is doing guest posting and online PR, then you should include any traffic/conversions generated as a direct result of their actions.

#3 - NoFollow links help you rank. The NoFollow tag was introduced to stop comment spam. Essentially, NoFollow links don't pass link juice that helps you rank. Don't let this stop you getting NoFollow links though. Getting a NoFollow link from a guest post on a high quality site will inevitably lead to people clicking through to your site and buying your stuff. All sites that have natural link profiles will have NoFollow links, so don't be surprised if Google gets suspicious if you have 100% DoFollow links.

#4 - Spending money on Google Adwords directly affects rankings. It really doesn't. Admittedly if you spend lots of money driving traffic to your site, then there is a greater chance of it getting links, because more people see it, however there is no direct ranking benefit.

#5 - Link Building is against Google Quality guidelines. White hat link building, using genuine promotional methods is not against Google's guidelines. Article submission to hundreds of sites, blog comment spam, web 2.0 spam, press release spam, forum profile spam, buying links, blog networks are all against Google's quality guidelines, which means if you get caught (Like tens of thousands of businesses did this week) then you will get banned.

#6 - SEO has a price. Nobody, not even Google can confidently tell you the price of ranking for a keyword phrase. SEO just doesn't work like that. Decide how much you are willing to invest in SEO each month (i.e. your budget) and find someone to do SEO for you who will maximise your ROI. Don't expect to see a huge ROI straight away, it is possible, but not likely. A good SEO strategy will take time to implement.

#7 - SEO is a one-off process. I hate it when I hear business owners say "I already did SEO". SEO is a continuing process. It is important to defend your rankings against competitors, but also to continue to look to expand your SEO strategy to target new opportunities.

#8 - SEO can be guaranteed. No SEO can honestly guarantee that your rankings will increase or that you will see an increase in sales from SEO. It is far too dependant on external factors. In reality, the SEOs who offer these types of guarantees are the ones you should avoid. A good SEO will be upfront with you about the realities of SEO. Does this mean you shouldn't invest in SEO? Absolutely not. Investing a reasonable amount of money each month into SEO is a good thing, as long as you choose a reputable consultant or agency.

#9 - High Pagerank = High Rankings. This is simply not true. If it were, wouldn't the highest PR sites rank for all searches?

#10 - You can somehow pay the search engines for high rankings. Although some search engines, like Yahoo, offer paid inclusion, you cannot buy your way to the top.

Hopefully this helps any newcomers to SEO get to grips with some SEO fact and fiction.

Please feel free to ask me any questions,

Thanks,

Jack

webgeek · Apr 4, 2012

Sorry, but some inaccuracies:

#2 - the site owner should track conversions. Traffic is meaningless, just like rankings. They want sales, sign-ups, downloads, or whatever their business objective might be...

#3 - no-follow links do not affect page rank, but do affect rankings. I've tested this and confirmed with several others who have done the same across many domains. No follow links do impact rankings, period. No, I don't care what Matt @ Google said to the contrary - it's BS.

#6 - I can forecast with 80% accuracy how long it will take our company to move a block of 10, 20, 50 or 100 keywords up from 'unranked' into the top 10 (and often within 3-4 positions of accuracy). It's science, not magic.

#8 - You run PPC, test the keyword conversion rates, then project the rankings increases to hit top 5. Yes, you can guarantee return, once you have conversion rates per 1000 visitors on given keywords.

#9 - High page rank publications do help rankings. If you put good content on high PR sites, you will move up faster than if you publish on low PR sites.

Hate to say it Jack, but you've spread more myths than you've debunked. Gotta call B.S. on that one!

Steve Sellers · Apr 4, 2012

webgeek said:
#6 - I can forecast with 80% accuracy how long it will take our company to move a block of 10, 20, 50 or 100 keywords up from 'unranked' into the top 10 (and often within 3-4 positions of accuracy). It's science, not magic.

How long to get any of these key words to rank:

Sex;
Porn;
Personal Injury;
Loans;
Justin Bieber;
IPhone.

Jack Clark · Apr 4, 2012

I think you've misunderstood what I have said on a few of the points:

#8 - I am not saying that you won't see an increase in sales if your rankings increase, what I am saying is that no SEO can honestly 100% guarantee that what they do will raise your rankings.

#2 - Traffic isn't meaningless, You should track traffic from organic search because it can be used to understand your conversion rate, rather than simply raw number of conversions. It also can be used as a quick way of indentifying any issues that occur with a site. If you only track conversions, how do you know that the latest update the web dev. team did didn't kill conversions because they forgot to format part of the page properly, rather than because they blocked Googlebot from crawling the site. If you only track one thing, then you have nothing to relate it to.

#3 - I knew someone would have a go at me for saying this, however NoFollow links do not affect ranking by passing juice. They may confer ranking benefits in the form of social media signals, but they do not pass linkjuice. Think about why it was introduced!

#6 - I completely agree that SEO is science not magic, however it is ridiculous to think of SEO as something that can be paid for like you would in a shop. If someone gives you a budget and you know that you can do xyz, then you can explain that, however that is your choice of using their budget. SEO isn't as simple as saying I want to rank for xyz how much will it cost? That's stupid. What about SERP CTRs for all of the site? What about the funelling effect of link juice throughout the site, leading to higher ranking for other KWs? What about a site restructuring effect? SEO is about getting the best ROI for someone not simply selling them a ranking, which they will have to buy again when their compeitor knocks them off the top or the next Google update comes along.

#9 - I am not saying that getting a link from a high PR page doesn't help you rank. What I am saying is that increasing your toolbar PR won't necessarily mean an increase in rankings. Too many biz owners still say "I want a PR 6" etc.

webgeek · Apr 4, 2012

Steve Sellers said:
How long to get any of these key words to rank:

Sex;
Porn;
Personal Injury;
Loans;
Justin Bieber;
IPhone.

When you think you've got the cash to buy top 10 rankings for any of these, take the briefcase full of unmarked cash and put it in bus station locker #27.

webgeek · Apr 4, 2012

Jack Clark said:
I think you've misunderstood what I have said on a few of the points:

#3 - I knew someone would have a go at me for saying this, however NoFollow links do not affect ranking by passing juice. They may confer ranking benefits in the form of social media signals, but they do not pass linkjuice. Think about why it was introduced!

That's blatantly untrue. Try it yourself on a test domain then blast it with nofollow links, doing no social media marketing or other potential influences. Nofollow is designed to protect against External links being passed Page Rank. Nofollow has little/nothing to do with authority/trust being passed for improved SERPs.

I've seen, done it, and should write the book on it I guess.

Steve Sellers · Apr 4, 2012

webgeek said:
When you think you've got the cash to buy top 10 rankings for any of these, take the briefcase full of unmarked cash and put it in bus station locker #27.

So I take it those fall within the 20%?

webgeek · Apr 4, 2012

LOL, I never claimed I can get you to rank for anything. I'm just claiming that any decent SEO firm can forecast accurately what they can deliver on, provided the keywords are agreed, and the KPI's forecast. It's not exactly rocket surgery.

makeusvisible · Apr 4, 2012

webgeek said:
Sorry, but some inaccuracies:

#6 - I can forecast with 80% accuracy how long it will take our company to move a block of 10, 20, 50 or 100 keywords up from 'unranked' into the top 10 (and often within 3-4 positions of accuracy). It's science, not magic.

And I'll call BS on that one

What you are effectively saying is that you can predict what other business owners, other webmasters, and GOOGLE are going to do in the future. Not to mention that your also predicting that no other SEO is promising their clients the same thing.

terryuk · Apr 4, 2012

I'll add to that, no follow does rank

webgeek · Apr 4, 2012

After you've forecast a few thousand keywords movement, set and met KPI's for a few years, you really kinda do get the hang of what it takes to beat the other guys. This is particularly true when your keyword research gets better and better.

Yes, I can unequivocally say that I can forecast with 80% or better accuracy the KPI's for each and every client that I work with. If you can't, well, I'm sorry, but I know that I'm just one of many SEO's that can do this.... You need to up your game.

makeusvisible · Apr 4, 2012

webgeek said:
After you've forecast a few thousand keywords movement, set and met KPI's for a few years, you really kinda do get the hang of what it takes to beat the other guys. This is particularly true when your keyword research gets better and better.

Yes, I can unequivocally say that I can forecast with 80% or better accuracy the KPI's for each and every client that I work with. If you can't, well, I'm sorry, but I know that I'm just one of many SEO's that can do this.... You need to up your game.

I think you need to concentrate on beating your predictions for your clients rather than just meeting them

eventdomain · Apr 4, 2012

Getting a NoFollow link from a guest post on a high quality site will inevitably lead to people clicking through to your site and buying your stuff.

etc etc......

I wouldnt count on free links being anything of quality or visitor rich either as free blog commenting usually isnt advantageous.

High quality? this needs more detailed explanation. But in short, its simple - get in-front of your customers - and for that you must go where their located online.

Jack Clark · Apr 4, 2012

etc etc......

I wouldnt count on free links being anything of quality or visitor rich either as free blog commenting usually isnt advantageous.

High quality? this needs more detailed explanation. But in short, its simple - get in-front of your customers - and for that you must go where their located online.

I'm not talking about blog commenting, I'm talking about writing a useful article for a well known trusted site, in return for a link in the author bio section. Some sites will NoFollow that link, however I think it is still worth pursuing because it is good exposure for your business.

High quality = High traffic, Lots of subscribers, Power to influence etc.

Jack Clark · Apr 5, 2012

I know that NoFollow links do not directly improve rankings. You said yourself (webgeek) that SEO is science not magic. How do you explain the direct ranking value of a NoFollow link? You admit it does not pass PR/juice, but claim that it passes trust/authority. Do you realise how ridiculous that is?

So if I go and post NoFollow links on sites like The Guardian, The Telegraph, Wikipedia etc. It will directly help me rank? Really? You think nobody, not one Google engineer might see a flaw with that? The idea that NoFollow links pass trust is ridiculous, that's exactly what they were designed to stop.

The only way I can honestly say that I have ever seen a ranking improvement from NoFollow links, is when a client had close to a 100% DoFollow link profile, which in relation to other sites in their niche was massively out of sync. Their link profile was clearly artificial and any Google engineer looking at the site would have pulled the plug.

We focussed on using social media sites to bring the link profile of the site back down to a reasonable level for that industry. We saw a significant increase in rankings, but it is almost impossible to say that that happened because of the supposed authority passed in NoFollow links.

I honestly can't comprehend how a reasonable person would believe that NoFollow would pass authority/trust.

terryuk · Apr 5, 2012

Jack Clark said:
I know that NoFollow links do not directly improve rankings. You said yourself (webgeek) that SEO is science not magic. How do you explain the direct ranking value of a NoFollow link? You admit it does not pass PR/juice, but claim that it passes trust/authority. Do you realise how ridiculous that is?

So if I go and post NoFollow links on sites like The Guardian, The Telegraph, Wikipedia etc. It will directly help me rank? Really? You think nobody, not one Google engineer might see a flaw with that? The idea that NoFollow links pass trust is ridiculous, that's exactly what they were designed to stop.

The only way I can honestly say that I have ever seen a ranking improvement from NoFollow links, is when a client had close to a 100% DoFollow link profile, which in relation to other sites in their niche was massively out of sync. Their link profile was clearly artificial and any Google engineer looking at the site would have pulled the plug.

We focussed on using social media sites to bring the link profile of the site back down to a reasonable level for that industry. We saw a significant increase in rankings, but it is almost impossible to say that that happened because of the supposed authority passed in NoFollow links.

I honestly can't comprehend how a reasonable person would believe that NoFollow would pass authority/trust.

It was me.

Have you tested a site with nofollow links or saw a site ranking with just nofollow links (80% nofollow)? or is this just your guess, or based on your own personal experience?

I doubt a Google engineer has time to single handily check one website for a few nofollow links.

Look at Wikipedia, nofollow? Worthless????

terryuk · Apr 5, 2012

http://www.socialseo.com/blog/an-experiment-nofollow-links-do-pass-value-and-rankings-in-google.html

Read that.. Not my experiment - I do my own

Jack Clark · Apr 5, 2012

TerryUK, I was referring to a statement that webgeek made, however I know that you followed up and agreed with him.

Wikipedia links are not worthless, the traffic that they can bring is one major benefit, but also the fact that lots of people use wikipedia to find out stuff e.g. journalists who might then write about that subject and link to a site linked from wikipedia.

I would never test a site to confirm the power of NoFollow links by including 20% DoFollow links. That is scientifically void as a test.

My opinions are formed from years of personal experience, talking with other SEOs (Not on forums), Talking with software engineers who have enough experience with computer mathematics to know that it would be mathematical nonsense, from a little bit of (unscientific) testing and my own logic.

I never said that a Google engineer would have the time to look at an individual website. What I am saying is that no reasonably intelligent engineer would design a system with such an obvious flaw in it.

The reason that I said "if a Google engineer looked at the site they would pull the plug" is because they are the ones designing the algorithms and systems of the future. It is their job to reduce spam. They aim to detect link profiles like my client's and ensure that those types of site won't rank. Therefore creating a non-suspicious link profile means that the client should be ok in the future.

terryuk · Apr 5, 2012

I was just posting in regards to;

#3 - NoFollow links help you rank. The NoFollow tag was introduced to stop comment spam. Essentially, NoFollow links don't pass link juice that helps you rank. Don't let this stop you getting NoFollow links though. Getting a NoFollow link from a guest post on a high quality site will inevitably lead to people clicking through to your site and buying your stuff. All sites that have natural link profiles will have NoFollow links, so don't be surprised if Google gets suspicious if you have 100% DoFollow links.

me>

I'll add to that, no follow does rank

I would test before you make bold claims of what doesn't and does work?

terryuk · Apr 5, 2012

Added to that, after the current 'over optimisation' powered from Google HQ - then I can only imagine that the power of nofollow has even risen! Not worthless what so ever!!!

mobyme · Apr 5, 2012

makeusawebsite said:
And I'll call BS on that one

What you are effectively saying is that you can predict what other business owners, other webmasters, and GOOGLE are going to do in the future. Not to mention that your also predicting that no other SEO is promising their clients the same thing.

The controlling factor here is how much money the client is willing to spend. It can be done but the ROI would never stack up.

Annoying Donkey · Apr 5, 2012

terryuk said:
I'll add to that, no follow does rank

I agree FWIW.

Jack Clark · Apr 5, 2012

Added to that, after the current 'over optimisation' powered from Google HQ - then I can only imagine that the power of nofollow has even risen! Not worthless what so ever!!!

This is what I am saying:

#1 - By themselves, in isolation, NoFollow links do not help you rank.

#2 - If your link profile is "over optimised" with hardly any NoFollow links, then yes getting NoFollow links might actually help you rank, but only due to the fact that your link profile was "over optimised" in the first place and needed link diversification

#3 - I am not saying that you do not need NoFollow links in your link profile. You do, and they should occur naturally through social media interaction, ad buying etc.

terryuk · Apr 5, 2012

Jack Clark said:
This is what I am saying:

#1 - By themselves, in isolation, NoFollow links do not help you rank.

#2 - If your link profile is "over optimised" with hardly any NoFollow links, then yes getting NoFollow links might actually help you rank, but only due to the fact that your link profile was "over optimised" in the first place and needed link diversification

#3 - I am not saying that you do not need NoFollow links in your link profile. You do, and they should occur naturally through social media interaction, ad buying etc.

Ok you keep contradicting yourself.

#3 - NoFollow links help you rank.

Now you say they can?

And I am not swaying from the fact nofollow links alone do rank you.

Mr how many websites have you actually optimised?

fisicx · Apr 5, 2012

terryuk said:
And I am not swaying from the fact nofollow links alone do rank you.

Very difficult to prove that claim is (my yoda bit).

Google does not follow no-follow links. Tested and proven umpteen times: no-follow links do not pass PageRank.

However, if you have a wider internet presence and take part in discussions and leave your URL then google will pick up on this. It's not the no-follow link itself, it is the footprint you leave behind you.

terryuk · Apr 5, 2012

fisicx said:
Very difficult to prove that claim is (my yoda bit).

Google does not follow no-follow links. Tested and proven umpteen times: no-follow links do not pass PageRank.

However, if you have a wider internet presence and take part in discussions and leave your URL then google will pick up on this. It's not the no-follow link itself, it is the footprint you leave behind you.

Yeah I dont care for Pagerank yadayda

fisicx · Apr 5, 2012

terryuk said:
Yeah I dont care for Pagerank yadayda

Not sure what you mean. PageRank is part of the algo. PageRank is a calculated score based on the quality and quantity of followed links. No-follow links aren't included in the PageRank calculation.

PageRank =/= the green google toolbar PR score

Jack Clark · Apr 5, 2012

Very difficult to prove that claim is (my yoda bit).

Google does not follow no-follow links. Tested and proven umpteen times: no-follow links do not pass PageRank.

However, if you have a wider internet presence and take part in discussions and leave your URL then google will pick up on this. It's not the no-follow link itself, it is the footprint you leave behind you.

I agree. Although I think both parties agree that PR is not passed.

Ok you keep contradicting yourself.

#3 - NoFollow links help you rank.

Now you say they can?

I don't keep contradicting myself. I have clearly stated that NoFollow links in isolation do not help you rank. I then go on to make the case that if your link profile is spammy i.e. only DoFollow links, then you might want to make it less spammy. The point in that case, is that spammy link profiles, often cause your ranking to decrease.

And I am not swaying from the fact nofollow links alone do rank you.

That's up to you.

Mr how many websites have you actually optimised?

Enough to know.

I really don't want to fall out with anyone over this, so this is probably the last thing I am going to say on this matter. I don't want to turn this thread into a personal battle where we continue to argue. I think it is safe to say that we are going to have to agree to disagree.

terryuk · Apr 5, 2012

fisicx said:
Not sure what you mean. PageRank is part of the algo. PageRank is a calculated score based on the quality and quantity of followed links. No-follow links aren't included in the PageRank calculation.

PageRank =/= the green google toolbar PR score

And page rank and your rankings are two different things

I really don't want to fall out with anyone over this, so this is probably the last thing I am going to say on this matter. I don't want to turn this thread into a personal battle where we continue to argue. I think it is safe to say that we are going to have to agree to disagree.

Agreed a little debate is good but I am getting tired, and need a coffee

Jack Clark · Apr 5, 2012

terryuk said:
And page rank and your rankings are two different things

I completely agree.

Jack Clark · Apr 5, 2012

Agreed a little debate is good but I am getting tired, and need a coffee

Good to hear.

garyk · Apr 5, 2012

Jack Clark said:
#5 - Link Building is against Google Quality guidelines. White hat link building, using genuine promotional methods is not against Google's guidelines. Article submission to hundreds of sites, blog comment spam, web 2.0 spam, press release spam, forum profile spam, buying links, blog networks are all against Google's quality guidelines, which means if you get caught (Like tens of thousands of businesses did this week) then you will get banned.

I still dont get this (and I'm in no way an SEO expert) and raised it on another thread *how* can you be penalised at all? It would open the market up to widespread abuse.

Your my competitor say, I buy a copy of xrumer and then blast *your* site with a load of low quality links and can do this on auto-pilot over days/months and then blam! Ive seriously affected your rankings and/or got your banned.

Whats to stop everyone and sundry doing this? I just cannot see how this is workable?

Jack Clark · Apr 5, 2012

That is a growing problem in SEO. Negative SEO i.e. the act of hurting someone elses rankings, is an industry that has been growing at an alarming speed recently. It is very hard to affect the rankings of a site that already has a strong link profile, but for new sites, it can be a major issue. The key to stopping this affecting your site, is to get really high quality, trusted links from reputable news sites, educational establishments, government sites and major niche sites.

garyk · Apr 5, 2012

Jack Clark said:
That is a growing problem in SEO. Negative SEO i.e. the act of hurting someone elses rankings, is an industry that has been growing at an alarming speed recently. It is very hard to affect the rankings of a site that already has a strong link profile, but for new sites, it can be a major issue. The key to stopping this affecting your site, is to get really high quality, trusted links from reputable news sites, educational establishments, government sites and major niche sites.

Which I guess begs the question Jack, does google penalise for over-optimisation??? Does anyone know for sure?

Jack Clark · Apr 5, 2012

Yes, Google does. Have you checked out http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleWebmasterHelp

Search for "penalties" and you should find some good videos.
http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleWebmasterHelp

webgeek · Apr 5, 2012

Negative SEO is akin to sending an ape to defuse an IED. 99% of the time it's gonna blow up in his face... 1% it's gonna work (if that).

I'd love for someone to show a working example of negative SEO in action. After the negative-dance, the upward bounce will be fun

mauahmed · Apr 5, 2012

One question. Panda 3.4 is against well seo optimised sites. Your comment please.

nitro23456 · Apr 5, 2012

theyre not well optimised obviously.

RadiusBPO · Apr 5, 2012

garyk said:
I still dont get this (and I'm in no way an SEO expert) and raised it on another thread *how* can you be penalised at all? It would open the market up to widespread abuse.

Your my competitor say, I buy a copy of xrumer and then blast *your* site with a load of low quality links and can do this on auto-pilot over days/months and then blam! Ive seriously affected your rankings and/or got your banned.

Whats to stop everyone and sundry doing this? I just cannot see how this is workable?

Do you think G cares about widespread abuse? They just want to reduce the ROI of SEO to increase adwords spend.

garyk · Apr 5, 2012

webgeek said:
Negative SEO is akin to sending an ape to defuse an IED. 99% of the time it's gonna blow up in his face... 1% it's gonna work (if that).

I'd love for someone to show a working example of negative SEO in action. After the negative-dance, the upward bounce will be fun

But thats not really a good analogy is it? I'm not saying an hour spent on the web makes someone an SEO expert but they *can* learn the basics and we are talking about the basics here. That coupled with a tool like scrapebox or xrumer which does alot of the lifting for you and you are away.

I guess as someone said depends on other factors; domain age, on page optimisation, diversity of links etc as to if you can affect someone else's ranking.

O and just found a case study where doing exactly this did take a site down http://www.saasaffiliates.com/testi...ates-to-competitors-hurting-your-web-ranking/

Gary

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