There are too many myths in SEO and indeed some that just won’t go away, lets take a look at some of the more enduring myths here.
Validating HTML helps ranking – Not so, there are many websites not W3C compliant (including Google’s many sites) but search engines do not require sites to be validated to index them.
Meta keyword tags help rankings – Google does not use them at all and Yahoo / Bing make very little use of them except in certain circumstances.
Keywords in domains are a an easy way to the top of the SE’s – Not really, they can be a help but they are not a ticket to the top. The sites content must still be worthy of listing and the off-site factors will still be important.
Using Adwords helps natural rankings in Google – No, natural rankings and Adwords rankings are two different algorithms and nobody at Google adjusts the results pages just because you spend some money on Adwords.
Google Pagerank dictates search rankings – A few test searches will show lots of low PR pages outranking high PR ones. Pagerank certainly is one factor involved in the ranking calculation but it is only one of many. You should be aware the pagerank we see from the Google toolbar is not the same measure that Google uses.
Sites get penalised if they contain duplicate content – Its not really a penalty, its simply that search engines are not interested in showing the same material multiple times (e.g. retail sites using supplied text descriptions of products) but it does not cause a penalty as such to your website.
A frequently updated blog is essential for good rankings – No, not really, the search engine results pages are full of lisitings that have not altered in years. Having great content is more important that having new content.
Targeting high traffic keywords is best – Not necessarily! Usually website owners want sales not visitors so it generally makes sense to get ranked for the searches that lead to the best conversion rates and they are not usually the high volume keywords!
Reciprocal links are a must for good rankings – Trading links on link pages is no longer a good idea, such links have little effect and can even be harmful.
Using Flash on your website is bad for SEO – Not unless your site is all flash or heavily so! Sites which use Flash for nice effects and photo slideshows are usually fine, it all depends on whether your site can be read by the search engine robots.
Author Bio: Aidan has been in online marketing since the early days. He writes for his own site www.adsurf.com.au and contributes regularly to others.
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