There are several SEO myths that have been in circulation for some time, some of which may be true and others that most certainly aren’t! Web Choice – A leading SEO company in UK, has been working to debunk many of the popular SEO rumours, including those regarding paid links, keyword stuffing, and anchor text. Here are some of the major myths that you should forget right now!:
1) Indexation is the same as ranking
So there’s this big SEO myth that says that if your site is indexed it will rank. Unfortunately, this is not true at all. The indexation basically means that Google has found out about your website, and most importantly knows where to find it on its servers. But if your site hasn’t been indexed, this is not a reason to be sad. You can easily do this yourself by submitting a sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools. If you do this and your site is still not indexed, don’t panic: it will most likely happen soon.
2) Backlinks and page ranking determines how high up in the search results in your site will appear
Another big SEO misconception is that page rank determines where in the SERPs (search engine results pages) your site will end up. Unfortunately, this isn’t true either. Rankings are determined by many, many factors which all relate to each other, including who links to whom, what these people are interested in, how popular they are, what text the links have, etc. The main component of these factors are link metrics, that’s why it’s very important to build backlinks, not just for SEO purposes, but also because you want other people to read and share your content.
3) Sites with a lot of backlinks will rank very high in search results
There’s a big SEO myth that says that sites with original, valuable content and a lot of backlinks will rank very high in Google. While this is true to some extent (the more quality links you have, the better), it’s not always about how many valuable links you get but rather where they point to. That’s why building backlinks on authority sites, or sites that have a lot of visitors, will have a much more positive effect on your rankings than just spamming reciprocal links with anchor text to your main site.
4) You can find out how well you rank by looking at the search results
What about the SEO myth that if you want to know how well you’re doing in Google, the best way to check is by looking at your search results? Unfortunately, this is not true either. The SERPs are changing every day and there’s no point checking them daily for changes: go and make a backlink somewhere else and you’ll see an instant jump in rankings (at least from Google’s perspective).
5) SEO will help you outrank competitors who have been in business longer
There’s a big SEO myth that says that if your site is better than your competitor’s, it will definitely outrank theirs. Unfortunately, this isn’t always true because Google takes a lot of different factors into consideration when ranking sites, and how long the domain has been online having absolutely nothing to do with its quality. That’s why the only way to outrank competitors who have been in business longer than you, is by building backlinks that are of better quality than theirs.
6) SEO is all about getting links
SEO might not always be about getting links but it nearly always revolves around them. While there are some other factors that influence rankings, having a lot of valuable backlinks is still the best way to get your site high up in search results.
7) SEO and marketing are basically the same things.
SEO and marketing might be similar but they’re not the same: while this myth says that SEO and marketing are basically the same things, it’s just not true. SEO is about getting traffic from organic searches, whereas marketing is all about buying or exchanging traffic for money.
8 ) Keyword optimisation will get you a higher ranking
Keyword optimisation of your pages isn’t dead at all, but it’s not the only way to go anymore either. You can still optimise some pages for particular keywords using long-tails which are words or phrases which you include in your content in order to target a particular string of search queries. However, the only way to get high rankings in Google nowadays is by having unique content with backlinks pointing to it.
9) In SEO- You need not follow the rules blindly but do the right thing.
You can’t achieve success with SEO if you’re just doing what’s right according to some pages on the Web, instead, you need to make sure you do everything properly.
10) Optimising your site for mobile search is a waste of time
Optimising your site for mobile searches is not only recommended, but it’s also essential. Today more people use their smartphones and tablets to look for stuff on Google, so this means that optimising for mobile search is very far from being a waste of time.
11) It doesn’t matter which links point to your website
Just like any other form of marketing, it’s important that relevant sites link back to your site because this shows Google that your site is relevant and credible.
12) You can get away with buying links
Buying links is against Google’s search engine rules. As such, the majority of webmasters and marketers agree that it’s a practice that should be avoided.
13) Links from the same IP and website domain influence search rankings more than others
All links send a signal to Google: some are stronger than others, but they all count in their own way. Keep in mind that you can get penalised for buying links. This is just another example of what we’re talking about: Google’s rules against buying links, but not necessarily for using them.
14) Internal links are not effective.
Internal links are very important because they help you rank for the same search queries. Therefore, internal linking is what helps Google classify your site as relevant, or irrelevant for a certain topic.
15) Comments and forum posts influence your site’s ranking in the SERPs
If you think that spamming forums and comments sections will help you rank for keywords because there are a lot of people reading them, then I’m sorry to crush this myth, but it won’t work. You can find many discussions about no-follow attributes on Google’s forum
16) Keywords in your URL are important
The keyword position in URLs has never really mattered, even though there was a time when they could be used to help Google classify your site. Today, most keywords can’t be found in URLs anymore. You don’t have to stuff the exact keyword in the URL
17) The number of incoming links is directly proportional to better search rankings.
This is actually only partially true. It’s more likely that better quality links will yield greater results: those from sites with good page rankings, .edu websites, etc., because they send a more powerful signal to Google.
18) Changing page titles and descriptions on a regular basis is good for search engine rankings
There is not much of a difference between using page titles and descriptions on an occasional basis, instead of the same ones every time. The only thing that you should keep in mind is that these elements need to be updated with quality content because that’s what really matters for better search rankings.
19) Using rich snippets helps your site rank higher in the SERPs
This one is very debatable. Rich snippets are not useful for search engine optimisation, but they can help you get more exposure, and some conversions through Google’s Universal Routing program. This means that if you have a site with rich snippets, then Google will have one less reason to block you from indexing it.
Not only is Google constantly changing how it ranks sites, but also there are different factors that determine the quality of your backlinks. That’s why you can get better rankings by targeting long-tails, not keywords, but rather more specific words or phrases that you include in your content in order to get more search queries.
Whilst it might be true that some sites are still ranking at the top just down to the fact that they follow all the established rules of SEO, you can’t get there unless your site is of extremely high quality – otherwise, Google will simply refuse to show you in its top rankings, no matter how many backlinks you have pointing to your pages.
