{"id":8085,"date":"2011-04-27T13:44:29","date_gmt":"2011-04-27T20:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rosalindgardner.com\/blog\/?p=8085"},"modified":"2022-11-24T16:37:53","modified_gmt":"2022-11-25T00:37:53","slug":"five-seo-myths-that-need-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rosalindgardner.com\/blog\/five-seo-myths-that-need-to-die\/","title":{"rendered":"Five SEO Myths that Need to Die"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I speak at multiple Internet marketing conferences each year like SMX<\/a> and Affiliate Summit<\/a> on the topic of SEO (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be doing a full day SEO Training<\/a> in New York this August). As a result, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard a lot of questions and seen a lot of “situations” involving search engine optimization. And while many of them I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll gladly agree are open to debate and theory, there are a few SEO questions that come up regularly that make me want to beat my head into a wall. <\/p>\n

Below are five common SEO myths that I wish would finally die:<\/p>\n

#5: Meta keywords matter<\/h2>\n

The use of the meta keywords tag hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mattered in regards to search engine rankings since almost the beginning of my career as an SEO over a decade ago. The meta keywords tag won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t harm you if it's in your site header, but spending any effort to create them is a complete waste and has been for almost a decade, since the last search engine using them publicly announced abandoning them as a ranking factor. But the topic refused to die, causing Google to issue a public statement confirming once again<\/a> that they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t consider the meta keywords tag at all in 2009.<\/p>\n

I think part of the reason this subject refuses to die is that the meta description tag still has limited use in Google<\/a>. But the meta description tag isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t used to determine where to rank you in the results. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s used as the snippet for your site at times<\/a>. So, it can be very useful in increasing your click through rates in the search engine result pages (SERPS) but it won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help you get the rankings needed to be in front of users TO click on it.<\/p>\n

#4: You should submit to search engines<\/h2>\n

Tons of snake oil SEO companies still tout search engine submission as an offering. However, submitting to search engines through general “submit here” URLs is futile and useless. Providing that your site has a link or people visiting it, it will get found \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and indexed \u00e2\u20ac\u201c by the search engines. And if it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have links or visitors, then you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not going to rank in the algorithms of 2011 anyway, so being indexed in the engine won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make much of a difference. <\/p>\n

The quickest way to get a new site indexed is to promote it, legitimately. Get it publicity and get it basic links and the search engines will find you. And once they do, the promotional efforts you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve employed will actually help you rank as well. The exception to this rule, in my opinion, is if you have a large or “complicated” site and want to submit an XML Sitemap<\/a> to Google through its Webmaster Tools section<\/a>. However, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t confuse this with search engine submission services submitting your site to “thirty engines” snake oil.<\/p>\n

#3: Using the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnofollow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 tag on internal links helps you direct internal Pagerank<\/h2>\n

The nofollow attribute<\/a> was originally created under the claim that it was a joint effort by the leading search engines of the day (in 2005) to help fight blog spam. The theory was that if easily spammable platforms like blogs employed the use of the nofollow tag, the value of the link to the spammer would be worthless. If blog spamming no longer worked as a “ranking technique” as a result, then the incentive to do it would be removed and spammers would attempt to move onto the next target.<\/p>\n

Since then, the tag has “evolved” to be used to not transfer credit to paid links (a practice Google has been “at war” with for a long time) and for a short time, was a way to direct (or sculpt<\/a>) internal Pagerank to the pages you thought were most important on your website. Even Google\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own Matt Cutts<\/a> answered that the technique was “allowed” (though stressed they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see the point in putting a lot of effort towards it) during a SMX panel<\/a> we both spoke on in 2008. <\/p>\n

However, it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t long before industrious SEOs found ways to abuse sculpting forcing Google to change how they treated the tag<\/a> on internal links and thus killing the ability to sculpt internal Pagerank<\/a> with the nofollow tag.<\/p>\n

#2: Toolbar Pagerank matters<\/h2>\n

First, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s acknowledge that long gone are the days when Google\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s algorithm was based primarily on Pagerank<\/a>. Second, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to be clear that there is a difference between the real, internal Pagerank of a website that Google uses as a part of its algorithm and the green pixels you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re shown in the Google Toolbar<\/a> (referred to as TBPR \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Toolbar Pagerank<\/a>.) <\/p>\n

Way back in the day, the higher your TBPR was, the more valuable Google considered your site and the more your outbound links were worth. So, webmasters who knew this decided to only target links from sites that had a TBPR of 4 or more. While the original “truth” behind that method has long since become fiction, it unfortunately is still a “strategy” employed or suggested by some people who call themselves SEOs. Currently, Toolbar Pagerank seems to have no direct correlation to higher rankings or higher link value, though it is suspected to have some correlation to higher indexing rates<\/a>. Matt Cutts has been quoted<\/a> stating that he himself would like to see Toolbar Pagerank go away (I suspect as he may realize it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mere existence prolongs the death of the TBPR related SEO “strategies.” )<\/p>\n

#1: Google hates affiliate websites<\/h2>\n

Google doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hate affiliate websites. Google hates crap affiliate websites. If the affiliate site is thin or contains the same duplicated information as a thousand other websites that are affiliates of a merchant (think affiliate datafeed sites) with no differentiation to it, then yes, Google is likely looking for your “type” of sites to suffer in upcoming search engine updates. But if you can find a way to create a value add and make your affiliate website into an affiliate brand and promote it via legitimate methods within the Google guidelines<\/a>, then you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not a specific target and you likely don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to fear every update. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in the former category, learn how to survive the affiliate evolution and make defensible websites Google not only doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hate but ones they actually want to rank.<\/p>\n

About the Author<\/h2>\n

Rae Hoffman-Dolan aka “Sugarrae” is an affiliate marketing veteran and provides (extremely) occasional SEO consulting services specializing in SEO audits<\/a> and link building techniques. In addition to being the SVP of Marketing for Speedy Incorporation Service<\/a>, she is also the author of the often controversial Sugarrae blog. You can connect with Rae via Twitter<\/a> or via Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I speak at multiple Internet marketing conferences each year like SMX and Affiliate Summit on the topic of SEO (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be doing a full day SEO Training in New York this August). As a result, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard a lot of questions and seen a lot of “situations” involving search engine optimization. And while many of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":8099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1225],"tags":[1281],"yoast_head":"\nFive SEO Myths that Need to Die - RosalindGardner.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/rosalindgardner.com\/blog\/five-seo-myths-that-need-to-die\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Five SEO Myths that Need to Die - RosalindGardner.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I speak at multiple Internet marketing conferences each year like SMX and Affiliate Summit on the topic of SEO (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be doing a full day SEO Training in New York this August). 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