Seo Myths

Posts about mistaken ideas, unprovable concepts, and other myths that some, many, or most search engine optimizers may believe to be true.

SEO is dying! SEO is dying!

Posted by Michael Martinez on August 15, 2008 in Seo Myths

So once again we have people posting in the pointless debate over the impending death of search engine optimization. The latest craze in crazy assumptions seems to be that since more companies are hiring in-house optimization specialists the demand for out-house — er, outside specialists must be doomed or something.
Let’s review the facts before [...]

SEO Experts and Expert SEO Services

Posted by Michael Martinez on June 30, 2008 in SEO Metrics, SEO Theory, Seo Myths

The new buzzword in town seems to be “SEO expert”. It’s not longer enough for people to tout themselves as professional SEOs — now we’re all going to be experts. Heck, if you don’t feel like an expert, someone will be glad to take your money and teach you to be an expert. [...]

PageRank Sculpting for SEOs who believe in PageRank Sculpting

Posted by Michael Martinez on June 18, 2008 in Seo Myths

So you’re reading lots of blogs that talk about PageRank sculpting and you feel like there must be something to it. After all, so many SEOs are talking about it. And it’s not like the SEO community has ever been wrong about anything, is it?
Let’s take a look at some of the arguments [...]

Meta tags DO matter — get it right for a change

Posted by Michael Martinez on May 13, 2008 in Seo Myths

The latest legal news roundup on SEOmoz includes an erroneous statement. Sarah Bird, Esquire writes about meta tags: “While not valuable for rankings, metatags (at least title and descriptive tags), are important for SEM. “.
Bullshit.
I don’t expect attorneys to understand search engine optimization as well as I do but when you make a statement [...]

SEO Secret - Search engine link and SEO link building

Posted by Michael Martinez on February 25, 2008 in Seo Myths

The most popular myth being passed around the SEO world is that “it’s all about links” or, to put it another way, “links are more important than content”.
The difference between ignorance and incompetence is that an ignorant person generally concedes to being ignorant; incompetent people who forge ahead despite their ignorance don’t acknowledge that they [...]

Google’s supplemental index is still biting your ass

Posted by Michael Martinez on January 30, 2008 in Seo Myths

The latest myth sweeping across the SEO community is that Google’s Supplemental Results Index no longer matters — in fact, many people are even saying it no longer exists, that it was merged with Google’s main index.
Of course, many people in the SEO community wrongly believe that the old “site:domain -gobbledy gook” method no longer [...]

It’s not a penalty if …

Posted by Michael Martinez on January 3, 2008 in Seo Myths

Google unleashed significant churn in its search results this week. There are four possible reasons for why I might be seeing that churn (those four reasons should be permanently etched into your heart). SERP churn happens every week, every day in some cases. It’s normal, ordinary, everyday stuff in the world of [...]

SEO Nonsense - Sculpting PageRank Builds Muscle

Posted by Michael Martinez on November 26, 2007 in Seo Myths

I see that certain voices are once again advocating the idiocy of managing PageRank through the use of “rel=’nofollow’”.
I could compose yet another long-winded argument debunking the nonsense but I’ve already done that more than once. So, while it’s true there are plenty of gullible people in the SEO community who run around from [...]

SEO Myth: Search engines favor large domains

Posted by Michael Martinez on October 2, 2007 in Seo Myths

As the owner of more than one large content domain that has been actively adding content and links since 1997, I can honestly say that I have personally seen the so-called “large domain effect” many times, where you add a new page or section about a new topic and you get almost instant rankings success.
As [...]

The PageRank control myth and the nofollow-for-SEO myth

Posted by Michael Martinez on August 31, 2007 in Seo Myths

Where does your PageRank come from?
Does the little PageRank fairy visit your links at night and sprinkle PageRank dust on them? Do other people go buy it from authorized PageRank resellers and then distribute it to their friends?
There are a couple of major voices in the industry spreading some absolute nonsense about PageRank and [...]

Next Page