here are a lot of myths that are swirling around regarding SEO. Some of them are age old myths that have been going around for awhile now and others not so much. Many of these myths keep being repeated and you often hear about them at conferences or on blogs, etc. Here Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, debunks these SEO myths once and for all.
Ad Related Myths
One of the biggest SEO myths and one that has been going around for a while now is the, “If you buy ads you’ll rank higher on Google,” myth. This one is a classic and it’s time to sort this one out once and for all. Not only that but you also often hear that if you don’t buy ads you’ll rank better on Google.
Both of these are nothing but myths. Google does make changes, of that there is no doubt but they don’t do it to drive people to ads. They do it because they want to keep users happy and by keeping them happy they’ll come back and remain a loyal user. That is why Google does what it does with search results.
You Can’t Buy A Solution To Good Rankings
There are no easy solutions out there for good rankings. There are many black hat forums where they sell a software package that is supposedly able to help you make money online. The biggest piece of advice Matt offers regarding these software packages is to think for yourself. Matt poses a legitimate question: “If there was some foolproof way to make money online then don’t you think they would be using it to make money online rather than packaging it up as an ebook for sale?”
You should never look for some quick fix to solve all of your problems. In fact, more often than not a lot of these tools that you see for sale on these forums have the potential to do more harm than good. Best thing to do here is to think for yourself and think logically as to whether or not this would work as Matt suggests.
Think about Google’s goals, which are to help users find high quality pages. Your best bet is to focus on producing high quality pages so Google can let users know that this is a page that is worth their time reading. To do otherwise is to go against Google’s goals and this is only going to affect your search rankings in the long term. Align yourself with Google’s goals and you’ll be fine.
In Conclusion
The biggest takeaway from all of this is to make sure that you focus on producing high quality content for your website and SEO, rather than looking for some quick fix solution to climb the rankings. The fact is, there simply isn’t one. Matt has debunked these myths once and for all and you can hear more about this in his own words in the video.
What are some of the other myths you’ve heard regarding SEO?
Christian Michaels
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