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In our previous post, SEO biggest myths part 1
we look at 3 myths about ranking your site in Google. Today I want to share with you the other 2.

Myth #4 You Must Get Links From Related Subject Sites to Rank

Well, this simply not true. Consider Wikipedia, the largest online Encyclopedia. Some large corporations for example the Fortune 500, they all have a section in Wikipedia. Does Wikipedia only cover their subjects? Absolutely NOT! They cover many things, From computer securities, SEO jargon like spamdexing, financial terms such as Price Per Earning ratio and so on.

Another example will be article directories such as EzineArticle.com, the cover many topics, health, insurance, business, money making tips, cars and many many.

Are on topics link get you better result? Actually I don’t know and I think no one is for sure apart from Google. After all Google only knows how it determines which web site is more relevant than the others for a given keyword.

Will off site links NOT good? I don’t think so, my hosting web sites got some links from article directories and general directories, but it still rank pretty good for some keywords.

And in fact I can show you an example that was taken by Jonathan Ledger, SearchEngineMythsExposed webstie.

real estate => 81
county real => 25
search engine => 11
oregon real estate => 8
beach real estate => 8
web hosting => 6
web site => 6
soy candles => 5
digital camera => 5
civil war => 4
goat milk => 4
palm beach => 3
fairy wings => 3
promotional products => 3
labrador retriever => 3
acupuncture needles => 3
myrtle beach => 3
karo hali => 3
comforter sets => 3
business opportunity => 3
fund raising => 3

Those are the results when Jon analyzed the links from a search engine optimization company, SubmitExpress.com. And as shown above, there are very few links actually come from SEO or relevant website. But as of today, submitexpress.com ranks top 10 in Google. So it’s only on topics link count?

Myth #5 Update Your Content Frequently!

This myth arises because, blogging is really hot today in our society. Any we are told, update our blogs frequently so traffic will follow. Yes, updating contents frequently will help for the traffic but will it helps your search engine ranking? I don’t think so. Consider the following example, “affordable web hosting” is the keyword you type in Google. One year ago, when I search for the term, BlueHost is at top 10 in Google. One year later (as the time of writing), it is at #2 for the keyword. If you are their customer, you will know the content hasn’t changed. It still looks the same as 1 year ago. And in fact, you can check with archive.org and see if the update their contents frequently!
so update your content frequently so you can rank high? NO. Another example will be radiolovers.com . It still ranks #1 in Google despite the fact it is rarely update (check with http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.radiolovers.com and you will see there are no more differences comparing today and 3 years ago.

That ends our discussion of Biggest SEO Myths. I hope you enjoy!

As promised in my last post, today I will post the Greatest Search Engine Optimization Myth here.

Myth 1: Ranking in Google is hard!

I heard some webmaster complaining me about that! Well of course ranking in Google can be hard if you:
(1) don’t know what you are doing, (2) give up too easily and (3) simply did not bother doing it! It can be easily achieved if you follow some simple guidelines and implement them consistently.

On one of my web hosting site, it’s currently ranking in Google top 10 by 2 set of keywords. However, it was not achieved in one month or 2! I took about 3 months to get one of the keyword ranked top 10 in Google, Yahoo and MSN and the other keywords may be in 5th or 6th month after the site is established. So there is no magic bullet that make you site ranks fast in Google! Stop thinking about that, don’t give up and one day you will see the result.

Myth 2: Higher Page Rank = Higher Ranking!

Let me explain what page rank really is. Page rank is invented by a co-founder of Google search engine , Larry Page and it is basically indicated the link popularity of a page in Google index. In other words, it is a proprietary algorithm by Google that tells the importance of a web page. The more incoming links for a give web page meaning it is more important than a web page with a lower Page Rank or PR. However, when search engines decide which web page should rank higher than another a web page for a give keyword, Page rank basically is irrelevant. Why? Because I saw sites that have lower page rank ranks better than a site with a higher one. Consider the following example: if you query the keywords “Play games” in google, you will find:

(picture curiously provided by Search Engine Myth Exposed If you look at the picture closely, you will see valleyGames.com is actually rank higher than gamesKidPlay.com. The page rank values of ValleyGames.com was 3 but gamesKidPlay.com was 4. The other example would be search the keywords “airline tickets”:

Again site sidestep.com Page rank is only 6 compare to travel.aol.com/fligths which Page rank value 7.

So it is simply not true to say High Google Page rank = high ranking!

Myth 3: Google will not rank web site that contains duplicate content
that’s been discussed on my last post, it’s simply not true!

So quickly recap:

1.) Rank your site in Google isn’t hard at all, provide your follow through SEO overall search engine friendly website, write content and build back links with other site according to your keyword research can be achieved, it’s basically take times and don’t panic if you see your site fluctuates up and down, it’s normal.

2.) Sites with high Google Page Rank does NOT always equal to high ranking with a given keyword.
Google uses 2 “rules” to determine how a site is ranked for some given search term. As we’ve already discussed, page rank is a calculation of link popularity and it is NOT the whole picture a ranking a site.

3.) Duplicate is a myth as we already pointed out at “duplicate content penalty is a myth”

But there are many myths about SEO as well, for example getting links from relevant subjects web sites, has to be focus on one subject to rank etc… I am covering all the aspect so I name my title, “Greatest Search Engine Optimization Myth (1)” that means this is only part 1 of the subject! so do book mark us and come back later!

Thanks!