36 SEO Myths That Won?t Die But Need To

[Linda Buquet]

Great read!

<a href="http://searchengineland.com/36-seo-myths-that-wont-die-but-need-to-40076">36 SEO Myths That Won?t Die But Need To</a>

Every day a new SEO myth is born; unfortunately, not every day does an old SEO myth die off. The net result is a growing population of myths. These are nearly impossible to squash because the snake-oil salesmen of our industry keep perpetuating them ? bringing them back from the brink, even. You can talk at conferences till your blue in the face. You can develop SEO checklists like this one, or even author a book. You?ll still get asked how to write good meta keywords.

What do you think???

 

[djbaxter]

Every day a new SEO myth is born; unfortunately, not every day does an old SEO myth die off. The net result is a growing population of myths. These are nearly impossible to squash because the snake-oil salesmen of our industry keep perpetuating them — bringing them back from the brink, even.

That's not the real problem. The problem is the ubiquity of SEO forums and blogs. Someone, having heard a false claim about SEO, makes a statement online. Several people read it. It seems plausible so they propagate the same claim on other blogs and forums. Before anyone can intervene, that false claim has been repeated on dozens or perhaps hundreds of blogs and threads, and the myth becomes something that "everyone knows". At that point someone steps up and says, "Wait a minute. That's not correct. Where did you hear that?", eliciting the response, "Everyone knows this to be true. What are you talking about?".

That said, I'm not sure that all of the 36 listed in that article are entirely myths. People who write or talk about SEO rarely have any concept of basic experimental design, or Type I and Type II errors (equivalent to false negatives and false positives), and in my experience the majority are not prime examples of critical thinkers. Rather, they tend to defer to authority or fame.

For example, the author of this article says:

Testing done by SEOmoz found that the anchor text of your “Home” links is largely ignored.

The statement is meaningless. Just HOW did SEOmoz test this hypothesis? Has anyone else been successful in replicating that finding? Are we supposed to accept this conclusion merely because it comes from SEOmoz?

 

[Laura61]

That was a very interesting list. I too wonder if there isn't at least a little truth to a few of those, but I don't know if a list could possibly be made that is 100% true 100% of the time for 100% of people. There are so many variables involved in SEO and so many different situations, it's a wonder that anything can ever be proved definitively!

Thanks for posting this - it was great food for thought!

 

[djbaxter]

There are so many variables involved in SEO and so many different situations, it's a wonder that anything can ever be proved definitively!

Exactly. There's really no way to hold all other factors constant to test whether a specific factor is or is not important.