The Most Popular SEO Myths Revealed!

I hear so much talk about SEO 'myths' recently that I finally decided to write about this popular topic and write about the techniques and words which have proven to be SEO 'myths' during my SEO testing. However, if any of the points I will write about below on this post is not convincing to you, or you have other facts to contradict what I have written, then please do not hesitate to comment here. All comments on SEO optimization are always welcome.

I will now continue making the list of some very popular SEO myths and give a detailed explanation for my points and why it's not as you have heard about it thus far.

Will I Be Penalized For Duplicate Content?
Let’s get to the bottom of this one firstly. Google will NOT penalize you for duplicated content in exception if the original author/content/publisher and will not send a copyright infrigement notice to Google Inc. In the case where the URL (web address) copyrighted/copied content is located will be removed from Google’s index.

Lets look at another popular scenario, 'on-site' duplicate content. This is very common for wordpress members to have the same content located on several parts of the blog, even for that I have blogged for a long time on how to remove duplicate content from your wordpress blog(s). The main and most common reason why you would not want to have the same content located on several parts of your site is one: give more 'weight' to the published page as that it is the place where you would want visitors to land and have their information right in front of their faces.

Submitting your site on web directories is not good?.. True?
I don't agree...It is true though that web directories had a rough time with Google inc. not long ago but having your websites or blogs listed in a web directory will certainly not harm your site in the SERPs. What could really harm your site (affect page rank & possible penalization) is links from bad 'neighborhood sites'. There are several good quality directories out there like the V7N Directory or the Botw directory. You should consider to submit your site(s) to these directories.

Will Advertising via AdWords help in my rankings?
A load of utter rubbish. AdWords is the advertising section of Google Inc. AdWords advertisers are published on their sister section which is called 'AdSense' through a Javascript. Since search engine spider bots are unable and do not read Javascript, this myth falls flat on its face.

Should I repeat my keywords to rank higher?
Not only that this is a well known myth, but repeating keywords (also know as 'keyword stuffing') will most definately get you in trouble, and your site will be penalized. There is a big difference between “optimization” and “over optimization”, keyword stuffing is what we would call “over optimization” and it is harmful and not helpful. Do not over-do your keywords keep them short, sweet & to the point.

Should I have a XML Sitemap?
Let's say you are going to somewhere you've never been before, let's say Austaralia as an example, but you don’t have a touristic guide to show you the most popular and attractive places. Will you manage to see all the beauties of Australia for the duration you arethere? Maybe yes, but you will almost certainly with a tourist guide will see more wonderful places then doing the research yourself. The same happens with the search engines, providing a “guide” through your site to the search engine 'spider bots' will make it much easier for the spider to crawl all your content and find something. It's not that the spiders are unable to crawl your site, but with a XML sitemap not only that the spider bots will know the route to crawl but they also get reminded that there is something new in your site that should be 'crawled'.

Is Page Rank worthless?
Worthless for…? If it’s intention is to mean that page rank will not help in your search engine rankings then yeah that could be true…maybe. However, since Page Rank is Google’s tool to determine the popularity of a site (where the popularity is calculated by the number of the backlinks a site receives from other popular/trustworthy sites) then it is closely connected with the fact how your site performs in the search engines (but not for specific keywords, as search engine rankings depends on the anchor that is used on those backlinks). Anchor Text is the text that defines a links content. So, rather than have a link to a product or article that just say's 'Click Here' it is much better to have a link that defines what you will land on. i.e 'Click Here For The Latest NFL News'

Should I edit my site if it's ranking?
This is not true at all, you can 'touch' your site as much as you can if you know what you are doing! (i.e. maintain the same keyword density, and give value to those keywords for which you are trying to rank, and of course, never stop to build backlinks to your website or blog). By not touching your site at all, and especially stopping to build quality backlinks, will give more space time and oppurtunities to your competitors to beat you on the SERPs.