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Some Google SEO Myths

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There are many myths floating around Google in particular and SEO in general. Given here are the Google related myths as per the John Mueller’s “Frightening Webmastering Myths” presentation at “Tricks and Treats” webmaster event.

  • Duplicate content will penalize your site. [Don’t worry too much about duplicates on/from your own site. But be reasonable while using content from other sites]
  • Mixing HTML/XHTML will break verification
  • Getting listed in 1000s of search engines and directories is important. [search engines can find you, no need for submitting to directories]
  • Participating in AdWords, AdSense or Analytics will help or harm your site. [They won’t]
  • If a keyword is important, it’s important to repeat it in important locations on important pages so that the page looks more important to important search engines. [Write only with your readers in mind]
  • Using XML Sitemaps will make your site drop. [It doesn’t]
  • PageRank is dead / PageRank is everything! [Its not dead, but is also not everything, there are 200 more factors]
  • Resubmitting your site regularly is vital. [Not required]Google SEO myths
  • Once your site ranks high, don’t touch it. [People need fresh content also]
  • Valid (X)HTML will make your site rank higher. [No]
  • # Using “disallow” in your robots.txt will remove your site/page from the index.
  • The more links the better.
  • The only important goal when making a website is getting it listed first in search results.
  • It’s best to let old URLs return 404 so that the new structure is naturally discovered.
  • Using “Index, Follow” in robots meta tags is important.
  • Hosting your site on a shared IP address will cause your rankings to drop.

[Reproduced from John Mueller’s “Frightening Webmastering Myths” presentation slides.

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Jim Karter on November 21st 2008 in Google, Internet Marketing, Keyword Research, Link Building, Traffic Generation

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28 Responses to “Some Google SEO Myths”

  1. Amit Bhawani responded on 22 Nov 2008 at 12:23 am #

    Nice Points mentioned jim, now i will try to explain each of these in detail at my blog :)

  2. Miha responded on 22 Nov 2008 at 12:50 am #

    Whay this: “Hosting your site on a shared IP address will cause your rankings to drop. “

  3. Mega Champ responded on 22 Nov 2008 at 1:54 am #

    Nice points, people writing just for the sake of getting search engine traffic and stuffing their posts with keywords give worst experience to users. These types of websites waste your time bandwidth.

  4. Jim Karter responded on 22 Nov 2008 at 2:45 am #

    Miha, some people belives that using a shared server (which costs like $5 to $15 per month) instead of dedicated one (which costs around $200 to $300) can create negative effect on your website. But according to Google, thats not true.

  5. Envirogle responded on 22 Nov 2008 at 3:38 am #

    @ Jim

    You mean $0.5 to $15, right :D

  6. meeting rooms responded on 22 Nov 2008 at 4:31 am #

    Useful but agree on some. Have a well structured site will improve your site crawlability.

  7. Armaan Bhati responded on 22 Nov 2008 at 6:41 am #

    One of your best posts jim …

  8. Make Affiliate Money responded on 22 Nov 2008 at 8:31 am #

    I read something about hosting your sites in the US is better for ranking in the US on Google.com - is this true?

    Also, one of my sites appears to have been sandboxed by Google, it was ranking No.1 for some great keywords and regular traffic, but now it has dropped completely. Should I resubmit to Google or just sweat it out and hope it comes back eventually? Someone said just keep building links, but i think I hit the site with too many links via a DP sig link I bought which is why it got sandboxed.

    JZ

  9. Shooting games responded on 23 Nov 2008 at 9:44 am #

    why would anybody think that using xml sitemaps will harm you? If Google suggest something, than you better implement it and use it!

  10. Envirogle responded on 23 Nov 2008 at 7:57 pm #

    “If a keyword is important, it’s important to repeat it in important locations on important pages so that the page looks more important to important search engines. [Write only with your readers in mind]”

    Excellent point, to many new bloggers are writing for the search engines and not their readers.

    And spamming your posts with certain keywords, will make Google suspicious and they may ban you.

    Excellent post Jim :D

  11. Gerald SEO Tips Blog responded on 23 Nov 2008 at 11:21 pm #

    I’m to agree with pretty much all of these except for 2.

    “Getting listed in 1000s of search engines and directories is important. [search engines can find you, no need for submitting to directories]”

    While it is not necessary to be in directories for search engines to find your site it can help your search ranking if you are properly placed in quality directories with keyword rich anchor text.

    “# Duplicate content will penalize your site. [Don’t worry too much about duplicates on/from your own site. But be reasonable while using content from other sites]”

    Duplicate content can adversely affect one or both of the sites with the duplicate content.

  12. Play Games Win Prizes responded on 24 Nov 2008 at 5:21 pm #

    Hosting a site on a shared IP really does lower the rankings?!?!?

    -Mike

  13. Gerald SEO Tips Blog responded on 24 Nov 2008 at 5:44 pm #

    @Mike

    Some people think it does however the majority of the site on the internet are on shared ips. Having a shared ip really has no affect on SEO however if you are linking your own sites together and they are on the same class C of the ip address you won’t get as much link credit.

  14. pagespank responded on 25 Nov 2008 at 1:35 pm #

    On-site duplicate content is often misunderstood. People do use the word ‘penalize’ too much and scare others; as Google have occasionally mentioned, it’s better to think of this as a ‘filter’.

    However, that doesn’t mean on-site duplicate content can’t kill your rankings. All other things being equal, if you have 1 page accessible from 30 different URLs, all linked to an equal amount of times, how can any one of those URLs have the same ranking potential as 1 page accessible from only 1 URL?

    I know of plenty of high profile websites that suffer heavily from duplicate content filters due to a badly made CMS, web analytics, shopping cart solution, etc. You don’t have to look too far on the web as an SEO to find one.

  15. Zak Show responded on 26 Nov 2008 at 12:43 pm #

    I totally agree, and I just wrote a post about some blogging myths that people still believe in! It’s related to the post that you wrote:

    http://www.zakshow.com/2008/11/25/5-blogging-myths-that-new-bloggers-still-believe-in/

    Thanks for the information.

  16. Rajaie AlKorani responded on 28 Nov 2008 at 1:26 am #

    I’ve never heard of the last myth, but I don’t see how it could affect your rankings at all. (Maybe contribute a bit, but not that much)

  17. Jeremy responded on 28 Nov 2008 at 4:52 am #

    Jim, do you believe the google “sandbox” is only a myth?

  18. emigre responded on 01 Dec 2008 at 9:49 pm #

    “The only important goal when making a website is getting it listed first in search results.”

    Depends on your objective. If it is to make money then this is definitely not a myth.

  19. Envirogle responded on 03 Dec 2008 at 10:57 pm #

    @emigre

    It says ” ‘The only’ important goal when making a website is getting it listed first in search results.”

    So you think there is no other important goal when making a website besides getting it listed in Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc…???!!!???

    What about other avenues of advertising? not important…???!!!???

    Your either didn’t read it properly, need to learn SEO, or hired by Google.

    PS: or drunk.

  20. emigre responded on 04 Dec 2008 at 1:42 am #

    Envirogle:

    You need to take your head out of your ass and chill for a bit.

    Using too many question marks and exclaimation marks can harm your health.

    You too, need to read and reread my comments before getting all apeshit.

  21. Bike Advice responded on 08 Dec 2008 at 9:42 pm #

    Hosting your site on a shared IP address will cause your rankings to drop… this may not be true, but the opposite seems true.. hosting on a unique IP raises the ranking, I have seen it with my eyes!

  22. Srednarb responded on 13 Dec 2008 at 8:07 am #

    when I have just starting to know google and webmastering, I always check PR here and there, but now, i don’t even care, as long as traffic comes in, i will be fine.

  23. Sky Xavier responded on 15 Jan 2009 at 10:05 pm #

    one of really an interesting posts. i am sure this post is eye opening for so many newbies.

  24. YJ responded on 21 Jan 2009 at 1:41 am #

    Great I will definetly keep this in mind for my website thanks

  25. SEO Tips responded on 23 Jan 2009 at 11:37 am #

    Excellent tips thanks Jim these are sure to help a lot of people.

  26. Envirogle responded on 08 Feb 2009 at 7:24 pm #

    @ Emigre

    Sorry ’bout that, but I sure as hell wasn’t going apeshit. :D

    No need to get all crazy on me man.

    Just saying, you said “Depends on your objective. If it is to make money then this is definitely not a myth.”

    So if you want to make money your only important goal is to get it listed first in search results?

    That would not even consist of 50% of most sites traffic, ie, revenue source.

  27. Military Aircraft responded on 17 Feb 2009 at 9:41 pm #

    Thanks for that Jim.

    I must say, even if you think you know about SEO I bet there is something in there that you didn’t.

  28. Executive Training responded on 04 Aug 2009 at 4:33 am #

    Good tips about seo myths. This information is really useful. Thanks..

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