Search Engine Optimization and Google Ranking Myths
There are so many people claiming to be SEO experts who just don’t know what to believe, people claim how to easily rank in Google and attract hundreds or thousands of search visitors every day. The truth is that there are hundreds of factors that go into search engine optimization and there are probably around twenty that can actually be measured and successfully implemented.
On the other hand, you can’t help but read about ranking factors that just don’t sound right and it’s these SEO myths I’d like to talk about today. You will see that search engine optimization is a bit mystical, but just because people come up with nonsensical theories that confuse those trying to learn solid SEO, here are some of the top myths I personally come across.
Do you use webmaster tools? Has your site been verified? If you are not going to suffer in Google rankings apparently, what do you think? If you think so, this rings true, wait. This is probably one of the biggest ranking myths out there, I have optimized hundreds of sites, some with webmaster tools, some without and it has made no difference to the campaign.
The one that really bugs me is HTML validation against W3C standards, yes it’s good practice to keep your pages as clean as possible to ensure Google.bot can find all that interesting content, but will it affect your ranking on Google? Not likely, even Blogger, a blog platform owned by Google, can’t even be bothered to validate their templates, why? Because it doesn’t really matter, as long as Google can follow the links to find your content, there really is no problem.
Some people have tried to claim that spelling and grammar can be used as a signal of quality in Google’s algorithm, again I haven’t seen evidence of this, though I admit it may be something Google looks at as they adjust their algorithm, but it certainly doesn’t have weight. right now, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to rank a site because of a common misspelling.
Lastly, it has been said that the number of domain queries to your site can indicate signs of popularity, however the problem with this theory is that it is too easy to manipulate. I believe domain queries, no matter how diverse, have little impact on your site’s actual ranking. If you have been worried about the above myths in the past, now is the time to stop and focus on the most crucial aspects of search engine optimization.