Top 14 SEO Myths...Busted!

@marketingmojo | #mojowebinar | marketing-mojo.com
TOP 14 SEO
MYTHS…BUSTED!
Janet Driscoll Miller
Tad Miller

TODAY’S PRESENTERS
President and CEO,
Marketing Mojo
Follow on Twitter: @janetdmiller
Tad Miller,
Vice President of Accounts,
Marketing Mojo
Follow on Twitter: @jstatad

ABOUT MARKETING MOJO
• Search engine marketing firm founded in 2005
› Search engine optimization (SEO)
› Pay-per-click advertising management (PPC)
› Social media advertising
› Online reputation management
• Headquartered in Charlottesville, VA
› Office in Charleston, SC
• Featured in the Washington Post, B2B Magazine,
MarketingSherpa, Visibility Magazine and many blogs
• Speakers at SMX Advanced, MarketingProfs, PubCon and more

OUR CLIENTS

1. META TAGS KEYWORDS
HELP IMPROVE RANKINGS.

SEO IS EASY…
“Just put all the keywords you want
to rank for in the Meta Tag
Keywords…”

WHAT ARE META TAG KEYWORDS?
• The <meta> tag provides metadata about
the HTML document.
• Example:
› <meta name="keywords" content="b2b lead
generation services, search engine marketing
agency, search engine optimization agency">

DOES GOOGLE CARE?
NOPE
!

2. SEARCH ENGINES DON’T
FOLLOW “NOFOLLOW” LINKS.

2. SEARCH ENGINES DON’T FOLLOW
“NOFOLLOW” LINKS.
Passing PageRank
Spiders Following a
Link
Treats the link like a vote
of popularity on a
subject (subject may
partially be defined by
anchor text)
Spiders/search bots use
links like a highway to
find new content and
index it

2. SEARCH ENGINES DON’T FOLLOW
“NOFOLLOW” LINKS.
• Google
› In general, we don't follow them. This means
that Google does not transfer PageRank or
anchor text across these links.
• Bing
› http://searchengineland.com/infographic-
nofollow-tag-172157

3. BEING A GOOGLE
ADWORDS ADVERTISER
HELPS YOUR ORGANIC
RANKINGS.

CONSPIRACY THEORY ALERT
“You want to be #1 on
Google? All you have to do
is spend a lot of money
advertising on Google…”

MATH PROBLEMS DON’T DO FAVORS
• Natural search results are derived from an
Algorithmic math formula factoring in at least 200
different factors about websites…none of which
includes advertising spend

4. QUANTITY OF INBOUND
LINKS IS MORE IMPORTANT
THAN QUALITY OF INBOUND
LINKS.

4. QUANTITY OVER QUALITY

4. QUANTITY OVER QUALITY
• Penguin focused on
linkspam
• “Any links intended to
manipulate PageRank or a
site's ranking in Google
search results may be
considered part of a link
scheme and a violation of
Google’s Webmaster
Guidelines. This includes
any behavior that
manipulates links to your
site.”

5. EXACT MATCH DOMAINS
RANK HIGHER.

THE EXACT MATCH DOMAIN THING
“SEO is easy. If you want to
rank #1 for “Crossover
Vehicles”, just buy the
domain:
www.crossovervehicles.com
and Voila!

THIS ACTUALLY KIND OF WORKED FOR
A WHILE…
• Then Google rolled out the Exact
Match Domain Update
• You no longer can get strong
rankings solely based on your
domain name. You have to fulfill the
other ranking requirements too.

6. ANCHOR TEXT IS DEAD.

• Maybe not dead, just not as important
as before.
• Google’s guidelines re: link schemes
› “Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases
distributed on other sites.”
• Google: If you are publishing a press release or an article on your
site and distribute it through a wire or through an article site, you
must make sure to nofollow the links if those links are “optimized
anchor text.”
• Pubcon 2013, Matt Cutts:
› Press releases are considered “paid links”
› Google just doesn’t count them
› Press release anchor-text linking isn’t necessarily helping you today

• Messages from Google are cryptic.
Make press release links
“nofollow” and avoid anchor
text optimization.
We don’t follow those links
anyways because they are
paid links.

7. LINKS IN PRESS
RELEASES ARE BAD.

SEARCHMOJO.COM@searchmojo #mojowebinar SEARCH-MOJO.COM
THEY ARE BAD! NO THEY’RE NOT! I’M
CONFUSED.
PubCon – Oct 2013 - During Q&A, Cutts discussed links from press release sites. He said Google
identified the sites that were press release syndication sites and simply discounted them. He does
stress that press release links weren’t penalized, because press release sites do have value for
press and marketing reasons, but those links won’t pass PageRank.
“Google has identified “a lot” of the top Press Release sites and ignores the links but
doesn’t penalize those who are using them.”
Late July 2013

THE REALITY CHECK
• There are MILLIONS of press releases with links in them
that have existed for years on MILLIONS of different sites
• They aren’t going to require anyone to find every instance
of these and find the locations of every reprint so that you
can request the nofollow attribute on the link
• Most press release distributors don’t even have an option
to make links nofollow
• The real burden is on the PR distribution service to make
links nofollow on a going forward basis

DON’T EXPECT PUNISHMENT, BUT
DON’T EXPECT TO BENEFIT MUCH
LONGER
• Expect a Google Power Play vs.
Press Release Distributors.
› Likely use of “User Generated Spam Penalties”
that remove offending pages from the Google
Index
› Google will force nofollow on the Press Release
distributors
› Real benefit is in the distribution, not on the
distributor site
• Again, these are most likely going forward
changes. Not retro-active punishments
“Google has identified “a lot” of the top
Press Release sites and ignores the links
but doesn’t penalize those who are using
them.”
Mostly

8. GUEST BLOGGING IS
BAD.

8. GUEST BLOGGING IS BAD.
“A true guest blogger is usually someone who is an
expert on the subject matter and doesn’t drop a
heavy amount of keywords in their anchor text.”
“Guest blogging seems like it’s the fad of the
month,” said Cutts, but he says it is best done in
moderation. “It shouldn’t be your full-time job.”

9. SOCIAL SIGNALS ARE
KEY TO SEO

THE SOCIAL SIGNAL IS THE KEY TO SEO
• Facebook Shares are the
biggest ranking factor…
• Facebook Likes are a
ranking factor
• Social media follower counts
can get you to the top
• Google +1’s are ranking
factor

YOU CAN BUY YOUR WAY TO THE TOP…

CORRELATION STUDIES SAY SO

CORRELATION ≠ CAUSATION

SORRY TO BE A DOWNER, BUT…
• Google does not use
Facebook share data – in fact
Facebook blocks access to
that data
• Google does not use Google
+1 votes as a ranking factor:
› “(I’m) Just trying to decide the politest way to debunk the
idea that more Google +1s lead to higher Google web
rankings.”
Matt Says…

BUT HOLD ON. LINKS ARE THE REAL
SOCIAL SIGNAL
• Links on Facebook Fan or Company pages still count a little
› Also open Personal Facebook pages with no privacy
settings
• Links on Social Channels without the nofollow attribute count
› Sometimes third-party aggregator sites strip off the
nofollow
• Don’t expect a lot from these kind of links. They don’t scale
into much.

GOOGLE PERSONALIZATION AND
GOOGLE+
• The default setting for Google signed-in
users is “Search Plus Your World”
• These results are heavily personalized on
search history, location and the
connections and content associated in
Google Plus with +1 votes and G+ shares

PERSONALIZED VS. NON-
PERSONALIZED

10. AUTHORRANK IS HERE
TODAY.

10. AUTHORRANK IS HERE TODAY.
• AuthorRank vs. Authority
› Authority = measure of importance on a subject
› AuthorRank = type of algorithm adjustment
Current: PageRank
PR 8
PR 3 PR 6
Coming: PageRank + AuthorRank
+
PR 8
AR 10
PR 3 PR 6

10. AUTHORRANK IS HERE TODAY.
• Only 3.5% of Fortune 100 have adopted
authorship
• “Google is unable to use Authorship as a
ranking signal if important authors aren’t
participating.” – AJ Kohn

11. XML SITEMAPS HELP
YOUR RANKINGS.

DON’T MAKE THEM WAIT

GREASE THE CHUTE
• Site maps are more about giving search engines an
efficient, clutter free path to look at your web pages
• Benefits:
› Deeper Indexing
› More Frequent Indexing
• Don’t assume your site is easy to crawl
• Site Maps are not likely to improve rankings unless
they allow a page to be found that search engines
haven’t seen before

12. SCHEMA IS A RANKING
FACTOR.

12. SCHEMA IS A RANKING FACTOR.
• What is schema (aka structured markup)?
› Added information in your HTML
› Helps search engines understand the type of
content (think context)
• “Marking up your data for rich snippets
won't affect your page's ranking in search
results, and Google doesn’t guarantee to
use your markup.”

13. THE HUMMINGBIRD
ALGORITHM UPDATE IS A
GAME-CHANGER.

GOOGLE’S NEW ALGORITHM IS CALLED
HUMMINGBIRD
• “…new engine built on both existing and new parts,
organized in a way to especially serve the search
demands of today”
• Affects 90% of all searches
• The search demands of today are mobile style
conversational searches
› “What is the best place to eat hamburgers in
Charlottesville”
› “When does Big Head Todd and the Monsters
play Charlottesville”

IT’S SUCH A BIG DEAL…BUT NO ONE
NOTICED
• Google Announced the Algorithm update
on September 26, but it was actually rolled
out on August 20
• We can’t tell that a single ranking from our
clients was impacted at all
• So much press, so much discussion, so
much supposition…

HUMMINGBIRD IS MORE ABOUT THE
QUERY THAN THE RESULT
• Google needed a better way to understand the
conversational queries
• “Siri-like” voice queries that are longer
• Better understanding of natural language & synonyms
• Improved Query Processing
• It doesn’t really change what you should do

14. SEO IS DEAD.

14. SEO IS DEAD.
• Inbound links
– Press releases
– Spammy sites
• Greater emphasis on content
– Authorship
• Greater emphasis on social
– Google+
• SEO has become more holistic

CONTACT
Twitter: @janetdmiller
Google+: +Janet Driscoll Miller
Tad Miller
Twitter: @jstatad
Google+: +Tad Miller

Top 14 SEO Myths...Busted!

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