Today we continue the list from a couple of days ago, with some of the most annoying SEO myths that just can't wait to be busted!
6. My place in SERPs is the most important thing!
Actually... no! The most important thing you should follow is your traffic. And that's achieved with CTR. A well done optimization will provide you with a decent enough place in SERPs, but also more important, with a title and description that will lead people reading the SERP's to enter your website.
7. I run my website, no one can harm me.
Yeah, right... a ruthless competitor will be able to run your website into the ground. There are companies out there specializing in aggressive SEO hunting. Luckily, there are companies specializing in defensive SEO also, like Mecatronix, so the whole field is covered nicely. Just remember, nothing is safe.
8. Using duplicate content will get me banned.
Well... not really. Sure, a website run like a copycat will be under severe scrutiny, and might get banned, but the regular sites will not. There is only so much content available, and there are a lot of websites specializing in re-posting stuff from different websites, blogs, etc.
9. Metakeywords are very important, and keyword density will affect my rankings.
Take a wild guess. No? Ok, I'll tell you. NO! (and yes). Metakeywords are not considered by Google (and lately not by Yahoo and Bing), so their proper usage will not affect your rankings. Spamming this metric with keywords not present in the content will get your site penalized. Keyword density is one metric not used by any major search engine these days, as they grew more intelligent in the use of proper context.
10 Linking to authority websites will help your reputation
Well, if it did, we'd see all websites doing it. Unfortunately, it won't do anything. Neither good nor bad.
11. Dynamic URLs aren't easy to index.
Not any more. Search Engines got a little smarter, and will crawl and index happily dynamic URLs. Actually, using friendly URLs in some kind of websites is counterproductive, like forums for example, where new things are added by the second. It would add unwanted load on the servers, and do that for no reason.
12. Don't bother getting nofollow links, they won't help.
A lot of "SEO Experts" will scream at us (or worse) for this one, but here it goes: while the nofollow tag was introduced by Google to stop the proliferation of blog spam, Google still has it's own signals to check if a link is actually relevant for that content and count it. Not to mention that SEO doesn't mean only Google, and Yahoo for instance will count the link no questions asked.
That's it for now. There are a lot more "myths" goin' round, but these I find to be the most annoying things we face every day. Take care, and think for yourselves.