SEO Myths

Debunking 6 Common SEO Myths

With so much information about SEO flying around, it’s often hard to separate fact from fiction. There are plenty of myths, some actually quite logical, but still myths nonetheless. Meanwhile, others seem to make no sense at all. Worse, some myths can be actively harmful if you base any decisions on them. Myths sometimes result from untested notions, or advice can be outdated and based on things which no longer work. Equally, small factors can occasionally be blown out of all proportion.

Sometimes, Google can be misunderstood. Its social media posts may be misinterpreted, or it may just be introducing something rather than making permanent changes. Often, techniques are loudly dismissed as ‘myths’ by those who simply haven’t had success with them themselves – it doesn’t mean they’re wrong for everyone. Each website is completely different.

Here, we look at a few of the more common SEO myths:

  • Duplicate content penalty

If you copy content from another website, search engines might decide that the original copy more closely matches a search query than yours does. However, if your page does get suppressed, this is the algorithm doing the job it’s supposed to – it’s not actually a penalty. (You should, however, always post original content.)

  • PPC ads boost ranking

This is an easily debunked yet surprisingly common one – and it is just that; a myth. The erroneous notion is that if you spend with Google via PPC ads, your website will perform better in the organic search results. It won’t. A campaign running at the same time as your SEO may be beneficial, but it won’t help you to rank directly.

  • Domain age helps your ranking

Just because a website has been around for a while, that doesn’t mean domain age necessarily helps ranking and Google has itself shut down this myth. It may be that an older site has had more time to perform well, but it’s not a fine wine – age doesn’t guarantee ranking.

  • It’s always better to have longer content

Again, this is another myth. Content certainly needs to be original and there is definitely a place for longer, more considered articles. However, a higher word count doesn’t necessarily guarantee the search engines will rank you more highly than your competitors.

  • Bounce rate has an impact on ranking

Bounce rate is the proportion of your website visits which end in no interactions other than landing on the page. Some have described bounce rate as a ranking factor, but actually it’s not a great assessment of quality, since there may be any number of reasons why someone lands on a website and then leaves again quickly. They may return equally quickly. So this one is, again, merely a myth.

  • Backlinks are everything

No one in the SEO community would deny the importance of backlinks. However, their importance has changed over time. While they’re still needed and will help, they’re not the most important ranking factor; they need to be used alongside other techniques. 

How we can help

At Front Page Advantage, we’ve been providing our multi award winning SEO services for many years and have seen and heard all the wrongful information before. So we’re ideally placed to know which techniques work well, and which are pure fiction. We prefer being SEO legends to SEO myths! Talk to us today about which SEO methods would best suit your brand, industry and website.