In the SEO arena there is a “black-hole” of information as well as a ton of misconceptions, let me try to clear one with this nugget from Aaron Wall from seobook.com;
One of the bigger problems with learning in the field of SEO is that there are a lot of people who have a nugget of information. And they spread it far and wide without the proper context needed to evaluate the potential risks and rewards of any given strategy. So new SEOs end up thinking topic x is the most important, then topic y, then topic z. And then someone debunks one of those. Many false facts are taken as truths when the people with a nugget of information (that they found from some source) spread it as fact.
As the structure of the web changes and search engine relevancy algorithms change then so must the field of SEO. This means that the right answer to questions can change frequently, and information from many years ago may not be correct. Does PageRank matter? When I first got in SEO it was crucially important, but over the years other pieces of the relevancy algorithms (like domain age, domain name, anchor text, word relationships, result re-ranking based on local inter-connectivity, and even a wide array of penalties & filters) have been layered over the top of the core algorithm.
Yes, PageRank is important, but it is nowhere near as important as it once was, and SEO has become a much more refined art. The algorithms are so complex that sometimes even leading search engineers working for Google are uncertain of what is going on. In early 2008 Google’s Matt Cutts wrote about a filter that he did not know existed until after he was alerted to it:
“When Barry asked me about ‘position 6′ in late December, I said that I didn’t know of anything that would cause that. But about a week or so after that, my attention was brought to something that could exhibit that behavior. We’re in the process of changing the behavior; I think the change is live at some datacenters already and will be live at most data centers in the next few weeks.” – source http://sphinn.com/story/24687#c29022
There are 3 ways to approach search engine optimization
- a mechanical strategy, where you try to outsmart the search engines and stay ahead of their relevancy algorithms
- a marketing-based approach, where you try to meet ranking criteria by creating the types of content that other people value and making sure you push market it aggressively
- a hybrid approach, where you take the easy mechanical wins…but are primarily driving your decisions based on marketing
I think for most people the first approach is simply too complex, risky, and uncertain to be worth the effort. In fact, most of the top “black hat” SEOs have “white hat” sites that help provide stable income in case anything happens to their riskier sites.
Some people are great at coming up with clever hacks, but most people would be better off focusing on building their business using more traditional means. The approach we teach is largely the marketing based approach, but with a couple easy mechanical wins mixed in. Our customers take a few of the easy wins to help differentiate their strategy from uninformed competitors, and then use marketing principals to build off of early success.
In using a marketing based approach you build up many signals of trust and many rankings as a side effect of doing traditional marketing. If people are talking about you and like your products then you are probably going to get some free high-quality links. And this leads us to the paradox of SEO: “the less reliant your site is on Google the more Google will want to rely on your site.” ….
Aaron Wall
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