SEO Marketing Myths by Angela Edwards
Myth number 1: You must have
“relevant” links in the same niche as your website or they don't count
or you will get penalized in some way by Google.
Relevance or "theme-related" backlinks:
This is another myth that gets passed around a lot. Sure,
it's good to have relevant links and Google recommends it, but links
that are not "relevant" also count. Have you ever seriously looked at
the backlinks that a Major Authority site has? Many of them would not be
considered "relevant", and there are hundreds of different types of
blogs listed,
usually.
The Drudge Report was put on the "map" the day he broke the
news that President Clinton was having an...er, indiscretion with a
young intern named Monica Lewinsky. THOUSANDS (maybe even HUNDREDS of
thousands) of sites linked to him that day. Many of them were not in his
"niche".
About a year ago I challenged my Physical Therapist (I have an old ankle
injury) that I could get him on Page One of Google for his keywords. He
was at the bottom of Page 6. I did his links one night and then went to
bed. The next day I got up and checked and he was NUMBER ONE in Google
for ALL his keywords. Not one of the sites I added his link to was
"relevant" for Physical Therapy or even Health and Wellness. Yet they
still worked that well that fast. And his site is STILL in the number
one position; more than two years later.
You often see "Yellow Page" sites linking to major businesses. Now, you
and I, being humans, can understand why a site like that might link to a
business' website, but do you really think a Search Engine's algorithm
can make that determination? What if there was a "community portal" site
that linked to all the businesses in the area? What about directories?
What "niche" are they in? Search Engines do not and cannot determine
whether all the sites linking to other sites "make sense" (relevant) or
not. The search engines would have to know what is "relevant" and that
will take a LOT of human interaction. A site for parents might link to a
veterinarian's website because the site has a warning about a certain
flea medication being poisonous to children, Yellow Pages websites might
link to businesses in the area, the Fire Department's website might link
to the PUD (Electric Company) because of a warning about electrical
sparks, the Food Bank might link to the local High School because of a
huge food drive the kids did...see
what I mean? To determine "relevance" would take CONSTANT human
interaction on all the TRILLION webpages on the Internet. Many Web 2.0
sites' only "relevance" to anybody is the 'community factor' that they
provide. Theme-wise, many of those
sites aren't "relevant" to most niches.
Myth Number 2: If you build more than two links a day, you will
be penalized by Google.
As far as being penalized if you build links too fast or
getting too many, you'd have to have HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of the same
kind of links to have that happen. How many links do you think Facebook
has? I guarantee, it's in the hundreds of millions. "Natural
Linkbuilding" happens every day. How many links do you think I'd get
TODAY if I had some sort of breaking news about US President Obama? What
if I knew something about his background that no one else knew? I
guarantee you, I'd get THOUSANDS.
The Drudge Report was "put on the map" the day he broke the
news that President Clinton was having an indiscretion with a young
intern named Monica Lewinsky. Not only did HUNDREDS of thousands of
other sites link back to him that day, but many of them were NOT in the
same niche. This is natural and expected by Google. What is NOT natural
is building THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of links all in the same niche in
one day. Then, you might be removed. But unless you are doing that, you
have
nothing to worry about. :-)
Remember, people always recommend that you have SUCH "great
content" that other sites will want to link back to you. If you do have
that great content, how are YOU going to control how many people a day
link back to you? You can't. Google knows and understands that.
What happens if thousands of other websites LOVE your content? What if I
made a brand new site TODAY and had a contest to win a MILLION dollars
if folks would bring more folks to my site. What if I posted it on a
hugely popular forum or something and then advertised it on Craigslist
and Facebook. Don't you think every webmaster worth his salt would put a
link to my site on his site so that he can be the winner? How will
Google know WHY these folks linked back to me? Remember, Google is an
algorithm and not a human being. They'd HAVE to set up the algorithm to
discount ANY new links that a new site gets. Obama's site, Change.gov is
now a Page Rank 8 site and that site was started right after the
inauguration only a year and a half ago. So Google did NOT discount the
backlinks and I don't think they sat up and said, "Oh! This is Barack
Obama's website. We'd better treat it differently."
What if YOU offered a contest where webmasters could win a
MILLION dollars if they are the site that refers the MOST traffic to
your site. How many backlinks do you think you would get then?? How are
you going to control or slow down the backlinking??'
Myth Number 3: I can't see my
backlinks in SEO Elite, Yahoo Site Explorer, or some other “Backlink
Checker” tool, so they don't count. This is as FAR from the truth as you
can get. The "backlink checker tools",
including Yahoo Site Explorer, take some time to show the links. Google
will NEVER show them all to you. I was talking to my Physical Therapist
the a couple months ago and he and I made an agreement that if I was
able to get his site moved up in Google for his keyword, he would tell
other business owners about me. He was on the bottom of page 6.
I did the February links for him one night and then went to
bed. When I got up the next morning, he was number one for all his
keywords! However, I tried to see his backlinks in a backlink checker
tool and none of them showed. Not even a single one! So the backlinks
help your site LONG before they ever show up in a backlink checker tool.
Some links take up to three months to show in these tools, but Google
will "see" them almost immediately.
Myth Number 4: I have to vary
my keywords, or Google will think I am
doing a “Google Bomb” and I will be penalized I do not recommend varying
your keywords. For instance, if you want to be at the top of Google for
iPod, and you used 3 DIFFERENT keywords: iPod, podcast, electronics (as
an example), then you are getting only 10 sites per keyword. You are
LOSING a bunch of Google power by not using all 30. Adobe is number one
for the phrase "click here". That's because MILLIONS of other sites used
those exact words in anchor text on their site for Adobe. That didn't
harm Adobe at all; it helped them. This idea about varying anchor text
came about after the "Miserable Failure" prank that was played on George
W. Bush. Google only takes action about stuff like this when it is
FORCED to. It doesn't do it as a matter of course. I haven't EVER varied
my anchor text and my name Angela is number 3 out of 76.8 million and my
article is number two out of more than 12 million for the keyword
backlinks.
