Peter Kent.

I strongly recommend avoiding most online information and dealing only with the newest editions of standard textbooks published by mainstream, orthodox publishers.

There's a very specific, very compelling reason for this: such textbooks have an enormous investment made in them by the publishers, before they're even printed. For this reason, they're obliged to be commissioned only from widely recognised, highly accredited, well qualified experts who are known and trusted, and their output is also peer-reviewed at every stage of its production.

Online information, by comparison, just isn't subject to any realistic, meaningful "quality control" at all and can be devastatingly unreliable.

Call me a skepchick, but over the last three years I've gradually and increasingly been realising that the generally prevalent views of SEO expressed online, especially by its practitioners (who always have a direct or indirect financial interest in whatever they're alleging) is little better than a collection of "urban myths of internet marketing".

Bear in mind that in a field of endeavour in which, out of all those "trying it", comparatively few people become truly successful, the "general consensus of opinion" is always likely to be fairly deeply flawed and erroneous.

Reading a few "established textbooks" really does open up a whole different world.

If it's of any help, for someone starting off and wanting to develop some understanding of the basics of SEO, I personally recommend the November 2010 edition of this fine book, whose author's professionalism, attention to detail and hard evidential research for what he says really show up a lot of "online SEO talk" for the nonsense it is.

SEO is about testing. Start putting what you read to practice and soon you won't be overloaded with information, you'll start to see patterns and trends and the pieces will fall together.

The more you learn about SEO the more you realize there is to learn about SEO.

I agree, you can't just follow the gurus and expect to ace SEO.

I learnt this a long time ago, you actually need to do your own testing and find out what works best for you.

Things that work for some people won't work for others.

There are just too many variations and contributors for every theory in SEO that it is a jungle in here!

You will see two sides in almost EVERY SEO claim on the internet, which is really because of two things:

1. It is very difficult to ACCURATELY measure SEO tactics.

2. There are too many variables in every SEO tactic.

Test, test, test.

It may seem pointless to you now but getting into the habit of testing everything will allow you to understand the real truths of the industry.