[SEO] All-in-One Myth Busting Thread

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Guys,

I figured there are a load of bad SEO techniques been spouted around the forum and even sold to the unsuspecting. These techniques can destroy a business so I thought it will be prudent for SEOers here to each contribute at least one method that will be considered poor SEO practice (on-page and off-page).

Read through the thread before posting your method to avoid repetition. There are enough bad practices to go around so you shouldn't have a problem outlining one of them.

I'll start:

NB: this thread has become a collective contribution by members of the forum who are SEO focused

OFF-PAGE SEO

#1.1
MORE LINKS = HIGHER RANKINGS

This is not so much of a technique but more of a mindset where people are led to believe the more links they get to their site will equate to more "votes" which will result in higher rankings. This is untrue.

The more links been offered by a supplier only equates to a reduction in the quality of links which means the links themselves are high risk and of low quality. Links are not created equal. Quality always trumps quantity!

A quality link is a contextual/editorial type link on a page that is relevent which has PageRank or will increase in PageRank. The uniqueness of the content and the domain authority also carries a weightage. (check domain authority here: Open Site Explorer).

Page Authority (PA) is also important but only if the link is going to remain on the page that has a good PA score.

If the root domain has PR and the site has good internal linking and slow posting frequency then chances of a new post increasing in PR are high.

posted by me

#1.2
FORUM PROFILE LINKS

"Stay away from anyone pimping forum profiles, gov, & edu links. That eliminates most of the junk link sellers."

posted by Yukon, post no. 2

#1.3
PUBLIC BLOG NETWORKS

If you come across a seller offering you a large number of links on a blog network that accepts spun content - STAY AWAY. These type of networks leave a clear footprint and Google will find out about it which means you run the risk of getting penalized by using such links.

posted by me

#1.4
NATURAL BACKLINK PROFILE

1.4.1) "Adding crap links like profiles, article submission blasts, etc., makes your site link profile look more "natural", so that's a great thing!" (this is a myth)

1.4.2) "Add to that - you must have 20% or 15% or 10% no-follow links to look natural.

I don't know how my authority sites are still ranking with 99.99% of backlinks all passing full link juice - can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?"

Posted by remodeler and jxam respectively, post no. 15 and 17

#1.5
SPUN CONTENT

1.5.1) Another myth: "Readable spun content is just as good as unique written content" or in other words MashedUP content sucks, it increased my deindex rate of my tier 2 network hugely.

1.5.2) Unique content eats spun content and works best ALL the time!

Posted by nik0 and me respectively, post no. 18

#1.6
LINK VELOCITY

Here is another myth that is widely believed even by SEO's... Link velocity and link consistency.

Building links too fast does not harm your site. Building shitty links harms your site.

Also, there is nothing more unnatural than a site getting a consistent 20-30 links a day or whatever other amount of links you come up with. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a site getting link spikes. Happens all the time. That's what happens when a piece of content goes viral.

Posted by MikeFriedman, post no. 46

#1.7
YOU DON'T NEED BACKLINKS

Myth, you don't need backlinks

I get tired of hearing this, if you really want good rankings, you need to get some version of backlinks. In some niches most people won't link to you naturally. In fact pretty much every high ranking site in my niche definitely builds backlinks to their own site.

Backlinking is just part of the game.

posted by Slin, post no. 86

#1.8
BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME

(this is kinda of a continuation from the previous contribution by Slin)

The premise of just building a site well and it will take-off is flawed. The philosophy is a myth.

I see many many sites in the various niches that I am in that are built well with awesome site design and content. These sites deserve to rank high but they don't. There needs to be some sort of initial promotion to get the ball rolling and for people to notice these type of sites.

Perhaps one will not need SEO but rather some sort of social media marketing (SMM) to get these type of sites noticed by people and the search engines.

This is Google's philosophy btw... create compelling content and the links will follow but links can't be built to great content if no one is actually seeing it.

posted by me, post no. 89

#1.9
SOCIAL LINKS

1.9.1)Social signal myth is absolutely nonsense! I personally didnt see any benefit of social signals on SEO campaigns.

1.9.2) I just want to add that I too did not see much value from social links. I did see some positive SERP movement from retweets but even that has lost its punch. Although social links do not carry much of a weightage at this point in time I still believe it is important to have these type of links for diversity and possible future value.

Posted by Hossain and me respectively, post no. 90

#1.10
PAID LINKS

1.10.1) Paid Backlink: Google hate paid backlink. But i saw Paid directory word very nice in SEO. Why Yahoo directory charge huge amount of money for directory submission for a year. Yahoo directory submission work super in SEO.

1.10.2) Just to add to the above: buying links is against Google's guidelines and they hate anyone who buy links to manipulate pagerank but the truth is that it is very difficult for them to detect a paid link. A paid link on a relevent page with PR will do wonders for your rankings but staying under the radar by choosing how you acquire these links is essential.

The Yahoo directory above is an extreme case of a paid link that Google knows about but does not penalize.

posted by arshadul, post no. 102

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ON-PAGE SEO
#2.1
KEYWORD DENSITY

2.1.1) Many people talk about a certain keyword density that will help with on-page optimization and rankings. You will hear some say 1%, others 2% and I have even heard people talk about 5% keyword density.

This is all BS and ancient SEO. There is no perfect keyword density! Over doing this may actually hurt your rankings.

What is important is having your KW in your title tag and LSI type keywords in your content (this increases relevence). Many times the LSI KWs in the content will appear naturally if one is writing naturally.

2.2.2) SEOpressor is a myth!

Or in ohter words, maintaing a certain kw density, putting your keywords with underline, bold tags, place them in h2, h3, h4 is a big myth, as it can easily lead to a Panda penalty.

Posted by me and nik0 respectively, post no. 20

#2.2
CLOAKED LINKS

Myth: Not cloaking your affiliate links is showing to Google that you run an affiliate site.

That's really the biggest nonsense myth ever, like Google bot doesn't know where it ends up on when it crawls that link. In fact it raises a red flag. Matt Cuts even admitted that but people remain stubborn and cloak all the way.

posted by nik0, post no. 93

#2.3
DUPLICATE CONTENT PENALTIES

2.3.1) My apology if Duplicate Content myth is already covered! If not then I think this myth should be added on OP as lots of newbies still believe google will punish their sites if there are any duplicate content.

There is no duplicate content penalty at all! As a webmaster you have enough right to publish same article/graphics/videos on multiple pages of your site. Google will index duplicate pages. May be sometime duplicate pages will be preserved in supplementary index but that doesnt mean Google impose penalty on the pages.

posted by Hossain, post no. 98
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GENERAL SEO
#3.1
WEBMASTER TOOLS/ANALYTICS/ADSENSE


Here is a giant freaking myth. Putting Webmaster Tools or AdSense on your account somehow gives Google added information that they didn't have before about your link building activities and they will punish your site faster/harder/easier if you are using WMT or AdSense and using anything less than high quality links.

Posted by Mike Friedman, post no. 9

#3.2
COPYSCAPE PASSED ARTICLES/CONTENT

3.2.1) "here's a quirk i hate, if it passes copyscape then it's good unique content - well it might be unique, but any basic spinner can get past copyscape, heck a bit of magic ansi manipulation can get past copyscape, when did copyscape become the the standard for good content? it shouldn't be. copyscape is junk used by article spinning ppl to pass off their work as legitimate."

3.2.2) "Oh and here is another one. If something passes Copyscape, it is original.

Sorry, but Copyscape does not have anywhere near the resources to crawl and index the internet as Google, or most other search engines for that matter.

On top of that, Copyscape is in no way associated with Google, so what they see as "original" does not mean that Google has the same view on the same content."

Posted by Lanx and Mike Friedman respectively, post no. 11 and 12

#3.3
PAGERANK

Many believe certain on-page factors such as uniqueness of content and consistently adding new content will help a site's pagerank. This is untrue!

PR of a page or root domain is determined by the PR of the backlinks to the page or root. If there are high PR links pointing to your domain expect the domain to increase in PR.

posted by me

#3.4
DROPPED DOMAINS

Myth: Google resets the link value when a domain gets dropped!

Question by me:
Do people actually believe this? I did not know about this myth...

Answer by Nik0:
Yeah if you Google on the subject you see it mentioned more often then not.

The idea to esarch about it started when I saw that the dropped domains from my broker were a lot cheaper then the expired ones. Then I started to read a lot of stories that Google would reset the PR of those or reset the old links but I was like wth I'm just going to try it and they seem to work just as good as expired ones. I also asked the broker what he thought and he only said: People don't like dropped ones (and obvious they are also cheaper to achieve for him, not sure what method he uses but it's not Hayden's). Anyway a domain is as good as the back link profile it has, whether it's expired or dropped.

posted by nik0, post no. 85


#3.5
SEO IS DEAD


3.5.1) Oops I think you guys missed the biggest myth flooding after each and almost every google updates! After every algo update some headless chickens star running screaminng SEO IS DEAD! I personally believe White Hat SEO cant be dead as SEO is not all about manipulation. Google was, is and will be continuing devaluation of spammy links, websites, methods etc. but that doesnt mean sooner or letter SEO gonna be found on history books! In fact there are tons of legitimate white hat methods are still available.

Posted by Hossain, post no. 88

#3.6
COMPETITION ANALYSIS

3.6.1) One big myth that i remember rite now is that google keyword tool can tell you about the competition of a particular keyword. i've seen a lot of people say "this keyword is easy to rank coz google keyword tool shows its low competition".

3.6.2) Even bigger myth is that the number of competing pages shown in google can determine the level of competition. Utter nonsense!!!

posted by Ben Acharyaa, post no. 92

#3.7
AGED DOMAINS


3.7.1) New domains are difficult to rank so start with old aged domains. I saw this types of garbage opinions from so called gurus on SEO forums. Domain age has very little impact on SEO campaigns. I ranked just 1 month old domains which outranked even 10 years old domains. When it comes in SEO perspective authority comes first.

3.7.2) Just to add to the above: it is not the age of the domain that matters but the trust and the authoirty that was built to the domain via the backlinks and PR it has gained over time that makes the aged domain valuable. An aged domain with no backlinks is pretty much as good as any new domain.

posted by Hossain and me, post no. 100
#busting #myth #quality seo #seo #seo best practice #seo myths #seo techniques #thread
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Stay away from anyone pimping forum profiles, gov, & edu links. That eliminates most of the junk link sellers.

    I seriously doubt anyone will read this thread & take any advice because the junk links are so low in cost. They buy the junk link blast because of the low cost, $%#@ up their search rankings, then come here to the free forum & ask for free help on where it all went wrong.

    I'm in the mood today to tell them all to go %$#@ up their sites & be done with it.
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    • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      I seriously doubt anyone will read this thread & take any advice because the junk links are so low in cost.
      You probably right... but worth the effort! I guess if one person learns about the bad SEO practices out there then the thread has served its purpose!

      With you on the forum links... utter garbage!
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    • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      Stay away from anyone pimping forum profiles, gov, & edu links. That eliminates most of the junk link sellers.
      This one actually annoys me. People who claim gov and edu links are more powerful than .com backlinks are, most of the time, link sellers. this is an stupid myth really. edu backlinks get no additional boost in the serp as people claim. its not the TLD that matters, its what in the TLD that matters. most of these edu domains are very old and have tons of valuable information that tend to attract a lot of authority sites linking to them. hence they build the authority/trust google is looking for. but then any .com backlink from an authority site is just as good as any edu or gov links.
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      • Profile picture of the author Lanx
        Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

        This one actually annoys me. People who claim gov and edu links are more powerful than .com backlinks are, most of the time, link sellers. this is an stupid myth really. edu backlinks get no additional boost in the serp as people claim. its not the TLD that matters, its what in the TLD that matters. most of these edu domains are very old and have tons of valuable information that tend to attract a lot of authority sites linking to them. hence they build the authority/trust google is looking for. but then any .com backlink from an authority site is just as good as any edu or gov links.
        actually no, if ppl get a bit school on TLD, they know that any tom, joe and harry can buy a business dot com or business dot net or even business dot org, but only real educational places and government orgs can get the edu/gov, so that's what makes them "easily perceived" as more valuable. (i'm not saying it does) rather i'm saying this is probably the mindset of the "buyer" and heck many of us as well.
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        • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
          Originally Posted by Lanx View Post

          actually no, if ppl get a bit school on TLD, they know that any tom, joe and harry can buy a business dot com or business dot net or even business dot org, but only real educational places and government orgs can get the edu/gov, so that's what makes them "easily perceived" as more valuable. (i'm not saying it does) rather i'm saying this is probably the mindset of the "buyer" and heck many of us as well.
          why are you defending link sellers? you dont even have a sig!! haha just kidding man... i understand what you're tryin to say. yes people tend to think that just because they are only available for unis and government orgs, they are more authoritative than .coms. but i believe link sellers have used this as their sales gimmick like millions of times which actually made the wrong impression among people.
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          • Profile picture of the author Lanx
            Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

            why are you defending link sellers? you dont even have a sig!! haha just kidding man... i understand what you're tryin to say. yes people tend to think that just because they are only available for unis and government orgs, they are more authoritative than .coms. but i believe link sellers have used this as their sales gimmick like millions of times which actually made the wrong impression among people.
            actually i was more, getting into the head of the buyer and rationalization, i think you know that too heh.
            yea no links in my sig, that way i can talk all i want and ppl won't go "hey... wait a minute is he trying to promote...."
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    One thing I don't understand about Warrior Forum is, WF doesn't like spammers but they allow people to sell forum profile link blast in WSOs.

    Counterproductive.
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    • Profile picture of the author SamanthaB
      Banned
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      One thing I don't understand about Warrior Forum is, WF doesn't like spammers but they allow people to sell forum profile link blast in WSOs.

      Counterproductive.
      I don`t sell and don`t even buy spammy links, but I do believe that if someone offers a legit service and actually gives what people are paying for.. then I don`t get why he shouldn`t be allowed to sell
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      One thing I don't understand about Warrior Forum is, WF doesn't like spammers but they allow people to sell forum profile link blast in WSOs.

      Counterproductive.
      There's one person here who they should ban, straight up. Nothing but
      junk threads, junk spam, then touting some gawd-awful WSO.

      Makes my stomach turn. See, people like Yukon (and a really a TON)
      of others here, actually WANT people to succeed. Sometimes we just
      hold our collective noses.

      I can't say I agree with everything the OP says, but SEO myth busting
      is a passion of mine here. Stopping the junk peddlers.
      But, alas. They always seem to win more followers like
      the Pied Piper leading rat's down a sewer hole.

      Ever wonder why there are so many fail threads here? Why? There
      is no reason to wonder.

      I can't fault the WF too much. They want to make as much money as
      humanly possible. I do wish there would be quite a few big, in
      your face disclaimers.

      But then, any fool who buys a WSO, and does not glean and read this
      forum first, is a fool. And a fool and his money are soon parted.

      Paul
      Signature

      If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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  • Profile picture of the author jazbo
    Focus on things like scrapebox and xrumer. Smash your main site with as many links as you can. Forget good writing and people visiting your site, just hammer it until it bleeds links.
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    • Profile picture of the author KevL
      Originally Posted by jazbo View Post

      Focus on things like scrapebox and xrumer. Smash your main site with as many links as you can. Forget good writing and people visiting your site, just hammer it until it bleeds links.
      You have any idea how many people do not get that you're joking??
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      Small business SEO / Web Marketing Tips.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by jazbo View Post

      Focus on things like scrapebox and xrumer. Smash your main site with as many links as you can. Forget good writing and people visiting your site, just hammer it until it bleeds links.
      Exactly cause the worse the quality of your site the higher the CTR

      Money, money, money!
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  • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
    This thread turned out to be an epic fail! It is only the SEOers on this forum who can make it into something worthwhile but I can see no one is interested in helping the newbs stay clear from bad practice. This forum is clearly for people who just want to drop their sigs. in as many places as possible.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Here is a giant freaking myth. Putting Webmaster Tools or AdSense on your account somehow gives Google added information that they didn't have before about your link building activities and they will punish your site faster/harder/easier if you are using WMT or AdSense and using anything less than high quality links.

      This one is routinely told by low quality link builders (because they are morons), and has never made any sense to me. So you want Google to know about your links so they rank you better, but you want to hide some kind of magic link data that WMT gives to them?
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      • Profile picture of the author Lanx
        here's a quirk i hate
        if it passes copyscape then it's good unique content - well it might be unique, but any basic spinner can get past copyscape, heck a bit of magic ansi manipulation can get past copyscape, when did copyscape become the the standard for good content? it shouldn't be. copyscape is junk used by article spinning ppl to pass off their work as legitimate.
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      • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
        Oh and here is another one. If something passes Copyscape, it is original.

        Sorry, but Copyscape does not have anywhere near the resources to crawl and index the internet as Google, or most other search engines for that matter.

        On top of that, Copyscape is in no way associated with Google, so what they see as "original" does not mean that Google has the same view on the same content.
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        • Profile picture of the author FakeItTilYouMakeIt
          Banned
          I still see references on here every day to the "sandbox". Not only using it the the original erroneous way but using it to mean anything from a google penalty to a banned site. We need new euphemisms people. I propose "spank tank" as in: My crappy links and content got me sent to the Google spank tank. Slightly more accurate and lots more entertaining
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          • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
            Originally Posted by FakeItTilYouMakeIt View Post

            I still see references on here every day to the "sandbox". Not only using it the the original erroneous way but using it to mean anything from a google penalty to a banned site. We need new euphemisms people. I propose "spank tank" as in: My crappy links and content got me sent to the Google spank tank. Slightly more accurate and lots more entertaining
            Please clear this up for me so I can add it to the OP! My understanding of what has become known as the sandbox is when a new site is blasted with links and then it gets relegated to the back of the SERPs and cannot move from that spot for a while.

            What exactly is the myth here?

            There is even a Wiki article on it: Sandbox effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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            • Profile picture of the author FakeItTilYouMakeIt
              Banned
              Ok I'll give it a go, I'm sure the vets can chime in too. The "sandbox" theory was toyed with in like 2009. The theory went something like this: I launch my new totally awesome site and very quickly I see it ranking high for my keywords. I pat myself on the back "good job on the optimization" then suddenly my site drops like a rock.

              Time frames for the drop ranged from a few weeks to a few months. The theory was that Google put new sites into a a sort of holding pattern until they could mature. Basically penalizing new sites. There was no consensus as to what made some sites go through the sandbox effect and other sites were unaffected. This holding period or test period theory was eventually discredited in favor of common sense and research.

              The new working theory is that Google rewards fresh content (which a new site should have by definition) and can reward a site with a temporary boost in the serps. Afterwards the site drops to it's rightful "earned" spot in the serps.

              Here on WF the term sandbox has been used to describe all kinds of things from a google ban to a penalty to just getting beat fair and square by the competition. I think sometimes it's easier to blame a drop on a mysterious Google conspiracy theory than to take a hard look at our links and our sites. HTH

              Originally Posted by IM Ash View Post

              Please clear this up for me so I can add it to the OP! My understanding of what has become known as the sandbox is when a new site is blasted with links and then it gets relegated to the back of the SERPs and cannot move from that spot for a while.

              What exactly is the myth here?

              There is even a Wiki article on it: Sandbox effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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              • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
                Originally Posted by FakeItTilYouMakeIt View Post

                Ok I'll give it a go, I'm sure the vets can chime in too. The "sandbox" theory was toyed with in like 2009. The theory went something like this: I launch my new totally awesome site and very quickly I see it ranking high for my keywords. I pat myself on the back "good job on the optimization" then suddenly my site drops like a rock.

                Time frames for the drop ranged from a few weeks to a few months. The theory was that Google put new sites into a a sort of holding pattern until they could mature. Basically penalizing new sites. There was no consensus as to what made some sites go through the sandbox effect and other sites were unaffected. This holding period or test period theory was eventually discredited in favor of common sense and research.

                The new working theory is that Google rewards fresh content (which a new site should have by definition) and can reward a site with a temporary boost in the serps. Afterwards the site drops to it's rightful "earned" spot in the serps.

                Here on WF the term sandbox has been used to describe all kinds of things from a google ban to a penalty to just getting beat fair and square by the competition. I think sometimes it's easier to blame a drop on a mysterious Google conspiracy theory than to take a hard look at our links and our sites. HTH
                Thanks man! My theory is different form yours and I am sure there are a ton of other theories about it.

                I think it is best to leave this one out of the OP since even us SEOers have different thoughts on it. Don't take it personally
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      • Profile picture of the author jxam69
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        Here is a giant freaking myth. Putting Webmaster Tools or AdSense on your account somehow gives Google added information that they didn't have before about your link building activities and they will punish your site faster/harder/easier if you are using WMT or AdSense and using anything less than high quality links.

        This one is routinely told by low quality link builders (because they are morons), and has never made any sense to me. So you want Google to know about your links so they rank you better, but you want to hide some kind of magic link data that WMT gives to them?
        One of my favorites is when people delete their WMT account because they're rankings dropped
        Signature

        This space will be awarded to the first WSO owner who can prove they make Million$ from their methods.

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      • Profile picture of the author jfambrini
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        Here is a giant freaking myth. Putting Webmaster Tools or AdSense on your account somehow gives Google added information that they didn't have before about your link building activities and they will punish your site faster/harder/easier if you are using WMT or AdSense and using anything less than high quality links.

        This one is routinely told by low quality link builders (because they are morons), and has never made any sense to me. So you want Google to know about your links so they rank you better, but you want to hide some kind of magic link data that WMT gives to them?
        Actually one of the moderators of a very big SEO forum had told me to stay away from Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics and he had site this very reason to shun them. So this myth is widely shared among even some SEO experts.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by IM Ash View Post

      This thread turned out to be an epic fail! It is only the SEOers on this forum who can make it into something worthwhile but I can see no one is interested in helping the newbs stay clear from bad practice. This forum is clearly for people who just want to drop their sigs. in as many places as possible.
      I try to teach the noobs every day, do they listen?
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Lanx and I must have been on the same brainwave there.
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    • Profile picture of the author Lanx
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      Lanx and I must have been on the same brainwave there.
      i live in lancaster, so our seo minds are only 30miles away!
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      • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
        Originally Posted by Lanx View Post

        i live in lancaster, so our seo minds are only 30miles away!
        Lol. What are the chances?

        We could have an SEO War of the Roses...
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  • Profile picture of the author remodeler
    Adding crap links like profiles, article submission blasts, etc., makes your site link profile look more "natural", so that's a great thing!
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    • Profile picture of the author jxam69
      Originally Posted by remodeler View Post

      Adding crap links like profiles, article submission blasts, etc., makes your site link profile look more "natural", so that's a great thing!
      Add to that - you must have 20% or 15% or 10% no-follow links to look natural.

      I don't know how my authority sites are still ranking with 99.99% of backlinks all passing full link juice - can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?
      Signature

      This space will be awarded to the first WSO owner who can prove they make Million$ from their methods.

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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by remodeler View Post

      Adding crap links like profiles, article submission blasts, etc., makes your site link profile look more "natural", so that's a great thing!
      Good one.

      Another myth: "Readable spun content is just as good as unique written content" or in ohter words MashedUP content sucks, it increased my deindex rate of my tier 2 network hugely. 10% in the last month.
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      • Profile picture of the author remodeler
        Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

        Good one.

        Another myth: "Readable spun content is just as good as unique written content" or in ohter words MashedUP content sucks, it increased my deindex rate of my tier 2 network hugely. 10% in the last month.
        Julia is not going to like this thread...
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  • Profile picture of the author legoog8
    really forum link profiles are just pages just like all the other internet pages.

    Its what is one the pages that matters.

    Forum profiles that are basically repeated:

    name:james
    job:I dont have one
    where you live:the moon
    intrests:music
    blahblahblahblah

    But if you have a extensive page then with more content then they can actually be good. Some forum profiles let you actually post comments and posts.
    Signature
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  • Profile picture of the author nik0
    Banned
    SEOpressor is a myth!

    Or in ohter words, maintaing a certain kw density, putting your keywords with underline, bold tags, place them in h2, h3, h4 is a big myth, as it can easily lead to a Panda penalty.
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    • Profile picture of the author gearmonkey
      Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

      SEOpressor is a myth!

      Or in ohter words, maintaing a certain kw density, putting your keywords with underline, bold tags, place them in h2, h3, h4 is a big myth, as it can easily lead to a Panda penalty.
      I have not tested this myself, but I believe this is true. I don't understand how a content formula can be good. I bought an SEOpresser article before (paid too much), and it did no good for me. Nothing better than a natural article that is written for real readers.
      Signature

      My Guitar Website | My SEO Blog - Advertising spots available.

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    • Profile picture of the author heavysm
      Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

      SEOpressor is a myth!
      Originally Posted by jxam69 View Post

      Add to that - you must have 20% or 15% or 10% no-follow links to look natural.
      Lol and yes to both.

      I really believe that seopressor made strong use of newbie panic when they first get into SEO. "What major on-page things do i need on my site?" and so they go with an automated option that happens to be pushed at them from affiliate links in X number of WSO's.
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  • Profile picture of the author jxam69
    I've just had a brilliant idea for a unique TV show - I call it "SEO Mythbusters" (well, it passed copyscape )
    Signature

    This space will be awarded to the first WSO owner who can prove they make Million$ from their methods.

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  • Profile picture of the author jxam69
    I nearly forgot - all those people who keep telling me to use no-follow internally to sculpt PageRank.
    Signature

    This space will be awarded to the first WSO owner who can prove they make Million$ from their methods.

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  • Profile picture of the author Lanx
    i said it elsewhere, onsite seo is silly, it's a checklist:
    h1/h2/h3 check
    bold something check
    alt img text check
    link to wikipedia check

    or whatever else weird myths are told about onsite seo, it's not onsite seo, it's a footprint, normal ppl don't do this!
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Lanx View Post

      i said it elsewhere, onsite seo is silly, it's a checklist:
      h1/h2/h3 check
      bold something check
      alt img text check
      link to wikipedia check

      or whatever else weird myths are told about onsite seo, it's not onsite seo, it's a footprint, normal ppl don't do this!
      So your saying build a $hitty site than rely 100% on external links?
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  • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
    Great contributions everyone... I will be adding them to the OP (with credit) later today/tonight!
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  • Profile picture of the author legoog8
    I dont have webmasters installed not because im trying to hide my backlink builders but because if you have multiple website on one webmasters account then its like just exposing your network and ..maybe just maybe sneaky google might ignore atleast the links to one of your websites pointing to your other website on webmasters. Also its to much hassle setting up webmaster accounts per website probably google would link ips...who knows.

    Thats my reasoning for not using webmasters or what ever (im not a adsense user so i dont know about adsense and multiple websites with that)
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by legoog8 View Post

      I dont have webmasters installed not because im trying to hide my backlink builders but because if you have multiple website on one webmasters account then its like just exposing your network and ..maybe just maybe sneaky google might ignore atleast the links to one of your websites pointing to your other website on webmasters. Also its to much hassle setting up webmaster accounts per website probably google would link ips...who knows.

      Thats my reasoning for not using webmasters or what ever (im not a adsense user so i dont know about adsense and multiple websites with that)
      Trying to limit exposure of a network is something completely different and a totally valid reason to avoid WMT and Analytics.

      For a network site, there really is no benefit to using WMT. For your main site though, there really is no reason not to use it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lanx
    who says a site without h tags are shitty?, have you ever truely seen a h1 tag? it's ugly! it's so in your face. use formatting to give the user readability, tabs, list, of course paragraphs...
    don't just tags because they are there,

    who in their normal right minds uses
    h1
    h2
    h3

    those were there as a choice, not as a checklist, you're not supposed to use h1/h2/h3 in descending order to talk about your topic, what kind of relevance is that?
    what does h1/h2/h3 even mean? it means heading a page heading, you're only supposed to have one heading, do you have three heads?

    this "supposed" onsite seo checklist is all it is, "supposed" and a checklist, and a checklist easily leads to a footprint.

    does every post have to link to wikipedia or some "supposed" authority site? does that even make sense? i have a store, i have a best buy, am i going to send my customers to the apple store to check out all the mac crap to loose a sale? if it had a purpose yea, say i cared about my customers and said "we don't have it in stock, but you can go here to just buy it, since you need it" but just to throw the apple store link out there cuz they're authority, does that give me anything?

    not use onsite seo, does not create a shitty site, h1/h2/h3 tags and bolding a keyword doesn't make a site less shitty now does it?
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    • Profile picture of the author FakeItTilYouMakeIt
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Lanx View Post

      who says a site without h tags are shitty?, have you ever truely seen a h1 tag? it's ugly! it's so in your face. use formatting to give the user readability, tabs, list, of course paragraphs...
      don't just tags because they are there,

      who in their normal right minds uses
      h1
      h2
      h3
      I do. h1 doesn't have to be ugly have you tried scaling it down with css?

      h1 gets a lot of weight in comparison to other text on the page. Why wouldn't you want your keywords there? Good SEO and good site aesthetics don't have to be mutually exclusive and when combined they are a powerhouse that pleases both humans and bots. HTH
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Lanx View Post

      who says a site without h tags are shitty?, have you ever truely seen a h1 tag? it's ugly! it's so in your face. use formatting to give the user readability, tabs, list, of course paragraphs...
      don't just tags because they are there,

      who in their normal right minds uses
      h1
      h2
      h3

      those were there as a choice, not as a checklist, you're not supposed to use h1/h2/h3 in descending order to talk about your topic, what kind of relevance is that?
      what does h1/h2/h3 even mean? it means heading a page heading, you're only supposed to have one heading, do you have three heads?

      this "supposed" onsite seo checklist is all it is, "supposed" and a checklist, and a checklist easily leads to a footprint.

      does every post have to link to wikipedia or some "supposed" authority site? does that even make sense? i have a store, i have a best buy, am i going to send my customers to the apple store to check out all the mac crap to loose a sale? if it had a purpose yea, say i cared about my customers and said "we don't have it in stock, but you can go here to just buy it, since you need it" but just to throw the apple store link out there cuz they're authority, does that give me anything?

      not use onsite seo, does not create a shitty site, h1/h2/h3 tags and bolding a keyword doesn't make a site less shitty now does it?
      Google CSS, seriously.

      There's more to a web page than HTML.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lanx
    just cuz there's a wiki doesn't mean anything, besides all wiki info on anything seo is outdated by 2 years and just guesstimates.
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  • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
    I am leaving the SandBox theory out because it is highly debateable!
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  • Profile picture of the author Slin
    Myth? Take my word for it.

    Don't trust people, go out and run some tests! That's how I always have gained SEO knowledge, read, research, and test.
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    • Profile picture of the author dreamtoreality
      Originally Posted by Slin View Post

      Myth? Take my word for it.

      Don't trust people, go out and run some tests! That's how I always have gained SEO knowledge, read, research, and test.
      Your "Professional Website SEO Package" consists of

      - 150 High PR 2- 9 Article Backlinks(Blogs)
      - 150 Web 2.0 Backlinks
      - 250 Social Bookmarking Backlinks
      - 250 Wiki Backlinks
      - 250 Article Submissions
      - 250 Profile Backlinks
      -250 Web Directory Backlinks


      Do you actually find this stuff to be effective, then?



      What about "Select the amount of days over which your backlinks should be created. It is recommended to use at least 10 days for small orders and 30 days for bigger orders. If too many backlinks are created within a very short period of time, Google might detect that as spam and devalue all of your links." Link velocity and consistency, as mentioned above, is considered to be bullshit. So....
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  • Profile picture of the author seoed
    ok, instead of making jokes on some bad practices how about telling people
    then how to do it correctly?
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by seoed View Post

      ok, instead of making jokes on some bad practices how about telling people
      then how to do it correctly?
      The thread is not about doing SEO. It is about highlighting many of the myths that are out there in SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Here is another myth that is widely believed even by SEO's... Link velocity and link consistency.

    Building links too fast does not harm your site. Building shitty links harms your site.

    Also, there is nothing more unnatural than a site getting a consistent 20-30 links a day or whatever other amount of links you come up with. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a site getting link spikes. Happens all the time. That's what happens when a piece of content goes viral.
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    • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      Here is another myth that is widely believed even by SEO's... Link velocity and link consistency.

      Building links too fast does not harm your site. Building shitty links harms your site.

      Also, there is nothing more unnatural than a site getting a consistent 20-30 links a day or whatever other amount of links you come up with. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a site getting link spikes. Happens all the time. That's what happens when a piece of content goes viral.
      Haha... I was just about to add that one... you beat me to it!
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  • Profile picture of the author Lanx
    because that's what you say to customers to "appease" them. "will my pickup truck run up mountain?" "uh sure, why not"
    the customer just wants to hear you say yes, and be assured. so you basically sell your pitch and your "experience" before hand.

    customer goes
    "oh i read about this panda,velocity thing"
    "yea this guy has it covered!"

    in truth you don't know if/when/maybe google will even see your preciously/mathematically calculated drip fed comments, or google could just choose to see all your weeks worth of comments on a saturday, you have no control over it, it's just like fishing.
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  • Profile picture of the author JoshMcNary
    Do you really think not using relevant/kw terms in heading tags makes no difference? I understand not wanting to overoptimize or not wanting to be extremely unnatural through keyword stuffing, but the claim that using heading tags doesn't help as an SEO measure seems like a far-fetched one.

    If Google isn't looking at headings, what is it looking at?
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    • Profile picture of the author Lanx
      Originally Posted by JoshMcNary View Post

      Do you really think not using relevant/kw terms in heading tags makes no difference? I understand not wanting to overoptimize or not wanting to be extremely unnatural through keyword stuffing, but the claim that using heading tags doesn't help as an SEO measure seems like a far-fetched one.

      If Google isn't looking at headings, what is it looking at?
      whoever said h1's don't help, they help usability, someone is going to appreciate a heading tag, because they didn't read the title, sure. again this is on readability, spacing out every 150 words with a h tag in desending order while trying to keyword stuff, doesn't help anybody, but again create a footprint.

      tags are there for a reason, to separate information into readable/understandable chuncks you need to list something? use li /li, you really want to make a statement, go with bold.

      if you always have to bold a certain keyword while making h tags every 150words, that's not helping anyone.

      also there's the assumption that on-site seo exists,
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Lanx View Post

        whoever said h1's don't help, they help usability, someone is going to appreciate a heading tag, because they didn't read the title, sure. again this is on readability, spacing out every 150 words with a h tag in desending order while trying to keyword stuff, doesn't help anybody, but again create a footprint.

        tags are there for a reason, to separate information into readable/understandable chuncks you need to list something? use li /li, you really want to make a statement, go with bold.

        if you always have to bold a certain keyword while making h tags every 150words, that's not helping anyone.

        also there's the assumption that on-site seo exists,
        Most people think onsite seo is only about putting your kw's in as many different places on the website while in fact it's much more important to link the most relevant pages with each other and interlink as less non relevant pages as possible. One of the reasons why sites like Amazon and Wikipedia are doing very well. Keyword rich (LSI stuff) content = good, kw stuffed content = bad.

        Then there are other important things that influence rankings like how fast your page is loading, html/css errors/issues.
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  • Profile picture of the author FakeItTilYouMakeIt
    Banned
    Onsite what-now? Correctly labeling your content with a header that reflects what it's about??? Google has no time for that nonsense. They are busy trying to make Matt Cutts look human on camera and creating a thoughtful new interactive Google logo every day. Priorities people, priorities.
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    • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
      Originally Posted by kilobytestechnologies View Post

      i didnt find your thread useful at all.. sorry buddy..
      No surprise there! Someone who stuffs their sig. with multiple anchor text backlinks wouldn't find value where value lies.
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      • Profile picture of the author eppingvonryan
        I think you have some myths of your own....

        "Adding crap links like profiles"

        I have several Google page 1's and a couple of page 1 position # 1s .......all of my sites have only Angela and Paul style profile links that I have built myself and added to steadily over the months....

        "A quality link is a contextual/editorial type link on a page that is relevant"

        None of my links are from pages that are relevant!!!

        Go and look at sites that are in the first three positions on Google on any search query using www.opensiteexplorer.org or Majestic SEO : Backlink Checker & Site Explorer or Backlinks Checker Tool - Backlink Watch and see for yourselves how many are from so-called relevant sites... yer gonna be surprised!!!
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        • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
          Originally Posted by eppingvonryan View Post

          I think you have some myths of your own....

          "Adding crap links like profiles"

          I have several Google page 1's and a couple of page 1 position # 1s .......all of my sites have only Angela and Paul style profile links that I have built myself and added to steadily over the months....

          "A quality link is a contextual/editorial type link on a page that is relevant"

          None of my links are from pages that are relevant!!!

          Go and look at sites that are in the first three positions on Google on any search query using www.opensiteexplorer.org or Majestic SEO : Backlink Checker & Site Explorer or Backlinks Checker Tool - Backlink Watch and see for yourselves how many are from so-called relevant sites... yer gonna be surprised!!!
          Please note that the OP is a collective contribution from members of the forum, but I will have to say without doubt that if you are ranking with only profile links then the search terms you are targeting are weak and non-competitive.

          It takes a handful of quality links to outdo thousands of crappy profile links.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    JackSarlo,

    There is no reason to focus on a specific amount of links per day. That is absolutely asinine. There is also nothing wrong with enormous spikes in links. It happens to sites all the time. That's what happens when a piece of content goes viral.

    I have plenty of sites where I spent a week building links and never built another link. They are ranking just fine. There was no consistency there.

    The only reason you have to build links "consistently" is when you are using low quality links like article directories. Those links do not stick at a high rate. If you are not building links all the time with low quality stuff like that, then you are losing links faster than you are gaining them.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by JackSarlo View Post

      As for the spikes they're risky especially for new sites who haven't got any rankings yet. It's just something to keep in mind - to avoid joining some membership site which gives you 10,000 backlinks overnight!
      You are confusing cause and effect here. If someone is selling 10,000 backlinks, they are all trashy links. It doesn't matter if you space those out over a year or get them all in one night. Eventually they are probably going to tank the site. It's because of the type of backlinks, not any spike in links.
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  • Profile picture of the author winagain
    I did some of those time ago! Now, I just concentrate on good content and guest posting, wich works great.
    Forum posting too is a great way to get links.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lanx
    there's no confusion, just not agreement
    mike is saying links per day and spikes is a myth
    jack is saying no i believe it.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    It's a shame because this thread was started to highlight these type of dumb myths, and you are just trying to further it along.

    If someone is selling 10,000 links, the links are crap. That is the problem. It's not because of the spike in links. You are building crappy links. You could get those crappy links in 24 hours or 20/day. Either way it is going to result in basically the same thing.

    If I obtain a picture of Lady Gaga sucking off Justin Bieber, post it to my website, and TMZ happens to pick up the story and refer to my website, I am going to get way more than 10,000 links in a 24 hour period. According to your nonsense, Google is going to slap my site because of a spike in links. That is ludicrous.

    Also, there are plenty of examples of a brand new business creating a new site and doing a ton of offline advertising to create buzz. This creates a giant spike in links to a brand new site. Sites do not get slapped for that either.
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    • Profile picture of the author Lanx
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      If I obtain a picture of Lady Gaga sucking off Justin Bieber, post it to my website, and TMZ happens to pick up the story and refer to my website, I am going to get way more than 10,000 links in a 24 hour period. According to your nonsense, Google is going to slap my site because of a spike in links. That is ludicrous.

      Also, there are plenty of examples of a brand new business creating a new site and doing a ton of offline advertising to create buzz. This creates a giant spike in links to a brand new site. Sites do not get slapped for that either.
      wow you york guys are hardcore in your descriptions!
      but, but, but can't we drip feed a viral campaign? lol

      spikes happen in the industry, it's more natural than drip feeding.

      i mean the official playstation blog was probably getting 10000 ppl a day before thursday for months, and it probably shot up to millions
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    • Profile picture of the author tech84
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      If I obtain a picture of Lady Gaga sucking off Justin Bieber, post it to my website, and TMZ happens to pick up the story and refer to my website, I am going to get way more than 10,000 links in a 24 hour period. According to your nonsense, Google is going to slap my site because of a spike in links. That is ludicrous..

      That's total B*llsh*t!



      It's the other way around.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lanx
    Originally Posted by JackSarlo View Post

    Rude fella you're not understanding.

    10,000 porn backlinks will probably hurt your site, (never tried it) I did not say that won't.
    A spike is risky I said (regardless where the links come from).
    spikes are natural, they happen. heck maybe even 10k porn backlinks are natural maybe those porn forums were linking to a new perezhilton upskirt or something.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lanx
    do you even know what trolling is? do you just throw out terms because you got fustrated? how is that trolling? it's an example, it's probably a real world example, would no one not agree?

    just because someone doesn't agree with you, doesn't mean they are a troll, i hope you understand this.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Okay Jack. Show one ounce of evidence that a link spike will hurt a site's ranking.

    Your evidence has to make it conclusive that it is the actual spike causing the problem and not the type of links.

    If you CHOOSE to build 20 or 30 links a day, that is your choice. You are free to do that. Nobody is saying you cannot do that. Nobody is saying that will not work, although I would argue that it is a far more unnatural approach.

    But telling people that link spikes hurt rankings is just not true. It is one of the common SEO myths that this thread is trying to put to bed.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by JackSarlo View Post

      I have none sorry, I said it's risky and you haven't got a millimeter evidence it's NOT.
      Bullcrap. There are tons of examples. I can give you a local example I have used before.

      I live right near Harrisburg, PA. One of the local newspapers was largely responsible for breaking and covering the Jerry Sandusky disaster. When the story broke, they were getting thousands upon thousands of links a day. It was a huge spike. Then it largely went away, until some other new story about Sandusky came out. Again, big spike in links. Then it went away. Then the trial started. Big spike.

      Those spikes never hurt the newspaper's website. This is not a nationally syndicated newspaper. It is not the New York Times or Washington Post. It's just a little local paper.

      There are tons of examples you can find like this. I can find none that support your claim.
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  • Profile picture of the author FakeItTilYouMakeIt
    Banned
    Only if it's a waning moon and Jupiter is the the BS house....

    10,000 crappy blog comments on PR n/a sites to a drycleaning website in Idaho on a random Tuesday might be a risky spike but not for the spike's sake: crappy links are crappy links. The more crappy links you have the better the odds that Google will come across them and paddle you.

    But good juicy gravy links?? I'm not going to stop building good links at any point in my day because I've hit some kind of "good link ceiling".
    Makes me laugh...

    Internet: "Hey would you like a couple of PR6 do follows on a popular blog in your niche?"
    Me: "Ahhh no thanks, I'm good. I've gotten too many of those today."

    OR

    Internet Fans: "Awesome post!! We're going to link to it!"
    Me: "Nooooooooo! Can you wait til Thursday? I don't want my links to spike"

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  • Profile picture of the author nik0
    Banned
    Let's back it up with some data that is only present in my head as I tested it almost a year ago so just take my word on it okay.

    I tried to penalize my site, well actually I was desperate with my thin Amazon affiliate site that consisted of spun and scraped content. So I said to myself , it's ALL or NOTHING. What I did was blast 40.000 blog comments and 20.000 forum profile links with 1000+ different anchor txt's. According to my expectations my rankings dropped.

    BUT

    Less then a week later my site restored automatically.

    THen I was in the mood of **** that, it's tank or rank, not the same level. So I went even more crazy with the spam and the 2nd time my site did tank completely and stayed that way for > 6 months. The site didn't even rank for the sitename anymore.

    >6 months later I decided to repurpose the site and removed all the pages, and obvious all the bad links as well as they were pointed at those inner pages. And guess what? My site instantly started to rank for the site name again. Pure alghoritm penalty, long before Penguin even existed.
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  • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
    Originally Posted by JackSarlo View Post

    If you want to get top rankings, you have to start a link building campaign, that campaign should consists of getting regular amount of backlinks everyday say 20 to 30 links... consistency will get you top rankings fast.

    Now don't be an idiot and think you're going to get exactly 20 or 30 links every day that's not possible. The link building methods "prohibit" that. If you have experience with getting top ranks you'll know that. Say you do article submission or directory submission, your article won't get exactly approved by 20 directories in one day, hence you won't ever get exactly 20 links a day.

    So it will absolutely look natural.

    This is from experience.

    Getting a spike in links, isn't bad unless it's an enormous spike when say you join a link exchange membership site pay a fee and get backlinks instantly from all members (hence some 15,000 links in one day) - that's a risky spike! Risky has the same meaning as bad in seo...

    Learn a blueprint to get top ranks step a to c, not just myths and stuff.
    I think what you pointing out is your SEO routine or blueprint as you put it to rank a new site. This is your method and it involves building an x amount of links each day.

    But I assure you I can build 5 quality links on day one and you can build your 20 links over a week and I can achieve the same result as you or better.

    It all depends on the quality of the links and not the regularity that they are built. However, consistency is key especially in competitive niches because there are others gunning for the top spot.

    For people who build low quality links in competitive niches they will have a full-time job trying to achieve rankings and maintain it. Basically, building quality links is the smart way of SEOing a site and the risks are far lower.

    With regard to spikes:

    I believe there is a distinction between a natural spike and an unnatrual one. When SEOers are building links enmasse they WILL leave a clear footprint by using the same platforms or spun article/comments, anchors etc. when building these links, but when something goes viral there is a wide array of platforms and content where the links come from.

    IMO... a natural spike is harmless to any site (regardless of age), but an unnatural spike is risky especially for newer sites that don't have any form of trust or backlink profile in Google's eyes.

    But the Myth still stands: building x amount of links each day to appear natural is nonsense.
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    • Profile picture of the author JoshMcNary
      I think you're both right on link velocity.

      A spike isn't bad unless it's unnatural. If Google sees thousands of links coming in from reputable news sites, they'll probably see it differently than a spike with thousands of links from social bookmarking sites and forum profiles.

      That being said, if you're going to be creating unnatural links (which all built links are), I believe it's less risky to do it slowly because a spike could lead to more link scrutiny from Google than a slower dripfeed. It's possible.

      Also, slower linking gives you time to develop natural links (if your content is good enough), which will help offset the unnatural built links. I believe this is a solid practice.
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  • Profile picture of the author kaposzta
    Newbie: "My site was on page 1, but suddenly it went to page 60. What's happened?"
    SEO "expert": "Dude, your site has crappy backlinks, the big G penalized ur site!"

    Google doesn't penalize a site for having "crappy" links. Google just start disregarding these bad backlinks, and the site simply losts its advantage over other sites (that have better backlinks). If all the backlinks of a given site is crappy (like fake profile pages, lame blog comments, spammy forum signatures), and Google finds this out and disregard them, then this site will have absolutely no backlink in the eyes of Google. This means that the site will sink to the bottom of the ocean of millions of sites
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by kaposzta View Post

      Newbie: "My site was on page 1, but suddenly it went to page 60. What's happened?"
      SEO "expert": "Dude, your site has crappy backlinks, the big G penalized ur site!"

      Google doesn't penalize a site for having "crappy" links. Google just start disregarding these bad backlinks, and the site simply losts its advantage over other sites (that have better backlinks). If all the backlinks of a given site is crappy (like fake profile pages, lame blog comments, spammy forum signatures), and Google finds this out and disregard them, then this site will have absolutely no backlink in the eyes of Google. This means that the site will sink to the bottom of the ocean of millions of sites
      Not true cause if that was the case it would easy to get those sites ranking again, which is definitely not the case.
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Myth: Google resets the link value when a domain gets dropped!
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  • Profile picture of the author Slin
    Myth, you don't need backlinks

    I get tired of hearing this, if you really want good rankings, you need to get some version of backlinks. In some niches most people won't link to you naturally. In fact pretty much every high ranking site in my niche definitely builds backlinks to their own site.

    Backlinking is just part of the game.
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    • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
      Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

      Myth: Google resets the link value when a domain gets dropped!
      Do people actually believe this? I did not know about this myth... will add it to the OP later. Thnx!

      Originally Posted by Slin View Post

      Myth, you don't need backlinks

      I get tired of hearing this, if you really want good rankings, you need to get some version of backlinks. In some niches most people won't link to you naturally. In fact pretty much every high ranking site in my niche definitely builds backlinks to their own site.

      Backlinking is just part of the game.
      This is a good one as well! I will include it later and add the whole thing about quality content been enough to rank....

      Myth: "build it and they will come"

      Thanks!
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      • Profile picture of the author Lanx
        Originally Posted by IM Ash View Post

        Myth: "build it and they will come"

        Thanks!
        well that's more of a philosophy rather than a myth? maybe it depends on how it's used.
        1. build it (well) and they will come
        2. (just) built it and they will come

        i think are probably the versions most implied
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        • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
          Originally Posted by Lanx View Post

          well that's more of a philosophy rather than a myth? maybe it depends on how it's used.
          1. build it (well) and they will come
          2. (just) built it and they will come

          i think are probably the versions most implied
          The premise of just building a site well and it will take-off is flawed. The philosophy is a myth.

          I see many many sites in the various niches that I am in that are built well with awesome site design and content. These sites deserve to rank high but they don't. There needs to be some sort of initial promotion to get the ball rolling and for people to notice these type of sites.

          Perhaps one will not need SEO but rather some sort of social media marketing (SMM) to get these type of sites noticed by people and the search engines.

          This is Google's philosophy btw... create compelling content and the links will follow but links can't be built to great content if no one is actually seeing it. So I will say that this falls into the bracket of been an SEO myth but you welcome to argue against this.
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by IM Ash View Post

        Do people actually believe this? I did not know about this myth... will add it to the OP later. Thnx!
        Yeah if you Google on the subject you see it mentioned more often then not.

        The idea to esarch about it started when I saw that the dropped domains from my broker were a lot cheaper then the expired ones. Then I started to read a lot of stories that Google would reset the PR of those or reset the old links but I was like wth I'm just going to try it and they seem to work just as good as expired ones. I also asked the broker what he thought and he only said: People don't like dropped ones (and obvious they are also cheaper to achieve for him, not sure what method he uses but it's not Hayden's). Anyway a domain is as good as the back link profile it has, whether it's expired or dropped.
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          Myth: Not cloaking your affiliate links is showing to Google that you run an affiliate site.

          That's really the biggest nonsense myth ever, like Google bot doesn't know where it ends up on when it crawls that link. In fact it raises a red flag. Matt Cuts even admitted that but people remain stubborn and cloak all the way.
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      • Profile picture of the author dreamtoreality
        Originally Posted by IM Ash View Post

        This is a good one as well! I will include it later and add the whole thing about quality content been enough to rank....

        Myth: "build it and they will come"

        Thanks!
        Please do! "Content is King" is by far the myth that annoys me the most. It also leads to users asking why there website isn't ranking anymore after they ranked for a few weeks. I think QDF and how it works would be another important thing to add.
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        • Profile picture of the author Hossain
          Social signal myth is absolutely nonsense! I personally didnt see any benefit of social signals on SEO campaigns.
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          • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
            Originally Posted by Hossain View Post

            Oops I think you guys missed the biggest myth flooding after each and almost every google updates! After every algo update some headless chickens star running screaminng SEO IS DEAD! I personally believe White Hat SEO cant be dead as SEO is not all about manipulation. Google was, is and will be continuing devaluation of spammy links, websites, methods etc. but that doesnt mean sooner or letter SEO gonna be found on history books! In fact there are tons of legitimate white hat methods are still available.
            Originally Posted by dreamtoreality View Post

            Please do! "Content is King" is by far the myth that annoys me the most. It also leads to users asking why there website isn't ranking anymore after they ranked for a few weeks. I think QDF and how it works would be another important thing to add.
            Originally Posted by Hossain View Post

            Social signal myth is absolutely nonsense! I personally didnt see any benefit of social signals on SEO campaigns.
            I included these contributions and also added my thoughts on social links (see 1.9 under "Off-Page SEO" in the OP)
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    • Profile picture of the author kaposzta
      Originally Posted by Slin View Post

      Myth, you don't need backlinks

      I get tired of hearing this, if you really want good rankings, you need to get some version of backlinks. In some niches most people won't link to you naturally. In fact pretty much every high ranking site in my niche definitely builds backlinks to their own site.

      Backlinking is just part of the game.
      Of course you need backlinks, but I think the real myth is that "You must build backlinks for your site."
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  • Profile picture of the author Lanx
    i'll just agree with you, i only majored in comp sci and business... heck i'll admit it, i even had to google philosophy to make sure i spelled it correctly, i was like two o's? damn.
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    • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
      Originally Posted by Lanx View Post

      i'll just agree with you, i only majored in comp sci and business... heck i'll admit it, i even had to google philosophy to make sure i spelled it correctly, i was like two o's? damn.
      LOL...

      Thanks man... I am not to keen to debate today either! My day of rest!
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  • Profile picture of the author legoog8
    anyone got any myth busting regarding same ips and linking?
    Signature
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    • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
      Originally Posted by legoog8 View Post

      anyone got any myth busting regarding same ips and linking?
      I link from sites in my network to a money site a good few times and I still see value but I don't over do it and I also change the anchors. Some have said that there is diminishing returns the more you do it.

      I have not tested this but I do know that IP diversity is essential! Maybe another warrior can shed more light on this.

      Here are a number of threads for you to chew on in the meantime: https://www.google.com/search?q=link...ient=firefox-a
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  • Profile picture of the author Hossain
    Oops I think you guys missed the biggest myth flooding after each and almost every google updates! After every algo update some headless chickens star running screaminng SEO IS DEAD! I personally believe White Hat SEO cant be dead as SEO is not all about manipulation. Google was, is and will be continuing devaluation of spammy links, websites, methods etc. but that doesnt mean sooner or letter SEO gonna be found on history books! In fact there are tons of legitimate white hat methods are still available.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
    One big myth that i remember rite now is that google keyword tool can tell you about the competition of a particular keyword. i've seen a lot of people say "this keyword is easy to rank coz google keyword tool shows its low competition".

    Even bigger myth is that the number of competing pages shown in google can determine the level of competition. Utter nonsense!!!
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    • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
      Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

      One big myth that i remember rite now is that google keyword tool can tell you about the competition of a particular keyword. i've seen a lot of people say "this keyword is easy to rank coz google keyword tool shows its low competition".

      Even bigger myth is that the number of competing pages shown in google can determine the level of competition. Utter nonsense!!!
      These two are huge myths... man oh man... how could we have fprgotten about them. Thanks Ben! Will add them to the OP a little later!

      @JackSarlo

      Dude, you removed all your posts and screwed up the credit links in the OP. Oh well!

      Added: Okay... u actually didn't screw it up... the posts were removed and the post counts are not adjusted accordingly. Sorry!
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  • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
    Here is a great video that debunks the social links and edu/gov myths out there. I know we shouldn't listen to everything Matt says but my results proves this video to be true.

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  • Profile picture of the author Hossain
    My apology if Duplicate Content myth is already covered! If not then I think this myth should be added on OP as lots of newbies still believe google will punish their sites if there are any duplicate content.

    There is no duplicate content penalty at all! As a webmaster you have enough right to publish same article/graphics/videos on multiple pages of your site. Google will index duplicate pages. May be sometime duplicate pages will be preserved in supplementary index but that doesnt mean Google impose penalty on the pages.

    Same for backlink pages too. You can post same content on multiple social networking or blogging sites. No problem at all. It's like same billboard installed beside different highways for different types of traffic. Is that illegal? Well the only problem I faced with duplicate contents on backlink pages is its hard to index. 4 or 5 exact articles will not be headache but hundreds of exact articles on hundreds of different article directories will be tough to index.
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    • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
      Originally Posted by Hossain View Post

      My apology if Duplicate Content myth is already covered! There is no duplicate content penalty at all!
      agreed! using one article in few web 2.0s is not bad at all. although it could be a problem if there are two pages of same content within a website. not necessarily a duplicate content penalty tho. it has got more to do with search engine bots getting confused as to which page to rank among the two.
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  • Profile picture of the author Hossain
    New domains are difficult to rank so start with old aged domains. I saw this types of garbage opinions from so called gurus on SEO forums. Domain age has very little impact on SEO campaigns. I ranked just 1 month old domains which outranked even 10 years old domains. When it comes in SEO perspective authority comes first. You need to ensure your main efforts goes behind developing an authority site. Then get backlinks from authority and non spammy sites. Relevant high PR pages will play key roles forever!
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    • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
      Originally Posted by Hossain View Post

      New domains are difficult to rank so start with old aged domains. I saw this types of garbage opinions from so called gurus on SEO forums. Domain age has very little impact on SEO campaigns. I ranked just 1 month old domains which outranked even 10 years old domains. When it comes in SEO perspective authority comes first. You need to ensure your main efforts goes behind developing an authority site. Then get backlinks from authority and non spammy sites. Relevant high PR pages will play key roles forever!
      i think the more important thing would be the age of backlinks rather than domain. age of backlinks does make difference in terms of seo. links that are online for a long time tend to get more trust from google. anyone else feel the same?
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

        i think the more important thing would be the age of backlinks rather than domain. age of backlinks does make difference in terms of seo. links that are online for a long time tend to get more trust from google. anyone else feel the same?
        You often see very old domains, and thus they have very old links, ranking for keywords that a normal new domain would never rank for with such few links.
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  • Profile picture of the author arshadul
    Paid Backlink: Google hate paid backlink. But i saw Paid directory word very nice in SEO. Why Yahoo directory charge huge amount of money for directory submission for a year. Yahoo directory submission work super in SEO.
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    • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
      Originally Posted by Hossain View Post

      New domains are difficult to rank so start with old aged domains. I saw this types of garbage opinions from so called gurus on SEO forums. Domain age has very little impact on SEO campaigns. I ranked just 1 month old domains which outranked even 10 years old domains. When it comes in SEO perspective authority comes first. You need to ensure your main efforts goes behind developing an authority site. Then get backlinks from authority and non spammy sites. Relevant high PR pages will play key roles forever!
      Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

      i think the more important thing would be the age of backlinks rather than domain. age of backlinks does make difference in terms of seo. links that are online for a long time tend to get more trust from google. anyone else feel the same?
      I don't think it is so much to do with the age of the domain but rather the type of backlinks that the aged domain already has which will give it a head-start compared to a new domain without any backlinks.

      You can rank a new domain as quickly as an aged domain but you can only do it with quality links that pass authority and PR. I believe the reason why people talk about aged domains been advantageous is because these domains already have that authority and trust (when there are quality backlinks pointing to it).

      Will like to hear what others think about this?

      Originally Posted by arshadul View Post

      Paid Backlink: Google hate paid backlink. But i saw Paid directory word very nice in SEO. Why Yahoo directory charge huge amount of money for directory submission for a year. Yahoo directory submission work super in SEO.
      This is actually a brilliant addition and really funny at the same time. Yes, links from Yahoo directory are good and this is a paid link.... haha.... so much for Google not liking paid links!

      Originally Posted by arshadul View Post

      Many SEO say that nofollow backlink is not work in SEO ,it was waste of time because no link juice pass on that link so page rank not increase at all but in many case nofollow backlink work very nice in SEO. I benefit this kind of backlink in verious cases.
      This one is really controversial... too many SEOers have their own preference or belief about nofollow links. I can't add this one to the list because of this, but thanks for your contribution!
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      • Profile picture of the author Hossain
        Originally Posted by IM Ash View Post

        I don't think it is so much to do with the age of the domain but rather the type of backlinks that the aged domain already has which will give it a head-start compared to a new domain without any backlinks.

        You can rank a new domain as quickly as an aged domain but you can only do it with quality links that pass authority and PR. I believe the reason why people talk about aged domains been advantageous is because these domains already have that authority and trust (when there are quality backlinks pointing to it).

        Will like to hear what others think about this?

        Well old domains with strong backlink portfolio will help indeed. I am not saying against relevant, aged, strong backlink based domains. These are diamonds inside of a coal mine. No doubt. But when most of the folks talking about aged domains they usually dont talk about domains relevant to their sites and more importantly based on strong natural backlink stacks. They just feel age will do the trickery for them!
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        • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
          Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

          You often see very old domains, and thus they have very old links, ranking for keywords that a normal new domain would never rank for with such few links.
          Not all old domains have links tho. A 10 year old domain with no backlinks is not even comparable to a 5 year old domain with tons of trusted/old/crusty backlinks. obviously the 5 year old domain is going to be lot better. an aged domain without backlinks is worthless. its actually the age of the backlinks that matters. well thats my opinion.
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          • Profile picture of the author nik0
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

            Not all old domains have links tho. A 10 year old domain with no backlinks is not even comparable to a 5 year old domain with tons of trusted/old/crusty backlinks. obviously the 5 year old domain is going to be lot better. an aged domain without backlinks is worthless. its actually the age of the backlinks that matters. well thats my opinion.
            Yeah duhhh... :p

            I saw this site that only had like 20 links from local web directories (relevant) that was outranking all others with much more impressive back link profiles, simple cause his site was 12 yr old as well as the links. So yeah the age of the existing links plays a HUGE role that most people heavily underestimate indeed.
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  • Profile picture of the author arshadul
    Many SEO say that nofollow backlink is not work in SEO ,it was waste of time because no link juice pass on that link so page rank not increase at all but in many case nofollow backlink work very nice in SEO. I benefit this kind of backlink in verious cases.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lanx
    oh speaking of domain age, i remember a myth

    google checks to see how long you registered a domain for, a 2 year registered domain holds more weight than a 1 year registered domain.

    actually i will give this credit to my first "ah ha moment" i followed this, once and then thought,wait this sounds silly, where did this "random wso person" even hear this.

    and went about compiling my list of assumed crap.
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    • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
      Originally Posted by Lanx View Post

      oh speaking of domain age, i remember a myth

      google checks to see how long you registered a domain for, a 2 year registered domain holds more weight than a 1 year registered domain.

      actually i will give this credit to my first "ah ha moment" i followed this, once and then thought,wait this sounds silly, where did this "random wso person" even hear this.

      and went about compiling my list of assumed crap.
      Yeah, I remember this one clearly. In fact, I think we may have read the same crappy WSO. I think the person said if possible try and register it for even longer than 2 years (5 years or something)... lol


      @Hossain

      Got you man! Will add that to the OP as well!
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by IM Ash View Post

        Yeah, I remember this one clearly. In fact, I think we may have read the same crappy WSO. I think the person said if possible try and register it for even longer than 2 years (5 years or something)... lol


        @Hossain

        Got you man! Will add that to the OP as well!
        Probably he got a few affiliate links to hosting companies in his WSO/pdf.
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        • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
          Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

          Probably he got a few affiliate links to hosting companies in his WSO/pdf.
          Yeah... that's what $5 WSO's are all about... lol


          @Ben & Nik0

          So what you guys are saying is that a PR10 link that is 2 years old is more valuable than a PR10 link that is one month old?

          My theory is that it is the type of links pointed to the aged domain that matters and not the age of the link. But this is just a theory and very difficult to test.

          I dunno whether links are like wine that mature with age and get better with time.... but hey, I could be wrong!
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          • Profile picture of the author nik0
            Banned
            Originally Posted by IM Ash View Post

            Yeah... that's what $5 WSO's are all about... lol


            @Ben & Nik0

            So what you guys are saying is that a PR10 link that is 2 years old is more valuable than a PR10 link that is one month old?

            My theory is that it is the type of links pointed to the aged domain that matters and not the age of the link. But this is just a theory and very difficult to test.

            I dunno whether links are like wine that mature with age and get better with time.... but hey, I could be wrong!
            Exactly, they do mature and get more valuable. I've seen it too many times. Do some Googling yourself with SEOquake enabled and just search some medium competiton keywords. You very often see sites that are like pR2 or PR3 in the middle of PR4/PR5/PR6 sites, and then when you check the age, you'll see that the site is old, and well you can check the back links that SEMrush shows or just look at the PR. Anyway when you dive into it a little deeper you really see a trend of it.
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            • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
              Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

              Exactly, they do mature and get more valuable. I've seen it too many times. Do some Googling yourself with SEOquake enabled and just search some medium competiton keywords. You very often see sites that are like pR2 or PR3 in the middle of PR4/PR5/PR6 sites, and then when you check the age, you'll see that the site is old, and well you can check the back links that SEMrush shows or just look at the PR. Anyway when you dive into it a little deeper you really see a trend of it.
              But that doesn't prove anything! Anyway, I searched for some info about it and there is sooo much of conflicting theories. But I am with seomoz on this one... here is a link to the video I found on their site:

              Age of Site and Old Links - Whiteboard Friday | SEOmoz

              Rand even covers the domain registration period that we spoke about earlier, as well as age of a domain. His points are solid!
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              • Profile picture of the author nik0
                Banned
                Originally Posted by IM Ash View Post

                But that doesn't prove anything! Anyway, I searched for some info about it and there is sooo much of conflicting theories. But I am with seomoz on this one... here is a link to the video I found on their site:

                Age of Site and Old Links - Whiteboard Friday | SEOmoz

                Rand even covers the domain registration period that we spoke about earlier, as well as age of a domain. His points are solid!
                Lol, millions of results is no proof, whatever!
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                • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
                  Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

                  Lol, millions of results is no proof, whatever!
                  Yep! The internet has been around for a while that means there are going to be millions of old sites with aged backlinks pointing to them.
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                • Profile picture of the author Hossain
                  Nik0 isnt wrong! I think I wasn't able to clear my stand.

                  - Old domains are good for SEO. Go get one, host it, upload a website, perform onpage SEO. Now sit back and relax. See how your site is skyrocketing! = Nonsense! only domain age has nothing to do with SEO.

                  - Old domains are good for SEO. Go get one, upload a website and perform good onpage SEO. Build some good backlinks to the domain = Yeah it would work better than brand new domains.

                  to be continued...
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                  • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
                    Originally Posted by Hossain View Post

                    Nik0 isnt wrong! I think I wasn't able to clear my stand.

                    - Old domains are good for SEO. Go get one, host it, upload a website, perform onpage SEO. Now sit back and relax. See how your site is skyrocketing! = Nonsense! only domain age has nothing to do with SEO.

                    - Old domains are good for SEO. Go get one, upload a website and perform good onpage SEO. Build some good backlinks to the domain = Yeah it would work better than brand new domains.

                    to be continued...
                    I completely agree with you here! No argument whatsoever!

                    My belief is simple: the longer the domain has been around then the more time it has had to build up authority and trust in Google's eyes. A domain of this nature will rank much faster than a new domain will. This is evident for anyone who builds a new site and conitnues promoting it; around month 4-6 the site's traffic will suddenly skyrocket without warning, and new posts rank much higher than they would have before this sudden increase in traffic. This is the point that I believe Google begins trusting the site.

                    My argument is that the age of the backlinks is just a knock-on effect of having an older website. But is it the age of the backlinks that give this domain more power, or is the trust and authority that was earned through time via factors such as backlinking and perhaps adding content regularly and many other factors that we will never know?

                    If I buy a new domain and add ten pages of content and create 10 quality backlinks to the root using whatever anchors I want to rank for, and if I just leave the site as is, will it begin moving up the SERPs on its own as the backlinks age (if all things remain the same i.e - no competition or algo updates that effect the SERPs for the term)?

                    I think it is easy to look at an older domain that is ranking with a handful of aged backlinks and then assume that backlink age is the main reason for the site ranking for the term but there are so many other variables that come into play.

                    Anyway, this is one area where there is clearly a great deal of conflicting theories and I guess to each his own on the backlink age factor!
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                    • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
                      Originally Posted by IM Ash View Post

                      My argument is that the age of the backlinks is just a knock-on effect of having an older website. But is it the age of the backlinks that give this domain more power, or is the trust and authority that was earned through time via factors such as backlinking and perhaps adding content regularly and many other factors that we will never know?

                      If I buy a new domain and add ten pages of content and create 10 quality backlinks to the root using whatever anchors I want to rank for, and if I just leave the site as is, will it begin moving up the SERPs on its own as the backlinks age (if all things remain the same i.e - no competition or algo updates that effect the SERPs for the term)?

                      I think it is easy to look at an older domain that is ranking with a handful of aged backlinks and then assume that backlink age is the main reason for the site ranking for the term but there are so many other variables that come into play.

                      Anyway, this is one area where there is clearly a great deal of conflicting theories and I guess to each his own on the backlink age factor!
                      lets just say an nytimes page linking to a uni site(which is very much possible). now imagine that backlink staying at nytimes with PR 7 for 8 years.... yeah not a bogus link obtained from blog commenting but an actual contextual link in one of the most trusted sites rite now. thats how i think google determines which site to trust. people keep saying edu sites are more authoritative which actually makes sense. i've always said its not the TLD but what's inside the TLD that matters. i dont think adding content regular plays a big role in determining which site to trust. i can add spinned articles every day but how often do we get to see a backlink giving link juice to a site for 10 years?

                      EDIT: well thats just my opinion. its hard to say what actually makes difference unless someone has tested this.
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                      • Profile picture of the author FakeItTilYouMakeIt
                        Banned
                        It would be awesome to test some of this stuff. I've got some sites just lying around, it's been a long time since I've taken time to play with them and test theories but that's really where you get the best insight and ideas. This has been a very enjoyable read
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                        • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
                          Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

                          lets just say an nytimes page linking to a uni site(which is very much possible). now imagine that backlink staying at nytimes with PR 7 for 8 years.... yeah not a bogus link obtained from blog commenting but an actual contextual link in one of the most trusted sites rite now. thats how i think google determines which site to trust. people keep saying edu sites are more authoritative which actually makes sense. i've always said its not the TLD but what's inside the TLD that matters. i dont think adding content regular plays a big role in determining which site to trust. i can add spinned articles every day but how often do we get to see a backlink giving link juice to a site for 10 years?

                          EDIT: well thats just my opinion. its hard to say what actually makes difference unless someone has tested this.
                          There is definitely logic as to why a person will believe that backlink age is a significant factor in rankings.... no doubt!

                          But let's look at a site that has already earned trust by whatever means. We know that this sort of site ranks easily because of the trust/authority it has gained.

                          Now if I have to add a new post to this particular site and target a medium competitive kw... I know for a fact that the post will beat many sites that are optimizing for the kw based only on the trust/authority that the site has earned.

                          I also know that I will only need a few quality backlinks to outrank the other sites targeting the kw. Once I do build backlinks and outrank these sites I will have a page ranking with a small amount of newish links!

                          Where exactly does backlink age come in here? Isn't it the overall authority and trust that the site has earned that is helping it rank with relative ease?

                          I dunno... this one gives me a headache...lol

                          Originally Posted by FakeItTilYouMakeIt View Post

                          It would be awesome to test some of this stuff. I've got some sites just lying around, it's been a long time since I've taken time to play with them and test theories but that's really where you get the best insight and ideas. This has been a very enjoyable read
                          I wish I could do a test on backlink age, but how in the world do you test something like this, and how long does the test last? Too many factors at play imo

                          ______
                          sidenote: I have added all contributions to the OP
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                          • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
                            Originally Posted by IM Ash View Post

                            There is definitely logic as to why a person will believe that backlink age is a significant factor in rankings.... no doubt!

                            But let's look at a site that has already earned trust by whatever means. We know that this sort of site ranks easily because of the trust/authority it has gained.

                            Now if I have to add a new post to this particular site and target a medium competitive kw... I know for a fact that the post will beat many sites that are optimizing for the kw based only on the trust/authority that the site has earned.

                            I also know that I will only need a few quality backlinks to outrank the other sites targeting the kw. Once I do build backlinks and outrank these sites I will have a page ranking with a small amount of newish links!

                            Where exactly does backlink age come in here? Isn't it the overall authority and trust that the site has earned that is helping it rank with relative ease?

                            I dunno... this one gives me a headache...lol
                            your post actually makes sense. there are a lot of factors that determine the trust/authority google is looking for. i'm not saying backlink age is the only factor but its one of the important factors. i'll agree with you that the quality of backlinks also plays a role coz some bogus article directory links, doesnt matter whether it was earned 10 years ago or 10 months ago, will have very little impact. what else, page rank? well its determined by the quality of backlinks so we've already got it covered.

                            adding content regularly might have a small impact but shouldn't be huge. what might make the difference is whether its reaching people or not, whether its getting people's attention or not. if an article gets good number of decent link backs then it definitely is worthy of mention. if there are ton of articles that have decent backlinks(not just the homepage) and some of those backlinks date back to the early 2000s then i could say this site has been around for a while and people have liked its content ever since.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lanx
    i'm gonna propose something, i think "links from related niches" are a myth.

    now i'm thinking as a websurfer.

    let's i frequent a hobby forum, and in the off topic (where everyone eventually talks because... come on there's only so much you can talk about that specific hobby, and since you've all built a tight community, why not continue the discussion?) you get tons of links.

    in my hobby forum, off topic is just that, littered with
    1. loose weight health challenge i will do p90x whose with me?
    2. lets talk about anime
    3. the mega tv thread

    and just like here, i never have any links in my sig, and i won't let anyone else have links in their sigs to like whatever.

    so even those off topic threads, i examine each link (if there even is one) and make sure it's not an aff link, i can't help myself, i can spot an aff link 110% of the time, and i'm protecting my community. (i'm sure many of you do too)

    so my hobby forum which is a pr 5? (or 4 i forget) well it's the leader for the niche and keywords, with crazy geeks and nerds (i'm one of them) and the off topic links to varied topics, that quite honestly ppl get a lot of knowledge, enjoyment from.

    this in my opinion is natural, so why is the myth of "only links from related niches" around?
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      SEOmoz did some sort of a test after the Penguin updates and from that it showed that people with less then 10% links from relevant niches were penalized way more often.

      So you definitely don't need only links from relevant niches but you must have some.
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      • Profile picture of the author Hossain
        Add this one too..

        Folks often ask how they can improve their site's PR. Many replies recommend to update the sites with new, unique contents and regular basis. This is kinda BS.

        PR depends on number and quality of backlinks. Content has nothing to do with Page Rank. For improving PR one should concentrate on how he/she can get backlinks from Low OBL, Dofollow and High PR pages. PR N/A pages will help too. But to get even a PR 3 you have to build hundreds of PR N/A or PR0 backlinks. Which is pretty tedious and spammy in the end.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lanx
    let's talk about do-follow vs. no-follow(i'm not really up on this myth)

    google says only a very small percentage of the web is even no-follow, which is probably true, what myths are associated with this tag?

    (i just build links to whatever do/no follow, it decreases with tiers, i'll "try" to get do-follows on tier1, i am kinda not concentrating on tier 2, anything goes for tier 3 and 4 for me really)
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  • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
    Sorry guys... been a bit busy! Will update the OP and reply wherever I need too during the weekend!
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  • Profile picture of the author anoopsparx
    i have created the list of seo myths
    1. Top Ranking Brings Success
    2. Listing Site at Google
    3. Links are Better than Content
    4. IT Professional Can only Deploy SEO
    5. Meta Description Influence Search Ranking
    6. Only On-Page SEO is Significant
    7. Ideal Density of Keywords
    8. No Relation Between Social Media & SEO
    9. Integrating Exact Match Keyword
    10. Huge Content at Home Page is Good

    you can read complete seo myths information here -
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