Part of the reason for this surge in SEO experts is that there are dozens and dozens of search engine optimization myths floating around on the web.  These are myths that any average Joe can pick up, learn about and continue promoting as if it’s the next best thing to butter.  The reality is that some tactics and strategies that worked before are no longer effective today.  Free your mind of the following myths in order to really see how SEO works.

Myth #1: Submitting your URL to search engines is the number one way to get indexed.

This may have worked five years ago, but what’s important is getting quality links to your site from relevant sites, not linking out.

Myth #2: SEO is a one-time task that you can set and forget.

So many “experts” will optimize sites and consider it a done deal.  SEO is an ongoing process that can never be finished.  Considering how much SEO has evolved over the years, people need to utilize new strategies as search engines evolve.

Myth #3: Keyword density is a surefire way to up your rankings.

While having keywords is helpful, having content that is dense with awkwardly-sounding keywords that don’t make sense does not work with search engines.  It’s considered spammy.

Myth #4: Every site needs a Google Sitemap to boost rankings.

As long as your website can be easily crawled, you don’t need a sitemap.  Google doesn’t give URLs more value just because they are included in the Sitemap.  Sitemaps are simply helpful for being discovered, not necessarily increasing rankings.

Myth #5: Any content will increase rankings.

At one point, content was king but people abused the way content works for a site.  Having relevant and fresh content on a consistent basis on your site certainly helps with SEO, but just pilling on poorly written content for the sake of having content will not improve your rankings.

Myth #6: Quantity of incoming links is the most important link-building factor in ranking.

It’s the quality of links pointing to your site, not the quantity—thought it would be great if you can have quantity on top of quality.  Relevant and high quality links contribute to the ranking potential of a website in a noticeable way, whereas large numbers of low-quality links are a waste of time and could even hurt your rankings.

Myth #7: Higher PageRank means better rankings.

Having a higher PageRank simply reflects the fact that a website has links pointing to it; it does not speak of the quality of the links (see myth #6) or the value that Google assigns to those links (and consequently your website).  PageRank, however, does not have a direct effect on your website’s rankings (anymore).

Myth #8: A Flash page means you can’t boost your rankings.

A website that is all Flash will have drawbacks when it comes to SEO.  But, if you have a flash page and utilize other SEO strategies, you can still get good results.  The challenge is that you will have fewer options for optimization.

Myth #9: Keyword meta tags are important for search engine rankings.

Filling up meta tags with keywords will not impact SERPs (search engine result pages) in a noticeable way, and overdoing meta tags may even hurt rankings. Search engines no longer give any weight to keywords in meta tags in their ranking algorithms thanks to spammers.

Myth #10: Higher rankings through SEO can be guaranteed.

By focusing on the right SEO strategies consistently, you can get improved results, but nothing is ever guaranteed.

According to CNET, “former Facebook executive and Quora founder Adam D’Angelo took things a little further by declaring on Quora that ‘this is not a rumor. This is a real project. There are a large number of people working on it. I am completely confident about this.’”

Kevin Rose’s exact tweet from late Saturday night read: “Huge rumor: Google to launch Facebook competitor very soon “Google Me,” very credible source.”  Kevin Rose has a reputation of spilling the latest technology gossip and he seems to be right again.

What Google Me could be exactly is still unclear, but some say that it is an extension of Google Profiles, which is basically a representation of the user.  Others are saying that the prospective social network in question could combine Facebook’s news feed with Google Profile, status updates, pictures, etc.

What is interesting is that Google hasn’t been investing a lot of its time into social media.  Google Buzz was one recent attempt, but that did not catch on to the general public and proved to have major privacy issues as well.  Although Google fixed these issues, Buzz has not been all that popular.

Unlike Google Buzz, Google Me would probably have improved privacy controls and all new features.  According to Infosyncworld, Google Me could potentially appear on cell phones, including Google’s Android OS.  It shouldn’t be too long before we see the development of Google Me really take a leap.

To tackle this problem, Google is planning to redirect a small percentage of mainland China users to a landing page on Google.cn which will link to Google.com.hk.

According to Google, “this approach ensures we stay true to our commitment not to censor our results on Google.cn and gives users access to all of our services from one page…As a company we aspire to make information available to users everywhere, including China. It’s why we have worked so hard to keep Google.cn alive, as well as to continue our research and development work in China.”

The Chinese government has yet to speak out about the new strategy and if they do not like the idea, it may be the end of Google in China.  Currently, mainland Chinese users can only search for certain topics, but cannot access the websites that come up on results pages.  Google continues to stand behind its commitment to making information available to everyone, but China’s push towards censorship is continuing to present challenges for Google.

Louis Stanton, a district court judge, said that YouTube cannot be held responsible for individuals who post videos from popular productions, including Viacom, without getting approval from YouTube itself.

Viacom’s argument was that YouTube makes it “easy” for users to post video clips and difficult for copyright owners to monitor those clips that get posted without approval.  Judge Stanton simply rejected this argument based on the fact that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act eliminates the responsibility for websites of having to check user-generated content before it gets posted on the site.

YouTube has a reputation of removing clips that in violation of copyright laws immediately after they are posted, a fact confirmed by the judge.  Two years ago, YouTube actually removed 100,000 videos that violated Viacom copyright laws.

Viacom agreed to appeal the ruling in that it goes against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as well as the views of Congress and the Supreme Court.  According to the ruling, individuals post 24 hours’ worth of video every minute to YouTube.  For Google, this ruling was an important win considering the number of people who turn to the Internet for information, content and communication.

Forced backgrounds? Really?

Google has been making some uncharacteristic mistakes that are driving users away.

The first blunder was last month when the Google logo was turned into a playable PacMan game. You might think this was not a bad idea at all, and it wasn’t—it was a wonderful surprise. The problem was that someone forgot to put an off button for the sound, and the game automatically would start (with sound) if a user loaded the Google home page, but didn’t navigate away (e.g. doing a search or logging into an account). They ended up correcting this problem later during the day, but the damage was done.

The second gaffe which went in effect yesterday was the forced background image for the Google home page. Initially it was an option, and was a welcome change; however, Google has decided that it’s better to force the picture on its visitors. What’s worse, there is no option to remove it, unless you are logged into your Google Account. Understandably, though apparently not to the decision-makers at Google, this forced change is at best irritating.

Hopefully Google will fix this problem soon, before it loses even more users to Bing.

For those of you who missed the PacMan logo, Google has kept it around: http://www.google.com/pacman/

Let’s stick to twitter as the main example. If someone’s success on twitter depends mostly on their success in another line of work, then there is very little to be learned from this experience for the average user. There is a particular ‘guru’ (who shall remain nameless), who exploits his past success to frame himself as a person with a deep understanding of how to successfully use twitter to positively impact your business. His success on twitter is largely based on notoriety gained from his past success in business, and has very little, if anything, to do with his nuanced understanding of twitter (and social media in general). Because he is well known, by default he has amassed close to 230,000 followers, most of whom know him from his previous work. He frequently speaks about how social media and specially twitter can help businesses, and all this does is provide content for the websites who choose to publish his articles or webcast his interviews, and also gets him more followers. But his advice about twitter is largely without value for the average user.

So, the moral of the story is that if you want to learn about social media, ask someone who built their success on social media not someone who figured out how to port it over from their previous success. Unless, of course, that is what you are looking to do.

Google

A couple of days ago Google quietly added a new feature to the Webmaster Tools Dashboard. It is actually an improvement to an existing feature, the Top Search Queries table.

Previously, the Top Search Queries table listed keywords, and the average position in which the keyword appeared over a given period of time (selectable through a dropdown menu). With these new changes, there is now a wealth of information about those keywords:

- Impressions: The number of times your site appeared on a search page when a particular keyword search was conducted.
- Click-through: The click-through rate (CTR) for the keyword listed in the table.
- Position: The position in which a keyword appeared in the results. Note: if the result was beyond the first page listing, only the page number appears.
- Pages: The page which ranked for a particular keyword.

This is truly an amazing amount of information that Google had decided to provide through the Webmaster Tools. Not only does this provide useful information as to rankings and the activity happening on the search engine result pages (SERPs), it also gives some insight into how the Google algorithm works.

Someone is watching

In an interesting addition to its search results, Google has introduced a new addition to queries which may indicate that someone is considering committing suicide. The new feature ads an entry at the top of the search results which provides information the 800 number for the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

It’s times like this makes people realize what an important role technology plays in their lives, and how a little ingenuity can impact fragile lives in a deep and profound way.

There is a good Karma point in this for Google.

With this feature, users will be able to enter a date and the number of nights the user plans to stay at a particular hotel property and see actual prices on selected listings. The price-list will also include other websites who have provided pricing information for that particular hotel.

“This new feature will not change the way that hotels are ranked in Google Maps. Google Maps ranks business listings based on their relevance to the search terms entered, along with geographic distance (where indicated) and other factors, regardless of whether there is an associated price.

While we’re experimenting with this feature, we’re currently working with a limited number of advertisers and it will only be visible to a small portion of users . As always, we’ll evaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of this new feature based on both data and feedback, and hope to make it available to more users and offer prices from more partners over time.”

Read the complete post on the Google Lat Long Blog

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Tuesday, March 23^rd, that Los Angeles has more Energy Star rated buildings than any other city in the United States. Other cities making up the top five include Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Denver, and Chicago.

From the EPA press release:

“These cities see the importance of taking action on climate change,” said Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. “Communities from Los Angeles to Louisville are reducing greenhouse gases and cutting energy bills with buildings that have earned EPA’s Energy Star.”

It is good to know that we are doing some things right in Los Angeles (and California).

» List of Top 25 Cities with the Most Energy Star Labeled Buildings In 2009 (PDF / 168k)