Give someone a fish and theyll EAT for one day. Teach someone to fish and theyll EAT for a lifetime. Yes, thats an SEO pun. Its moreover the goal of this article.
If you pop into either of the fantastic SEO communities on Twitter or LinkedIn, youll inevitably encounter some worldwide SEO myths:
- Longer dwell time ways a good user experience, so it must be a ranking factor
- A upper vellicate rate indicates a bad user experience, so it must be bad for SEO
Social media posts like these get tons of engagement. As a result, they overdraw the myths we try to squash through repetition, false evidence, and faulty logic. The problem isnt limited to social media, either. There are plenty of high-profile websites that package hypotheses as facts considering readers eat them up.
These myths are a huge problem considering theyre red herrings. They rationalization marketers to prioritize projects that wont modernize the content, user experience, or Google search performance.
So how can the SEO polity rally virtually the truth? We can start by doing two things:
- SEOs must shoehorn our personalities and professions hardwire us to believe myths. We have a deep desire for answers, control, and predictability, as well as a fierce distrust of Google.
- We need to recognize the psychological and environmental factors that influence our worthiness to sort fact from fiction.
So rather than busting individual myths, lets ask ourselves why? instead. In other words, lets learn to fish.
Internal reasons we believe SEO myths
Lets dig into some internal factors, such as our thoughts and feelings, that influence our beliefs.
1. SEOs need structure and control
SEO is a fascinating workshop of marketing considering our performance is driven by a constantly evolving algorithm that we dont control. In fact, there were more than 5,000 Google algorithm updates in 2021 alone.
In other words, SEOs live in a world of crippling dependency. Plane the top-ranking signals that we know well-nigh can fluctuate based on the industry, query, or misogynist content within Googles index. For example, if you manage websites in the finance or health space, E-A-T is critical. If you publish news content, then recency is very important.
To proceeds a sense of structure and control, we squint for increasingly ways to influence outcomes. But there are two problems with that approach:
- We overestimate the impact of individual ranking factors
- We falsely believe something is a Google ranking factor that is not
Our need to overdraw our own level of tenancy is supported by psychology. A 2016 study revealed an individuals need for structure made them increasingly likely to believe in a conspiracy theory.
The human tendency to recognize patterns plane when none exist is shown to have applications in consumer behavior. The current research demonstrates that as ones personal need for structure (PNS) increases (that is, requiring predictability and disfavoring uncertainty), false consumer pattern perceptions emerge.
If you find yourself waffling between fact and fiction, dont let your desire for tenancy dictate your final decision.
2. The primal need to recognize patterns
The human smart-ass is spanking-new at recognizing patterns. Throughout history, weve relied on that worthiness to make largest decisions and ensure the survival of our species. Unfortunately, were so good at spotting patterns that we moreover fabricate them.
False pattern recognition has several drawbacks –
- It might influence SEO decisions that could have a sitewide impact
- If you overstate the connection publicly, others might misinterpret it as fact
An spanking-new example surfaced on Twitter recently. Google’s John Mueller was asked if subtracting too many links to your site’s main navigation could impact Google Discover traffic. The individual who asked the question ran several tests and saw positive results, but Mueller said it was merely an interesting correlation.
I'd still go with "unrelated". As mentioned in our docs at https://t.co/kkA2QTzIJs "Given the serendipitous nature of Discover, traffic from Discover is less predictable or unspoiled when compared to Search, and is considered supplemental to your Search traffic."
—
johnmu.xml (personal)
I’d still go with unrelated. As mentioned in our docs: Given the serendipitous nature of Discover, traffic from Discover is less predictable or unspoiled when compared to Search, and is considered supplemental to your Search traffic.”
Fortunately, this individual went straight to the source for an wordplay instead of publishing a specimen study that could have had serious implications for website navigation decisions.
3. Confirmation bias
Its well-documented that people winnow information that supports their beliefs and reject information that doesnt. Its a primordial trait that evolved when we began to form social groups. Early humans surrounded themselves with others who thought and make-believe the same way to ensure their survival.
One of the most famous confirmation bias studies comes from Stanford. For the study, researchers segmented students into two opposing groups based on their beliefs well-nigh wanted punishment.
One group supported wanted punishment and believed it reduced crime. The other opposed it and believed it had no impact on crime.
Each group was asked to react to two studies, one which supported their views, and one which contradicted them. Both groups found the study that aligned with their beliefs much increasingly credible, and each became increasingly entrenched in their original beliefs.
SEO practitioners are particularly prone to confirmation bias considering were terrified of stuff wrong. We hypothesize, test, build, optimize, and iterate. If were wrong too often, well waste time and money, and we could risk our reputation and our jobs.
We need to be right so immensely that we may winnow myths that personize our beliefs rather than shoehorn failure.
4. Lack of trust in Google
Its unscratched to say most SEOs dont trust Google. That has led to some of the longest-running SEO myths I could find. For example, plane without seven years of repeated rejections from Google, many SEO experts still believe engagement is a ranking signal.
Heres John Mueller shooting lanugo the engagement myth in 2015:
I dont think we plane see what people are doing on your website. If they are filling out forms or not, if they are converting and unquestionably ownership something… So if we cant see that, then that is something we cannot take into account. So from my point of view, that is not something Id really treat as a ranking facto.
Nearly seven years later, in March 2022, John was asked the same question again, and his response was pretty much the same:
So I don’t think we would use engagement as a factor.
And yet, the SEOs piled on in the comments. I encourage you to read them if you want a sense of the intense level of mistrust. Essentially, SEOs overanalyzed Muellers words, questioned his honesty, and personal he was misinformed considering they had contradictory insider information.
5. Impostor syndrome
Even the most seasoned SEO professionals shoehorn theyve felt the pain of impostor syndrome. You can hands find discussions on Reddit, Twitter, and LinkedIn well-nigh how we question our own level of knowledge. Thats expressly true in public settings when were surrounded by our peers.
Not long ago Azeem Ahmad and Izzie Smith chatted well-nigh impostor syndrome. Heres what Izzie said:
Its really nonflexible to put yourself out there and share your learnings. Were all really afraid. I think most of us have this impostor syndrome thats telling us were not good enough.
This contributes to SEO myths in several ways. First, it erodes self-confidence, which makes individuals increasingly prone to believe myths. Second, it prevents folks who might want to rencontre inaccurate information from speaking out publicly considering theyre wrung theyll be attacked.
Needless to say, that enables myths to spread throughout the broader community.
The weightier way to combat impostor syndrome is to ensure SEO communities are unscratched and supportive of new members and new ideas. Be respectful, open-minded, and accepting. If increasingly folks speak out when something doesnt finger accurate, then we can alimony some troublesome myths in check.
External reasons we believe SEO myths
Now lets explore the external forces, like peers and publishers, that rationalization us to believe SEO myths.
1. Peer pressure
Peer pressure is closely related to impostor syndrome, except it comes from the outside. Its a feeling of urgency from peers, whether a large group of SEOs, a widely known expert or a tropical mentor or colleague.
Because humans are social creatures, our urge to fit in often overpowers our desire to be right. When something doesnt finger right, we go with the spritz anyway for fear of stuff ostracized. In fact, social proof can be increasingly persuasive than purely evidence-based proof.
I asked the Twitter SEO polity if anyone overly felt compelled to winnow an SEO ranking factor as fact based on popular opinion. Several folks replied, and there was an interesting theme virtually website code.
Back in 2014, a web developer told me he truly believed text-to-code ratio was a ranking factor. For a while, I believed him considering he made inveigling arguments and he was the first developer I met who had an opinion well-nigh SEO.
Years and years ago I wanted lawmaking quality to be a ranking factor. Many thought it was considering it made sense to reward well-written code. But it never was. Browsers had to be very forgiving considering most sites were so immensely built.
Similar to combatting impostor syndrome, if we develop a increasingly tolerable SEO polity thats willing to respectfully debate issues, well all goody from increasingly reliable information.
2. Outdated information
If you publish content well-nigh SEO, then youll be guilty of spreading SEO myths at some point. Google updates its algorithms thousands of times each year, which ways assumptions are disproven and once-good translating becomes outdated.
Trusted publishers have a duty to refresh or remove inaccurate content to prevent SEO misconceptions from spreading.
For example, in 2019 Google changed how it handles outbound links. It introduced two new link nature into the nofollow family, UGC and sponsored, and began to treat all three of these as hints instead of ignoring nofollow links.
So if you wrote well-nigh link nature prior to September 2019, your translating is probably out of date.
Unfortunately, most SEOs update content considering its underperforming, not considering its wrong. So perhaps publishers should put integrity whilom performance to strengthen our community.
3. Jumping on trends
Sometimes SEO myths explode considering the facts cant alimony up with the virality of the myth. One of my favorite examples is the LSI keyword trend. This one pops up on Twitter from time to time, and thankfully Bill Slawski is quick to quash it.
Trend-based myths go viral considering they tap into the fear of missing out (FOMO), and SEOs hate to miss out on the opportunity to proceeds a competitive advantage. They moreover resonate with SEOs considering they towards to offer a secret glimpse into Googles woebegone box.
Although trends sooner fade, they will remain a thorn in our side as long as the original sources remain unchanged.
4. Correlation vs causation
The most difficult myths to thorax are those backed by data. No matter how many times Google debunks them, they wont die if folks come armed with specimen studies.
Take word-for-word match domains (EMD) for example. This article lists several reasons why EMDs are good for SEO, using Hotels.com as a specimen study. But its a archetype yellow and egg argument. Does the site rank number one for hotels considering its an EMD? Or is it considering the owner unmistakably understood SEO strategy and prioritized keyword research, link building, internal links, page speed, and high-quality content marketing for the last 27 years?
We moreover cant unbelieve the fact that the domain has 42 million backlinks.
But if you want to hear it directly from the horses mouth, Googles John Mueller says EMDs provide no SEO bonus. Heres what he said on Reddit:
Theres no secret SEO bonus for having your keywords in the domain name. And for those coming with but there are keyword domains ranking well of course, you can moreover rank well with a domain that has keywords in it. But you can rank well with other domain names too, and a domain wont rank well just considering it has keywords in it.
This is obviously correlation, not causation.
To be clear, I fully support running SEO tests to learn increasingly well-nigh Googles algorithm. But its incredibly difficult to create a signal vacuum that prevents outside influences from skewing your results. And plane if you manage to isolate one ranking factor, you have no way of knowing how strong the signal is in relation to other signals. In a total vacuum, one signal may win. But in the wilderness of Google, it may be so weak that its virtually nonexistent.
Furthermore, the signal may only wield to unrepealable types of content. Weve seen signal fluctuations surpassing regarding product reviews and E-A-T in YMYL spaces. So plane if data suggests something might modernize organic rankings, how reliable is the information, and how important is the signal?
All this is to say that we should be very shielding when proclaiming new ranking factors, expressly if they contradict Googles statements or stray too far from universally measuring user experience.
5. Its plausible, but not measurable
This group of myths is rooted in logic, which makes them particularly dangerous and sticky. Usually, they follow a simple formula: if A = B, and B = C, then A = C.
Heres an example:
- Google wants to rank content that provides a good user experience
- If a webpage has a upper vellicate rate, it must provide a bad user experience
- Therefore, a upper vellicate rate is bad for SEO
This seems to make sense, right? Yet, Google has said many times they cant see what users do on your website, and they dont squint at vellicate rate.
Ive seen the same treatise unromantic to dwell time, time on page, SERP click-through rates (CTR), and so on. To be clear, Google says CTR does not momentum organic search engine rankings considering that would rationalization results to be overrun with spammy, low-quality content.
Most often these myths stem from competing views well-nigh what a good user experience looks like and how to measure it. What constitutes a good wits for one type of search query might be a terrible wits for another. This lack of consistency makes it virtually untellable to identify metrics that can be deployed universally wideness all websites.
In other words, if potential user wits signals depend on too many factors, Google cant use them. Thats why they launched the page wits update in 2021 which quantifies user wits with specific, universal metrics.
Heres your fishing pole
In many cases, SEO myths fall into increasingly than one of the whilom categories which makes them plane increasingly difficult to dispel. Thats why we alimony seeing social media posts falsely identifying ranking factors like keyword density, domain authority, conversions, and meta keywords.
If you understand a few vital concepts well-nigh ranking factors, youll be largest equipped to sort fact from fiction and prioritize SEO initiatives that momentum increasingly organic traffic.
Ask yourself these five questions when you smell the stench of a myth:
- Is it quantifiable and measurable?
- Is it scalable?
- Is it widely or universally true, or does it depend on the user?
- Does it support Googles goals of delivering a largest user experience?
- Has Google confirmed or denied it publicly?
If you can trammels each of those boxes, then you may have a valid ranking factor on your hands. But dont take my word for it. Run some tests, ask some friends, use logic, and personize your theory. And if all else fails, just ask John Mueller.
Jonas Sickler is a published tragedian and SEO manager at Terakeet. He writes well-nigh SEO, trademark reputation, consumer attention, and marketing. His translating has appeared in hundreds of publications, including Forbes, CNBC, CMI, and Search Engine Watch. He can be found on Twitter @JonasSickler.
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The post Why were hardwired to believe SEO myths (and how to spot them!) appeared first on Search Engine Watch.
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