Since link popularity is such a heavy influence on search rankings, especially in Google, many people rely on the “display PageRank” that Google provides in the Google Toolbar. But anyone who watches that knows that it usually goes for many, many months without being updated. Why is that?

Matt Cutts, “The Google Guy”, answered just that question in a video. Basically, the message is “Don’t perseverate so much on your PageRank.” Matt suggests that your time is better spent focusing on things like user experience, page speed, content, and so forth.

See the Google position on PageRank here.

Almost every time we speak with a new potential client we find they’ve been told something about SEO that’s either an exaggeration or downright false. In a recent issue of .Net Magazine, Mark Buckingham, owner of an SEO company in south-west London called NetSeek, wrote about his top ten favorite SEO myths. Have you heard any of these? Let us know in comments, below.

1. Satisfaction guaranteed

There is no such thing as guaranteed organic rankings. Distrust anyone who promises otherwise. There are about 200 factors in the Google ranking algorithm, and no one can control all of them. Most people who “guarantee” top rankings only do so for long-tail searches that get very little search traffic — phrases like “podiatry malpractice lawyer on Main Street in Chatham”.

2. High Google PageRank = high rankings

Google PageRank is one of the 200 or so ranking factors in Google. It’s at best a fair indicator of a page’s link popularity, and it may be weighted more heavily than many of the other factors, but it’s not uncommon for a web page with a lower PageRank to rank higher in search results than a page with a higher PageRank. It’s a visible indicator of what Google thinks of your page, but again it’s only one of many ranking factors.

3. Endorsed by Google

Any company that says they’re “endorsed”, “approved” or “certified” by Google is probably a fraud. Google has a certification for Google Analytics and Google AdWords (the PPC ads), but Google has no stamp of approval for any SEO company .

4. The meta keyword tag matters

I heard this one as recently as last week. Mark quotes Google’s Matt Cutts to totally debunk that one. Google considers the meta keyword tag to be a waste of time. We typically use it, only because it may be used by some smaller search engines, and because it’s so quick and easy to do. But we never agonize over what to put in there — as Matt says, that’s just a waste of time.

5. You can cheat your way to the top

This reminds me of an old database client of mine who once asked if I would help him send out spam. (It should go without saying that I strongly declined.) Cheating (considered “black hat SEO”) is always a bad idea. Even if it works once in awhile, as soon as the search engines find you out (or when a competitor rats you out) you risk being banned from the search engine results with disastrous bottom line results. This happened to JC Penney recently and to both Ricoh and BMW before that.

6. Cram those keywords in

There’s no magic number of keywords needed to get a high ranking. You need to use the keywords, of course, but using them too often creates what we call “overredundancy”. Forcing your keywords into a web page almost always destroys the page’s power to influence the person reading it and encourage them to want to buy what you’re selling. Pay attention to your keywords, and use them on the page, but make sure you’re always writing for your visitor, not for the search engines.

7. Spending on Google AdWords boosts your rankings

Google has repeatedly denied any connection  between participating in AdWords and organic rankings. SEO experts agree. There is some research showing that if you show up in both the PPC ads and in the organic results, that boosts the likelihood of the searcher clicking on one of your listings. The organic listing super-validates your PPC ad, increasing the likelihood of a click on one or the other. But having a PPC ad has no impact on where you rank in the organic results.

8. Landing pages

The concept of a “landing page” is relevant only to PPC. Almost any page on your website can show up in the organic listings. Don’t assume that people will always enter your site through the front door, for example. In SEO, any page on your site can be a “landing page”.

9. Set it and forget it

It’s true that once your pages are well-optimized there’s little or no need to constantly tweak, change, or “freshen” them up. However you can’t just forget your SEO as soon as you get great rankings. An ongoing stream of inbound links may be important to maintain your rankings, and if those links aren’t happening by themselves it may require some level of continued effort. A blog is a great way to add new content on a regular basis. But you also need to monitor your rankings. There’s no guarantee your great rankings will be permanent, especially if your website undergoes even a minor redesign or your competitors become more aggressive in their social presence and link building. At least keep an eye on your rankings so you can respond if they begin to fall.

10. Rankings are your goal

Rankings aren’t everything. High rankings are great, but you’re not in business to get high rankings. The bottom line needs to be your bottom line. Do those rankings result in visitors? Do those visitors convert into paying customers? SEO can get more people to your website, but it’s the job of your website to convince them they want to do business with you and with no one else. You need great content that’s effective in closing the sale. All the rankings in the world can’t make up for a poor user experience on your website.

Need help with your web site’s rankings? Rank Magic can help.

Noted SEO expert Jill Whalen recently listed eight of the most widely believed myths about Search Engine Optimization that she’s heard and seen bandied about in SEO articles, at SEO conferences, in SEO blogs and on SEO forums. Below are the quick answers to these myths; Jill’s article expands on these and I recommend you read her comments for the full explanations.

1. You need special search engine landing pages.
   Nope! Landing pages make sense for PPC campaigns, but not for SEO.
2. You need to optimize for just one keyword phrase per page.
   That’s a waste of a good page. Why optimize for only one keyword when you can optimize for three? Or perhaps as many as five?
3. You can’t use tables in your HTML code.
   This is just wrong. It’s always been wrong.
4. You must use text links, not image links.
   Not necessary. Just use the keyword-rich text you would have used in text links in the alt tags of your link images.
5. You can’t use Flash on your website.
   Not true. Avoid an all-flash website where links to your content pages are part of the flash, and don’t put important content in the flash. But flash elements on a normal web site are fine.
6. Google’s link: operator tells you all the links that Google knows about.
   No, no, and double no. Google shows very few of the links it knows about, and often shows none at all. Google itself suggests using Yahoo Site Explorer to get a reasonably comprehensive list of links.
7. Toolbar PageRank = Real PageRank.
   The PageRank displayed in the Google Toolbar may be as much as nine months out of date, and it’s a gross approximation at best.
8. Google or other organizations can certify SEO companies or declare them the Best or Top SEO in the world.
   Despite what some SEO companies would like you to believe, there is no such thing as an SEO certification.

A few words of wisdom from the ePower Marketing blog.

Believe me; we understand you need proof that the budget you got approved for a Search Engine Optimization program is or will deliver results, especially in these economic times. However, that is not done with a snap of the fingers. Search Engine Optimization is an ever changing, interactive field, and when an SEO campaign begins, it takes time to really take effect for a Web site.

We find that, starting from scratch with keyword research, it usually takes at least three months to see measurable results in all of the search engines.

Google is reportedly considering dropping the display of PageRank in the Google Toolbar. MozRank is a likely replacement.

According to the folks at SEOMoz, “Google calculates PageRank using an algorithm that’s well published and well known. At SEOmoz, we use a similar algorithm (not the original one from 1998 exactly, but one we think is likely close to what they’re doing today). We process our ~50 billion page index and run this calculation to provide an estimate of a page’s raw importance on the link graph.

Google’s toolbar PageRank updates once every 2-9 months, but we find that just after it’s been refreshed (when the data is generally best and there’s relatively few “0″s on newer pages), mozRank is off of TBPR by around 0.45. If we were perfectly correlated, we’d expect to be off about 0.25 (since we show up to two decimal places vs. just a single digit).”

It’s certainly not a perfect substitute, but it is fresher and more frequently updated (at least once per month) and provides a sense for how roughly important a page is on the web. Hope that helps!

All three major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN [now Live]) have been using a variation of link analysis (or PageRank) to determine what’s relevant and what gets included in their databases. But Microsoft’s has been working on something called BrowseRank — analysis that includes time spent at a page. Search Engine Watch has the skinny on this new development.

Site Pro News has a good article one could call PageRank 101 – a clear explanation of Google’s PageRank score. Many web site owners perseverate on their PageRank and worry if it goes down or fails to go up. This article puts it into perspective for you.  It also has a handy little description of what different PageRank scores might mean.

PageRank 0-2 shows that a site does not have many links and needs work, However, and this a big “however,” it may not really affect your search engine rankings.

PageRank 3 can be OK in some cases but in highly competitive industries you should work to improve it.

PageRank 4 is quite a normal number and indicates that you have enough links in either quantity or quality to make your site competitive.

PageRank 5 indicates that a site has many links or links from authoritative sites, and that Google has good “trust” in the site. It is a respectable and attainable PageRank.

PageRank 6 is very difficult to attain. This rank indicates that the site has many links and links from respected places.

PageRank 7-10 is usually earned by large and established institutions or websites which have tremendous authority, due to the quantity and quality of the incoming links. It is extremely difficult to attain this ranking.

Google states: “PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the Web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value.”

Google further explains not only is the sheer volume of links or endorsements your page receives important, but the evaluation of the page linking in to you. Your site’s worth as referrer depends on the authority of the sites you links out to, and vice versa.

Google uses this relevancy ranking in conjunction with query relevancy to determine the results you see — not only term relevant results but also sites others (as determined through link analysis) feel are important.

But the PageRank we can all see in the Google Toolbar is only a gross approximation, and usually well out of date as well. It’s probably best not to give it more importance than it deserves. An article in Search Engine Watch will help you keep it in perspective.

The recent update of Google PageRank displays has slapped down a lot of sites that had been enjoying high PageRank (PR) scores. A link to your site is treated as a vote for your site, and increases your “reputation”, which iin turn nfluences your rankings in the search engines. But then a lot of high PR sites started selling links, and that compromised the value of inbound links in general. So Google’s latest update attempts to discount paid links and also penalize web sites that sell links by reducing their PR scores.

So far, any drop in PageRank doesn’t seem to correlate well with a reduction in your position in the results. That’s because the displayed PR is old, rounded off to the point of virtual uselessness, and may not really relate to the “true” PR that Google uses in its ranking algorithm.

Now some SEO experts are saying we should ignore PageRank. But they’re ignoring the “perceived” value of a high PR.

From Site Pro News:

“Google, hate it or love it, has become the most respected company on the web in the eyes of the majority of the web’s users. It carries enormous weight and prestige. The “perceived” value of a high PR7 or PR8 is extremely valuable.

We are not talking about link selling; we are talking about how a perspective business partner or customer will treat your site or business.

Say you have two identical sites you want to do business with online and you discover one is a Google PR2 site and the other is a Google PR8 site – which one would you choose to do business with? Honestly?”

Read the full article here.

Peter Nisbett wrote an article in Site Pro News with the above title. By SEO, he was referring to a very narrow version — classical on-page keyword optimization, which is all SEO consisted of a few years ago. Really, he’s asking which is more important: on-page keyword optimization? Or off-page link building? (At Rank Magic, we consider link building to be a part of SEO, but put that aside for the purposes of Peter’s article.)

Peter writes, “Whether you believe in SEO or Page Rank and wonder which is more important, your thinking is irrelevant. You are wasting your time in wondering what is the correct answer to that question, since even if you knew it, there is little you could do to use that information.”Of course, what he means is that you can’t separate the two any longer. Neither one is sufficient to get you the rankings you need without the other. <more in the article>