Here’s my list of the top five myths of SEO and some suggestions for how to work past them.

Meta Tags are Dead

There’s absolutely no proof that major search engines ignore META data, in fact my experience is that well used meta tags are almost always rewarded while horrible meta tags are almost always punished. Make sure that the meta tags you use on each page are specific to that specific content and relevant.

Multiple Domain Names Help Your Business

There’s some truth to this rumor but only if you use them right (Marketing With Sub Domains and Other Neat Tricks). If your business has 100 domain names and they all reproduce the same content, you’ll actually hurt yourself because Google will confuse content as repetitive. Instead, install a copy of WordPress MU (multiuser) and host 100 completely different websites, each with valuable information and resources specific to those domain names or redirect your domain names using .htaccess level redirects to tell Google your domain is pointing to another.

Doorway Pages Help Your Ranking

This is a big one, but it’s completely untrue! Doorway pages are special pages designed as landing pages which are specifically programmed to appeal to visitors but more importantly override major search engines understand of what your website is all about. Doorway pages are only linked from external websites and use a series of ‘black hat SEO’ techniques to override the search engines …. why doesn’t it work? Simple, major search engines such as Google hate being tricked. Remember, Google isn’t a company it’s a culture and the people who make up that culture want to be the best search engine in the world. If they believe you’re lying to them, they’ll kick you off their search engine.

Search Engine Friendly URL’s are Critical

No so fast, they make look great and even show up highlighted in result pages but there’s no concrete evidence to suggest making your URL’s pretty vs. database generated strings has any impact on your rankings at all. In fact, Matt Cutt’s (Google’s voice to the people and all around SEO guru) makes it clear that Google’s smart enough to ignore SEO friendly URL’s. So should you stop using them? Not a chance, they don’t hurt and they make the site easier  for people to use.

SEO is a One Time Fix

Hiring a reputable SEO consultant isn’t a one time fix, there are many aspects to building a great search engine ranking and it takes time, effort and patients.