The document discusses and debunks several common SEO myths. It provides evidence from Google sources like Matt Cutts that PageRank is not the most important metric, that linking out to other quality sites is good for SEO, and that the meta keywords tag does not impact rankings. The document advises focusing on quality content and links rather than obsolete or misleading tactics.

1. Theo van der Zee (@theovdzee) CEO & Co-founder, FinishJoomla (@finishjoomla) J & Beyond, May 2011 SEO Myths Busted

2. Theo van der Zee - Born 4 December 1985 in The Netherlands - Msc. Work- and Organizational psychology - Over 10 years experience in web design - Over 3 years experience in SEO - Twitter: @theovdzee

4. PageRank Myths Linking Up-to-date Keywords Suffix

6. Source: http://www.optify.net/seo/organic-click-through-rate/

7. “ PageRank is a highly important metric” Myth

8. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PageRank-hi-res.png

10. Correlation PageRank to Position 0 0.5 1 No correlation Perfect correlation PageRank 0.18 Source: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-science-of-ranking-correlations

11. Google Toolbar PageRank Updates Source: http://www.thenewsinn.com/next-google-page-rank-update-2011-history.html January 2011 April 2010 December 2009 October 2009 May 2009 April 2009 December 2008 September 2008 July 2008 April 2008 January 2008 October 2007

12. An imprecise metric 4 5 PR 4 PR 4

13. “ Our PageRank has dropped in the last PageRank update! Now what?” “ I don’t know, sue Google in court?”

14. Better metrics than PageRank Number of customers Conversion rate Daily revenue per item Inlinking root domains Keywords sending visitors

15. PageRank is not important “ […] many site owners seem to think [PageRank] is the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true.” -- Google Employee Susan Moskwa Source: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=6a1d6250e26e9e48

16. “ Linking out to other websites is bad” Myth

17. What does Google say? “ In the same way that Google trusts sites less when they link to spammy sites or bad neighborhoods, parts of our system encourage links to good sites”. -- Head of Google’s Webspam team Matt Cutts Source: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/

18. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1_rio_de_janeiro_slum_2010.JPG

19. Source: http://seogadget.co.uk/google-page-penalty-for-comment-spam-rankings-and-traffic-drop/ Spammy comments

20. Rel=“nofollow” <a rel=“nofollow” href=“http://www.joomla.org>No link value passed</a>

21. “ Trading links will increase rankings” Myth

22. Source: http://www.blog.organicapex.com/reciprocal-link/ Reciprocal links

23. 3-way reciprocal link A B C

24. Important aspects of a link <a href=“http://www.joomla.org> This is the anchor text </a>

25. Source: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links Links in content > Links outside content

26. “ Using a suffix will make your pages rank better” Myth

27. .html http://www.example.org/index .html .php .exe .cgi .asp

28. What the big boys are doing http://www.zappos.com/teva-mush-ii-island-navy http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Peter-Gray/dp/1429219475/ http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/security/ http://www.seomoz.org/blog/evangelizing-a-datadriven-culture

29. “ A regularly updated webpage ranks higher” Myth

30. The long tail Source: http://www.elliance.com/aha/infographics/long-tail-seo.aspx

31. What about you?

32. “ Meta keywords tag boosts your rankings” Myth

33. There he is again... “ [...] Google does not use the keywords meta tag in our web search” -- Head of Google’s Webspam team Matt Cutts Source: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/keywords-meta-tag-in-web-search/ “ I hope this clarifies that the keywords meta tag is not something that you need to worry about, or at least not in Google.”

34. Entering the keywords Joomla! Administrator -> Global Configuration -> Site

35. Meta description as shown in Google Meta title Meta description

36. Extract meta keywords from page source

37. What did we learn? Stop obsessing over PageRank Link out to quality websites, don't link to bad neighborhoods Use rel=&quot;nofollow&quot; to stop the link juice Handle reciprocal links with care Don't use a suffix in your URL Add new quality content on a regular basis Stop entering meta keywords, start using them as a research tool

38. Questions?

39. Coupon code JAB11 – 20% discount on all our products – Valid until 2 weeks from now – 50 coupons available Theo van der Zee [email_address] Twitter: @finishjoomla