Article 8Search Engine Marketing Myths

A Library of Articles by Experts in The Field of Search Engine Positioning

By Jill Whalen

Jill Whalen of High Rankings is an internationally recognized search engine optimization consultant and host of the free weekly High Rankings Advisor search engine marketing newsletter.

She specializes in search engine optimization, SEO consultations and seminars. Jill's handbook, "The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines" teaches business owners how and where to place relevant keyword phrases on their Web sites so that they make sense to users and gain high rankings in the major search engines

Pat wrote in with some common questions, Jill's answers are below. Take it away Jill...

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There are no specific guidelines for number of anything in SEO (which, yes, stands for search engine optimization). There's no number of words that is optimal in the tags, or in the copy, or in anything. Every page is unique and the right number for one page won't be the same as for another page. SEO is really more art than science, when done correctly. (See "The Art of SEO" www.highrankings.com/issue105.htm#seo) Many people are looking for a magic bullet or formula that will propel their sites to the top, but there just isn't one. And even if you found one that worked today, chances are it wouldn't tomorrow.

Let me answer some of your questions and you'll see what I mean:

Q: Is manually submitting each site better?
A: You don't actually need to submit your site at all to search engines -- neither manually nor in an automated fashion. They all have spiders that "crawl" the Web and find all pages that exist, as long as there is a link to them from a page they already know about.

Q: Once submitted ...do you keep submitting ...if so how often? (So you don't get kicked out.)
A: Never.

Q: The Microsoft submit supposedly submits to hundreds of search engines and directories.
A: It's a waste of time and bandwidth.

Q: Is this good or bad (the number of SE's submitted to)?
A: It's neither, just useless.

Q: I heard the more the better ...but there are some pretty cheesy search engines out there!
A: "The more the better" is incorrect. There are only 4 major search databases that matter: Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask Jeeves. Their databases power all of the other engines that make a difference.

Q: What about stop words ...do you cover this?
A: There's no such thing as stop words. You need to use all the words it makes sense for you to use regardless of whether someone somewhere has classified it as a "stop word."

Q: I heard you should leave out commas between keywords ...any truth to this?
A: It makes no difference. The Meta keyword tag won't actually help your site rank highly for the keywords that are important to it, and commas don't matter as they're treated as a space anyway. Yahoo does know about the words and phrases you put in this tag, and they recommend using commas to separate your phrases. I've always used commas as well, but again, it's not going to matter for the keyword phrases that matter the most anyway, so don't worry about it.

Q: If you are indexed in the Open Directory (DMOZ) do you re-submit to directories?
A: You can submit to directories one time (not search engines, but directories). If you're already listed in DMOZ, there's no need to resubmit to them, but there's nothing wrong with submitting to other directories that are unrelated to DMOZ.

Q: Are there truly reputable submission companies ...and might I add ...that get results ...proven results?
A: No there are not, because submitting is unnecessary and useless, so submission companies are useless as well. Please note that I'm not talking about paid-inclusion companies here. They are a different breed than submission companies. For some sites, paid-inclusion companies may be useful. Submission companies -- no. Paid-inclusion companies -- maybe, depending on your needs.

Q: What about the Google Adwords program?
A: Google Adwords is a great program if you know how to use it correctly so that every dollar you put in pays off.

Q: I also have a few sites that I'm just starting to build, and they are one-page sites.
A: One-page sites will have a very hard time doing well in the search engines because it's doubtful they will provide enough useful information to users, and thus search engines will be unlikely to take much notice. That said, they could do okay if enough other sites find them worthwhile and link to them, but that will rarely happen.

It sounds like your one-page sites are simply "doorway domains," which are definitely not a good idea.

Good luck!