Busting some myths for SEO?

Hello,

I am still a newbie and before rushing to create websites, I first like to learn and learn hard what's ahead. So it has been 1 month now that I have reading tons and tons of information about SEO online and I think that there is lots of cr*p out there! Some useful sites for sure, but mostly people chant same things that they hear somewhere and try to sell you something.

So here are my doubts that I think are myths.

1. The domain name matters - I read that it matters if your domain name is .com, .net or .info etc. and also that top level domains rank better than subdomains.

I think that this is not true. My reasons are:

- why should the Seach Engines EVER care about what the TLD actually is? It makes no sense. It does not hint anything about the usefulness or the content of the website.

- I think that subdomains are also good, because if you own a short domain name, you can register theexactkeywordthatyoutarget.mydomain.com, which will be better than registering a top level domain that is not exact match, because it's taken.

- I see for example about.com (not that most of us can afford such a perfect domain) - they use subdomains very efficiently.

2. The second thing that I think is a myth is that the most essential thing for ranking well is backlinks.

A friend of mine recommended me to read a website of Pat Flynn and this guy is making 30k+ a month from Adsense, affiliates and his own products. I actually used a tool to check his backlinks. He has a total of 959 backlinks to his website and a PR4.

I am not saying his website makes this income alone - he has a few sites, but still... I get an impression that all this fuss about backlinks is a little too exaggerated, so that these software tools get a boost in sales?

What do you think? Am I missing the point?

I would like to thank all of those who will provide their input on the topic,

Thank you!

blank_jack said:

- why should the Seach Engines EVER care about what the TLD actually is? It makes no sense. It does not hint anything about the usefulness or the content of the website.

Click to expand...

It does. .nl domain show that the content is most likely dutch and it will rank higher in google.nl

@OP
1. If your domain name contains the keyword the probability to have a good position (sooner) is higher in my experience.

2. Have you check the PR of the ~900 backlinks ? 900 PR 1 - 10 are better than 10 000 N/A - PR 0

pietpatat said:

It does. .nl domain show that the content is most likely dutch and it will rank higher in google.nl

Click to expand...

To this I agree, because it is country specific, but what about the generic ones? I do not think Google will make any difference due to the domain name being .com/net or info, will it?

Well they may very well use subdomains well but they are continually out ranked by other domains. .com is a buying domain and most people looking on the internet are looking to buy something. .net is the second level buying and may or may not be affiliated with a company as the .com's are thought to be. .org are not buying domains but more of research type domains. .info is thought to be a personal informational domain type.

This is not always the case but that is how people view them and thus the search engines view them.

Now for the site.

#1 is onsite page creation and take up more importance than all others but that alone may not be enough to rank with.

#2 is backlinks - You may see 900+ links to his site but what you are not looking at is how many links there are to those links or how many tiers deep the links go. There is more to is than just linking to your site.

Google announced that TLD matters. If they find that a certain tld, such as info, is coming up with a lot of spam sites; they'll rank it lower.

Root domains are better, simply for the fact that most people will link to that domain. With sub-domains, if they're setup properly; they can definitely rank well. It just is most people will organize their sites around the root giving it the strength.

And I'm a big fan of Pat Flynn. He made $400 last month with Adsense. He may have less than 1k links, but they are high quality and completely natural. He's been doing this for a few years, has relationships with tons of other bloggers (with high PR sites), and produces amazing content that created a community around him. People read his stuff, trust his judgement and will purchase products that he recommends.

Side Note: If you haven't yet, check out Pat Flynn's site. He did a niche site duel where he picked a random niche and gave a full disclosure of ranking it. Right now that site brings in about $1,500/m passively.

I think you should read more .

The best way to learn anyway is to pratice some expirement and take action.

What does apply for one doesn't strictly apply for another.

But there are some guidelines to follow.

Domains is one of the 200 ranking factor (TLD not convinced but some do) but exact match keywords make things way more easier so far.

And yeah backlinks matter, but it is relative. Backlinks indicate how "hot" is a website to the SERP engines. So basically mass backlinking works which simulate virality. And quality backlinks sounds like authority referer for a website, those are strongly efficient.

Any way good thoughts, and keep digging

Well, lot's of things people say here are also based on experience, so you have to figure out which is which and that's tough

From my experience - the domain name does matter a lot, subdomains don't rank as well as main domains and .com and later .net and .org are easier and faster to rank than generic tld's.

I would never try to rank anything other than a .com .net .org. Sure you can say "I think it's dumb google would do that", but a lot that google does is dumb lol. There's a reason they're giving .infos away. And if they're giving .infos away, you know there will be even more crap .info websites up.

As for backlinks, it's about quality. There's no myths here. If you think it's a myth, what do you think ranks a web page well? SUre you can rank high with 50 backlinks. But those backlinks are all high quality links. It's quality not quantity.

I think on site SEO has almost zero value when it comes down to competitive words.
I'm ranked high for keywords where the kw not even mentioned on the page. I find it hilarious when people worry about, h1, h2, h3, bold, italic, alt tags, title tags, etc, keyword frequency, etc. In the end, Google's going to say xxxxx is going to rank higher because 500 other high quality sites link to it, compared to yyyyy who had the keyword in an h2 tag. But that being said, I almost make sure I still do page title, h1 and alt tag. But that's it, I'm not worried about frequency, or how many times my keyword should be in the article. That's just a waste of time.

englandrm said:

Google announced that TLD matters. If they find that a certain tld, such as info, is coming up with a lot of spam sites; they'll rank it lower.

Root domains are better, simply for the fact that most people will link to that domain. With sub-domains, if they're setup properly; they can definitely rank well. It just is most people will organize their sites around the root giving it the strength.

And I'm a big fan of Pat Flynn. He made $400 last month with Adsense. He may have less than 1k links, but they are high quality and completely natural. He's been doing this for a few years, has relationships with tons of other bloggers (with high PR sites), and produces amazing content that created a community around him. People read his stuff, trust his judgement and will purchase products that he recommends.

Side Note: If you haven't yet, check out Pat Flynn's site. He did a niche site duel where he picked a random niche and gave a full disclosure of ranking it. Right now that site brings in about $1,500/m passively.

Click to expand...

Could you please post a link of that Pat`s disclosure? I did not manage to find it myself but I really want to take a look at it. Thanks for your time.

People who don't believe tld matters ned to do a few searches and see how many .info's etc are in the top ten for any competitive keyword. Yes you can have success with other tlds other than .com .net and .org. I am just saying it is harder and you have to do more work. I personally if targeting the keyword "red sneakers" will go for redsneakersreview.com before going for redsneakers.info. Other will disagree I am sure. it is just what has worked for me.

blank_jack said:

"myths"

1. The domain name matters - I read that it matters if your domain name is .com, .net or .info etc. and also that top level domains rank better than subdomains.

Click to expand...

Yeah... What is difference between .com and .info?
1) Price - spammers will most likely go for .info
2) If com is taken then... It means somebody really was trying to get domain he wanted - NEVER underestimate .com domain
3) Google is utopia creation - they don't judge by how much money people have, but they follow democratic BS... They are corp, and they know there is almost no $$$ in .info

blank_jack said:

2. The second thing that I think is a myth is that the most essential thing for ranking well is backlinks.

A friend of mine recommended me to read a website of Pat Flynn and this guy is making 30k+ a month from Adsense, affiliates and his own products. I actually used a tool to check his backlinks. He has a total of 959 backlinks to his website and a PR4.

Click to expand...

"myth" - well firstly - do choose words wisely.
So did you checked this guys 301 redirects?
Did you checked origin of his backlinks?
And you really believe some guru?

You have a LOT to learn.

ExtraWinner said:

So did you checked this guys 301 redirects?
Did you checked origin of his backlinks?

Click to expand...

Hey, I would be really honored if you can teach me how to find out backlinks behind 301 redirect.I have tried to find it but fail, also, I can't pm you so I'm posting it here.You can pm me if you want.

Hope you can help me out.

Thanks

Use MajesticSEO - they do 301 look up.

EW

ExtraWinner said:

Yeah... What is difference between .com and .info?
1) Price - spammers will most likely go for .info
2) If com is taken then... It means somebody really was trying to get domain he wanted - NEVER underestimate .com domain
3) Google is utopia creation - they don't judge by how much money people have, but they follow democratic BS... They are corp, and they know there is almost no $$$ in .info




"myth" - well firstly - do choose words wisely.
So did you checked this guys 301 redirects?
Did you checked origin of his backlinks?
And you really believe some guru?

You have a LOT to learn.

Click to expand...

What is he doing with the redirects? can you explain more about that? The site looks really popular, seems to have a lot of followers..

I've followed Pat Flynn for a while and he is one stand up guy. The content he provides is as solid as you find anywhere online and its all free, and he's not hard sell at all. The reason he makes that much is not due to his SERP or how many backlinks he has. His readers are loyal and willing to buy because of the quality content he provides for free as well as his personal interaction ... also, he has a big following in iTunes with his podcast and he's ranked quite well in the business section, something that doesn't show up in backlinks or SERP.

Hello mate

The only thing you can do to bust myths is to Try,Try and Try

Cause no one of us really knows how big G actually thinks

tankkkkkkkkkkkkkks

goooooooooooooooooooooood