SEO Myths Part One – Guaranteed Rankings

There are hundreds of myths and theories regarding SEO. I once heard someone say that “being an SEO consultant is a far less honourable trade than a prostitute”. Whilst I have nothing against the fair buxom merchants of the night, I dare say that this shows a complete lack of understanding of what SEO actually is.

This leads us perfectly to SEO Myth number 1: SEO is a dark and seedy practice.

People are often afraid of something they don’t understand! it is much easier to dismiss or insult something than to actually do some research.

It doesn’t help that there actually is a dark side to the SEO world known as “Black Hat SEO”. But generally we don’t go around slaying virgins to gain rankings.

So why does the search engine optimisation business have this reputation with the general public?

Partly it is due to a lack of understanding, but it is mainly because of a handful of SEO companies that give a bad name to the industry. I have seen companies charge $500 to submit a site to Google, Yahoo and Msn. Yet simply gaining a couple of free backlinks would automatically get you indexed in all the major search engines for FREE.

There are also many SEO firms that make false promises that they simply can’t keep. Anyone in the SEO industry will have heard of at least one site that has claimed to guarantee a top 3 ranking etc…. but let me straighten this out once and for all….. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO GUARANTEE ANY RANKINGS.

It doesn’t matter how much money you have, or how good your SEO expert claims to be, it is simply impossible to guarantee any form of rankings in the search engines!

For a start only a handful of people know the ACTUAL algorithms, and these people work for Google. So to guarantee any sort of ranking would be wrong and a lie.

Also, the search engines change the goal posts on an almost daily basis, so even if you are number 1 today, you may not even be top 10 tomorrow.

So to all the SEO “experts” and SEO companies who claim to guarantee a top 10 position, you are the dirt on the shoe of the SEO world and are causing the general public to lose trust for SEO as an effective and honourable practice.

Right, I am off to slay some virgins 😉

Written by Dean (SEO Consultant)