Search Engine Optimization Demystified-Part 2

This is part two of my "Search Engine Optimization Demystified" article! If you missed out on Part 1 of the series then you should read it here before reading the following article!

SEO Myth#3 – If I manage to grab a high PR domain name from eBay or a forum, I would be a guru: Not unless you are able to MAINTAIN that PR by regular backlink building. I will give you the analogy of the weight loss niche. Once people lose weight successfully, they think- "Heck, now I would never gain weight no matter what I eat and how I live". But when they ACTUALLY gain some pounds a few months later, they recognize their folly ;)

Similarly, some online marketers think that once they buy a high PR domain name, they don’t need to do the hard work of SEO any more. But in all honesty, they are terribly wrong!

a) First off, the pagerank you see on Google toolbar is not always accurate. If you want to get the real stats, use this Firefox plugin! There are many other pagerank checker tools available for free online, but this is by far my favorite tool. It is so much more fun to check the pagerank of a website right from your browser than visiting a third-party website! :)

b) Second, pagerank of a website is often dated.

c) Third, there are a number of ways to influence a website's pagerank. For example, if you do a 301 redirect to say, Adobe.com, your website would gain from the Pagerank of Adobe.  Unfortunately, since this "fake" pagerank is not based upon a solid backlink structure, Google is quick to catch on to it and devalue it in its subsequent pagerank updates! In essence, you can say that such "artificial pagerank boosts" are temporary!

Now let's say that you buy a PR5 domain but a quick search in Yahoo Site Explorer reveals that the domain has little or no backlinks! What do you think could happen to the domain? When Google comes with the next pagerank update (usually a pagerank update happens every quarter or so, though Google is sometimes unpredictable about the update frequency) you stand to lose the PR of your domain!

There are two ways to save yourself from this peril: either check the backlinks of a domain before buying it, or (in case you realize you have been duped) build a lot of backlinks fast, which brings me to yet another myth.

How to prove me wrong: If you don’t mind getting scammed, just buy a "fake" PR4 or PR5 domain from Ebay or the Digital Point Forum! Make sure that the seller you are buying from is a well known scammer! ;) Good or bad, you can always post your results below!

I will give you a tip: fake PR domains are usually cheaper than the genuine ones! As the popular adage goes, you get what you pay for! ;)

SEO Myth#4 – If I build backlinks too fast I would be caught on the wrong foot:  Umm, have you actually "been there and done that", or are you merely (blindly) believing in what the SEO gurus preach? Believe it or not, most of these SEO gurus don’t even know what they are talking about! Over time I have stopped believing them and found out that the only thing I should do is to "TEST".

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Nuttie Guru Has Been There and Done That

I have a website for which I used to build 20 backlinks (most of it being Angela's backlinks btw). However, due to time constraints, I had to withdraw the backlink building campaign all of a sudden! It has been almost a month since I haven't built a single backlink for the website. Here are the results:

a) My website has only gone up in the SERPs (it occupies an enviable position of being 3rd on the first page in a competitive niche)!

b) Just as always, traffic continues to be quite unpredictable, going up and down all the time. That is normal with SEO traffic. Just like traffic, sales are also quite unpredictable; sometimes I get a lot of sales while at other times there are none. Again this is something that used to happen even a month back when I was actively building backlinks for that website.

c) The only thing that has changed is the Google Analytics stats. While previously GA used to show a "green upward arrow" for my website (which denotes a boost in incoming traffic), now it shows a "brown downward arrow" (indicating a decrease in incoming traffic). I won’t be surprised if I get to see the green arrow again after a few weeks! Being in the SEO minefield, I am used to this "Google Dance"! I guess Analytics is somewhat screwed just like Google's pagerank toolbars, but that's just my opinion!

Then I have one website for which I have not built more than 30-40 backlinks. It has been several months since I have stopped building backlinks for that site. That site is in a non-marketing niche and so far I have noticed only an "upward green arrow" for it in Google Analytics. Go figure! ;)

Can you believe that I have several small niche sites I haven't built backlinks for since years and they still bring me cool Clickbank checks every month! ;)

The only conclusion I can draw from it is that Google is crazy! :D

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How to prove me wrong:

Yeah, you don’t need to take me at face value! You can always have doubts and here is a way to clear your doubts:

a) Just take up a new website, one that has been built less than 2 months ago. For the first two months, start building as many backlinks for it as you can! There is no need to be consistent in your backlink efforts! You can, for example, build 30 links on one day and 5 on the next. Occasionally you can even take a break! ;)

By the beginning of the 3rd month, stop building backlinks altogether for the website and do something else or go on a month-long vacation. During the whole month, you should build no backlinks for that website at all. Come back and watch the fun!

By the start of the 4th month, start building backlinks again for the same website, this time a bit differently! For example, throughout the first week you can build 30 backlinks per day for the website but over the next week you should not build more than 2-3 backlinks per day! Of course, you can make it as unpredictable as you wish!

On the 5th month, don’t build backlinks for the first 15 days. For the remaining 15 days, build backlinks exactly the way you did on the 4th month.

On the 6th month, post your results below! ;)

b) Take up another new website, and build only 2-3 backlinks for it per day! You should neither skip your backlink building campaign even for a day nor build more than 3 backlinks per day! Do this consistently for the next 5 months and on the 6th month you may post your results below.

SEO Myth#5 – . If I spam all the HIGH PR social bookmarking sites available, I would hit the jackpot: As time passes, social bookmarking websites are becoming less and less valuable in terms of backlinks, thanks to spammers who have ruined those sites for themselves and others!

There was a time when I could have a PR3 website simply by posting links on social bookmarking sites such as DIGG, reddit, etc. That was probably two years ago, and I couldn't recreate that magic again! These sites have been so much overused by regular users and spammers alike that their pagerank is becoming less and less valuable in the eyes of Google.

Much like what happened with Ezinearticles.com ;)

That doesn't however mean you shouldn’t use social bookmarking or ezinearticles for your traffic! You definitely should; just don’t rely on them exclusively for your traffic! Ideally, they should form just one part of your traffic plan!

How to prove me wrong: Very easy. Just spam all the available social bookmarking sites to the best of your ability and see how much "benefit" you gain from it. As always, you can post your results below! :D

Well there are many more myths I have got to debunk in the subsequent parts of the "Search Engine Optimization Demystified" series! However, if you want me to write all the remaining parts, you MUST post a nice comment below! :D (only kidding)

You can post your comments below!

To be continued…