Good SEO Advice vs. Bad SEO Advice

[Cricket]

Sometimes when reading SEO responses in a forum, I can't help but shake my head in total amazement because there are so many responses that are incredibly bad. Don't misunderstand me here, I am not referring techniques that may be considered debatable, but rather those that are extremely misinformed or just flat out wrong.

For those of you that may be new to the world of SEO, I am curious how do YOU determine which advice might be good to follow vs. advice that you should probably completely ignore?

For those of you who are more experienced in the SEO world, what advice would you give to others concerning ways to know the difference?

[imadam]

when i first started i took advice that seemed quick and easy, which was usually the "bad" advice i always used to hear how the internet is a way to get rich quick by doing next to nothing so when it cames to looknig how to do something, at first i would ignore tips that took too long as i thought there must be easier quicker ways.

i now have a respect for the work people do so appreciate it's not just click here, site back and wait for the visitors to come rolling in, but i can completely understand why others will think it is.

the only way for a newbie to tell what's good and what's bad is simple if people say enough not to take that advice, if just one or two say it then it can be seen as simple those 2 people haven't done the bad advice correclty, but if everyone explains why not to take the advice then i think thats the best way to know what to ignore or not.

[ELCaD]

One of the easiest ways to determine good vs bad is by the reputation of the user. I am not saying this applies to every post, but there are a number of members here that I would trust with pretty much any advice.
If it happens to be something I consider important then I would probably Google it if I was unsure.

[imadam]

it's hard to know though who is trust worthy and who isn't. i just joined this forum and the only thing i have to go off is the thread count, but i have already seen a lot of "thanks, that was useful" replies so it doesn't hold much weight here.

[ELCaD]

Originally Posted by imadam

it's hard to know though who is trust worthy and who isn't. i just joined this forum and the only thing i have to go off is the thread count, but i have already seen a lot of "thanks, that was useful" replies so it doesn't hold much weight here.

That can be a problem and it takes a while to figure out who to trust. In this case the safest thing is to google it if there is any dispute over the advice.

[Nick4u1]

Its an interesting one, everyone has their own methods for achieving their SEO objectives and because its not imperical there isnt really a 'right' or a 'wrong' way to do SEO as long as its compliant with best practice, however, what there is, is white grey and black hat techniques. I would hope people here wouldnt deliberately advise anyone on blackhat techniques to a newbie because actually that should be a banable offense.

If everyone is suggesting their own white hat methods id say it was down to you to suck it and see, and find out what works for you..

[webcosmo]

Well, forums are intended for discussions. Some advices would be good, some bad. If a person gives bad advice usually others correct it, or discuses the differences they have in their opinions.

You can have a SEO expert badge, creating a new group. But I am afraid some people might get too much advantage with that over the new joiners; specially when they are seo pro.

[kenzy4real]

Whenever a bad SEO tip is stated here, those that have a better insight on it should correct it so that newbies won't go on wasting their time.

[nightcrawler]

Sometimes when reading SEO responses in a forum, I can't help but shake my head in total amazement because there are so many responses that are incredibly bad.

Yes I agree with Cricket, confusion all over for newbies... Mostly people say follow these methods , and another person say that these are old and now don't worth that much use these.. confusion all over... I also sometimes think that most of the people don't look towards good SEO advice, Like link building, some SEO persons only just think of building links even sometimes these links are from totally irrelevant sites and sometimes counted as spam link building!! Good SEO advice is always useful rather than a confusing SEO advice.

[Nick4u1]

Thats why I say, as long as the advice wont in any jeopardize the site, all you can do is suck it and see, people are looking for the quickest route but I dont think there is one in SEO..there is always PPC for that.

[Natural Elements]

After been let down by a "SEO company" which in fact was a scam artist, I was looking for advises and Googled a few keywords. I found this forum through a John Scott thread. Signed up on this forum and applied John's advises, then I started to dig a little bit more and found some very useful information and helpful V7n members.

Advises may be good or bad, to be sure its fit what you are looking for, you must test and that's the rule of thumb.

When you read a lot in this forum, you know which members tend to help. Does it work? Perhaps not all the time, but it can certainly help some ways.

I don't know if you are like me, but when I cook I like to adapt the recipe to my taste.

Having more experience in this forum, I will say that's up to the members to decide which advises worked or not.

You can check the link signature from experienced members and see what they accomplished in SEO on their own sites, this will give you a big plus.

Again if I can advise newbies, I will say test, be patient, test again, and be patient, rome wasn't build in one day.

[jabo]

Well the thing, for me, about SEO advices is that it doesn't stop there. It doesn't mean that a reputable person has advised something in SEO that it will surely give results to your website. You still have to work hard on it and test it out for yourself. When I began learning about SEO, I have to admit that I found some advice boring and somehow I tried to look for those techniques that can create some kind of short cuts or anything, no black hat though. But as time went on, I have realized that the different techniques in SEO has different effects in our websites not just the techniques itself but how we use those techniques.

For example. When I started out in using Social Bookmarking, I used to just post a URL, a title, a description and I would forget about it. it doesn't give that much result. But by learning from different blogs and forums, my ways in bookmarking changed...

Its good that there are some people in the internet, either through articles, blog posts or forums, that takes time to explain and even give examples for a specific technique. Well, yes there maybe a lot of discussions in forums wherein people would just reply a one liner but it doesn't always mean that its wrong and a reply that is so long and descriptive doesn't always mean that it will be effective for our site. That is why it is up to us to analyze the advice, test it if we may and see if will be good for our site... Its not that hard anyways with all the tools that we can use for our site to see if what we have done has been beneficial...

SEO for me takes time and patience and as I see it growing, so should we. I mean taking 15 ro 30 minutes of researching about it or reading blogs or updates about it every once in a while is not that much of a time... Google itself has some pretty good stuffs about it. If I see some new stuffs about it, I would read different reactions, create my own opinion about it and then test it out if it is worth the time....

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Originally Posted by Cricket

For those of you who are more experienced in the SEO world, what advice would you give to others concerning ways to know the difference?

Always verify the advice you see with the search engines terms of service and their webmaster guidelines.

References to any of the search engine guidelines or a well respected search engine optimization blog (Matt Cutts, Google Employee, Search Engine Watch, SEOmoz) c/w link to the quoted material is good. They have shown proof from a reliable source what they are recommending is good.

Avoid becoming obsessed with only one facett of search engine optimization. It's a whole package. There's no one thing that works the best.

Avoid only accommodating what Google says it wants. While the Google Webmaster Guidelines are very good and are mostly applicable to the rest of the search engines and directories around you still have to see what the "other" guys want too. If Google doesn't use something that you included that is recommended by another set of Webmaster Guidelines it will just ignore it.

When you started your blog or website you should have developed a website plan. You can take a step back and do it now if you skipped this step. After doing this you will have a ton of information ready for your search engine optimization plan. e.g. what your targeted audience wants and needs, the keyword phrases they use to find what they want/need, where they hang out, etc.

With the website plan information in hand, you can then work on what is called on-page search engine optimization. This includes your title tags, meta data, headings and content with the right keywords included. Any advise you see regarding on-page search engine optimization should again be verified with each of the search engines documentation. For example, Google in September 2009 posted on their blog confirming Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking. So a bunch of people are now saying ditch this tag. Well, that's very narrow minded because Yahoo! specifically says in their Search Indexing and Ranking section they use it. And what about all the "other" search engines and directories?

Once you have your on-page SEO done then you start looking at how to get the website/blog indexed. You will see lots of recommendations, some good, some not so good but the thing you have to keep in mind, there is not magic way to have a successful site. It takes hard work.

One thing people are obsessing about is Sitemaps when talking about getting indexed. This is very confusing to the newbie because there are 2 types:

• the Sitemap protocol that the major search engines have adopted.
• the traditional site map (that sometimes people spell sitemap) - a page accessible by your visitors and the search engines listing the pages on your site

Those pushing the Sitemaps protocol claim this is the way to get your pages indexed fast. If you want to use Google information as your guide, it says:

Google doesn't guarantee that we'll crawl or index all of your URLs.

Reference: Creating and submitting Sitemaps

It also says in the Google Webmaster Guidelines:

Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.

So, do both.

The other big push is for link building. Lots replies to questions about getting traffic say link building is the way to go. Yes, link building is one part of your search engine optimization program but not the only solution either. Links from sites that are not related to the theme of your site/blog don't really help. Check each of the search engine guidelines, they all say related links will help you.

You have some examples of what kind of information you will come across in forums now and sources to verify the information. The take away from my really long reply is:

Verify any information you find on forums (or anywhere) with each of the search engine guidelines. Yes, it's time consuming reading all those guidelines/search engine blogs and a bit confusing keeping everything straight but in the long run this time spent will be beneficial to your site and avoid you making mistakes that damage or delay the indexing and success of your site.

[zeruel]

This is really one of the most common thing on every SEO related threads in every forum. I feel bad when some people just drop a line without even explaining how did he/she came up with that thought, or even drop a resource on where he/she got the idea. I am not telling that every one of us should always cite a resource. But as much as we can, it will be best to cite a very reliable resource/article that can help the new guys easily and at the same time prove to them in some way that the idea is not just from your own head but as well being considered by those that are very well experienced on the field.

Originally Posted by Cricket

For those of you who are more experienced in the SEO world, what advice would you give to others concerning ways to know the difference?

My suggestion to all that are new to the world of SEO is that, don't just rely on one suggestion or advice. Research first, find and compare different resources that can be considered as reliable (like Google blogs, Webmaster Guidelines, etc.), and finally test them out. Document progress of the site so you guys could monitor if the advice is working or not. Also try to read other experienced SEO blogs and compare strategies that works best for them and those that are on Google blogs and other SEO sources that you find. Please remember that SEO is a continuous learning. I admit that I still need a lot of things to learn and understand in terms of SEO but I know how to determine if the advise is good or bad. I always test things out, implement them and document the progress so I can eventually take time to see if the techniques works good or not. If you guys see a reply that is like a one sentence reply, that doesn't mean that the reply is wrong. And a very long reply doesn't always means right.

Also if you are new to the SEO world, please don't advise on every SEO threads like you are really an expert on the field. I see a lot of guys doing this which I think is not a very good idea. I also don't think that guys should copy and paste different SEO articles on a thread and don't even provide the source where they got the article. Those are just some of the most common situations that I see on an SEO section in every forum. I'm sorry if I sound rude but that's not my intention.

Read, Research, Test and Document it... if it didn't worked out, Read, Research, Test and Document it again. It doesn't take effect overnight.

[ScriptMan]

This area is not one of my strong points but I do recognize good advice when I see it.

AND, there is some really good advice in the posts above this one.

I will only add one thing. Always be cautious when someone is trying to sell you SEO services. Use your common sense to evaluate all offers and advice. If I could mint (print) money would I be telling you how to do it? Or would I keep the golden goose for myself?

[robjones]

Disclaimer: I'm not a professional SEO, but have worked closely with 'em for a decade. What I know about the topic is routine, but I can spot a phony from a pro.

WATCH FOR RED FLAG INCONSISTENCIES -

#1 - Does the speaker need the services he claims to be a pro at?
Recently we had a member posting numerous threads telling people how to make TONS of money (honestly that's a quote) by utilizing his services and repeatedly referenced his site that'd drive loads of traffic to their site. Yet in other threads he was crying about needing to get traffic to his own site that was supposed to drive traffic to others. What's wrong with this picture?

#2 - If you own the well, why are you so thirsty?
Somebody that is constantly telling people he can make them wealthy beyond belief with his neat quick-bucks program probably isnt being entirely candid if he's constantly doing stuff that shows he's cash strapped and working on a shoestring budget. Basically pay attention to what they say all the time, not just what they say about making you rich. They may cancel out his cred.


#3 - It's SOOOOoo Easy
There's a learning curve in every business. If you could become the next Bill gates by paying some sucker $15 for his ebook, everyone would be Bill Gates. Learn the trade, invest in knowledge, but dont believe the shortcut tales. It requires work, and those that say otherwise would be on the beach instead of in here if the get rich quick without effort crap they tell were factual.

Added: I see scriptman and I just wrote pretty much the same thing, just a different writing technique. OK, I agree with what he said.

[audrina22]

Looking through the Above post of this thread by v7n reliable posters, most of the issues were pointed out thoroughly, I must say we truly have one of the best reliable posters on the net. To be honest, it's to the point were you ran out of information to share, since everything you think you could share has already been mentioned.

I think most of us would agree in summary that distinguishing bad from good seo advice, no matter how good or bad it was delivered, at the end it's up to the reader on how he/she chooses which advice to absorb. As we all know, being new to something makes a person very fragile and easy to be misinformed, since any explanation to something we don't know regardless if it's right or wrong would most likely end up being a good information. To a newbie any information is good information. Not to mentioned if it was delivered graciously which would easily allow newbies to bite-in to some misleading information.
Here's a link about Bad Advice That Sounds Good

Anyway, Most of the posters mentioned and clearly emphasize with the SEO Profession, that one must have two main key characteristics Patience and Dedication. I think everyone would agree that SEO profession is a never-ending learning process. Search Engine Optimization will continue to change and I agree that we must be well aware of what's happening and be up-to-date with latest news about SEO. Not everything that's effective now will still be effective in the future, same thing applies with vice-versa. Bottom line having to many information from different resources on something won't hurt, instead it helps you more on determining which is the true advice.

[MaineCopywriter]

All I can add is I "go with my gut feeling." If something seems fishy, it probably is. I avoided everything to do with SEO for a very long time because *Everything* seemed like a scam. Then I found some reliable people to give me the straight scoop, and now I'm more informed and can better decide what's good advice and what's bad.

Trust your instincts. They're usually right.

[cecille20]

I've been in this field for almost a year. And I find that SEO is very board. Well, as a beginners I advice those newbie to keep on participating in forums and observed. Because when I'm starting in this field , I really don't know where to start and whom to trust. And V7n really helps me to understand it. By trusting those advice of v7n mentor or moderator. Because I know they wouldn't give you a false information.

In replying those question in forums is based only with my experienced. :
Just don't rely on what they say but put them in practice and its up to you to observe it if your going to continue it or not.

[ldcdc]

IMO, the most important thing about SEO, is to stick to the basics. The more advanced, complicated, technical and out of your reach something is, and the faster it promises to give you results, the more likely it is to be black hat or a myth.

Just my opinion as a non-SEO professional.