subject: Is Search Engine Optimization Really The Route The Take? [print this page] More and more myths are being spread about SEO since it has become so popular and this makes it virtually impossible for many people to understand the intricacies of search engines. A good knowledge of SEO and its components, as well as how these components work together, are vital if you want to use the search engines in your favor. We will be debunking some of those myths in this article and you need to know them if you want to have a chance at making SEO work for you.
The idea that you need to register your URL with the search engines is one of these myths that is quite common. Now, with the Internet growing with the speed of light, search engines are getting more and more advanced. Thus, if you want your URL to appear in the search engines you are no longer required to submit it manually. Search engine spiders crawl sites constantly so the speediest way to have your site indexed is to have a link back to your site from a few Web 2.0 properties or popular forums that are constantly visited by spiders. Submitting your URL to the search engines could even lead to the whole process taking a lot longer, which you want to avoid at all costs. Therefore, your best bet is to list your site on certain sites that are popular and you will find that it gets indexed quite quickly.
Use of the words in your Meta tag is not required on that particular page. Even though this is a myth, it still gets taught by many SEO professionals. The simple truth is that the Meta keyword tags were created specifically to find keywords that were not available on the page, not the other way round. The main point, however, is that neither Google nor Yahoo use these tags for ranking.
It's also a myth that you need to frequently update your site, even though many people believe it greatly impacts your search engine rankings. Adding fresh content frequently to your website will lead to spiders visiting your site more often but it won't affect your SERP rank. Thus, if your site does not require an update, don't make a forced change simply for the search engines. It will have little effect on them. All you need to do is conduct a search and you will find that a lot of the sites that rank well in niches that are quite popular have not been updated in quite some time.
The best approach to SEO is researching already perfected practices and implementing them on your site. As search engines change their way of looking at sites, you need to adjust your site content - this is the only real way to optimize your search ranking.
Is Search Engine Optimization Really The Route The Take?