Isn’t it funny how much rubbish there is out there around search engine optimisation (SEO)? With digital marketing and SEO quickly becoming one of the hottest niches of the year, I thought it’d be a good idea to go over some of the common SEO myths I’ve come across.
Why? It’s important to have accurate and up-to-date information to avoid wasting time, money, and potentially screwing up your brand’s website.
I’m here to provide some clarity, with actual answers and truths, straight from the mouths of those that matter.
So, if you’re a website owner, marketer, fellow content person, or anyone looking to improve a website’s visibility in search engines, stick around.
And if you discover something you didn’t know, a share is always appreciated.
Debunking 8 Common SEO Myths:
I’ve come up with a non-exhaustive list of SEO misconceptions that I’ve seen, either on LinkedIn, Pinterest, or even from other bloggers.
And remember, these are SEO ‘myths’, so they’re completely untrue.
Myth #1: Keyword Stuffing Still Works for SEO
Yikes. If you still think keyword stuffing is the way forward, you may want to check the date. While very popular in the 90s and early 2000s, keyword stuffing is a big no-no nowadays.
After some strategic (and questionable) updates in Google’s algorithm, keyword stuffing became a thing of the past in 2004 following the Florida, Austin, and Brandy algorithm updates.
Google’s current shift is towards natural language and satisfying user intent. So, if you’re targeting a specific keyword or keywords, make sure you’re writing with the right intent.
Keyword research is still super important, just don’t let it become your entire strategy for gaining organic traffic.
Myth #2: The More Backlinks, The Better
It was once a common misconception that the more backlinks you have, the better off your site will be.
So, in the spirit of those on the internet wanting things to be easier, some black-hat SEOs began experimenting with backlink farms.
The idea was to abuse Google’s PageRank system where backlinks were exclusively seen as a ‘vote of confidence’ for another website.
So of course, larger companies purchased backlinks in mass, regardless of relevancy or context, in order to boost their rankings on search engines.
Smart, eh? Not really.
Eventually, Google became privy and their algorithm got better at identifying backlink farms. The result? Tons of sites were penalised and even deranked for participating in these practices.
And despite this, backlink farms are still popular today. The risk simply does not outweigh the benefits in this case.
Myth #3: Ranking is All About Getting the Perfect ‘SEO Score’
With the abundance of plugins and tools out there to help you with your SEO and content, it’s easy to get caught up in the numbers.
However, you should be mindful Google doesn’t endorse any of these scores and metrics. None-of-them.
The scores you gain from these tools are simply one part of the puzzle that is SEO.
Okay, improving your score means you probably are improving your SEO to some degree. But you’d be much better off spending your time trying to improve the user experience. Whether that’s through updating old content, adding alt text to images, or doing some backlink outreach.
The scores are arbitrary, and they don’t give an accurate measure of website health or your ability to rank.
Myth #4: Alt Text Is Irrelevant for SEO
Alt text is a short excerpt used to describe an image, providing context for users who cannot see the image. It’s great for accessibility, as well as helping search engines understand the content.
You can use alt text in place of the image loading or if you hide the image for any reason.
The alt text should accurately describe an image. For example, “A brown fox jumping over a lazy dog.”
If possible, and it wouldn’t ruin the sentence, you can include a target keyword in there as well. But don’t just add in your target keyword for the sake of SEO.
Back in 2023, a trend emerged which saw brands using alt-text to add jokes into their tweets. However, Specsavers quickly picked up on this and put everyone in their place, stating how important alt-text is for the visually impaired.
Myth #5: Social Media Engagement Directly Impacts Search Rankings
While it was once a belief that likes, shares, comments and even ratings through social media could be a direct factor for SEO ranking – it’s not.
As in… It’s not something Google’s algorithms use when deciding when and where to rank your site.
It can, however, have an indirect impact by providing more traffic to your site through social awareness. You could even get a few backlinks from utilising social media – but again, it’s not a direct ranking factor.
So, to put this to rest: Google and other search engines don’t use social media engagement metrics to determine a site’s worthiness to rank high.
Instead of worrying about your social media engagement, work on building your brand so more people search for you. Increased searches for your brand is a great signal to Google that people want to see more of your high quality content.
Myth #6: You Need Higher Domain Authority to Rank
You absolutely do not need a higher ‘domain authority’ to rank.
Similar to the beloved ‘SEO score’, domain authority is another third-party metric designed to help you understand where your site sits in terms of perceived authority.
It’s technically just another meaningless metric that not-very-good SEOs will use to tell you about your site. Google has stated multiple times that domain authority is not a ranking signal for Google’s algorithms.
Instead of trying to optimise and improve your domain authority number, focus on producing quality landing pages and creating content. You’ll have more success spending your time working on a kick-ass, well-researched blog post than obsessing over a vanity metric.
Myth #7: You Must ONLY Use The Exact Keyword You’re Targeting
Targeting specific keywords is obviously important, but it doesn’t matter as much as you might think.
The idea that you need to cram the exact keyword you’re targeting into every nook and cranny of your content is a thing of the past.
It’s an old-school SEO tactic which doesn’t work on modern search engines.
In reality, it’s far more beneficial to use a natural mix of your target keyword and semantically related terms.
You might have heard these related terms referred to as “LSI keywords” (Latent Semantic Indexing). The idea was that these conceptually related words helped search engines understand the context of your content.
For example, ‘article writing’, ‘blogging’, ‘technical writing’, and ‘content creation’ would be semantically related to ‘copywriting’.
However, here’s the crucial part: Google has explicitly stated that it does not use Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) for ranking.
Instead of LSI, Google uses sophisticated methods like its Knowledge Graph, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and advanced AI and machine learning to understand the meaning and context of your content. These technologies allow Google to identify entities, understand relationships between words, and analyze the overall topic of a page, going far beyond simple keyword matching.
So, while the concept of using semantically related keywords is still valuable for improving Google’s understanding of your page’s topic and scope (and making your content more natural and user-friendly), the term “LSI keywords” and the underlying technology aren’t accurate in the context of modern Google SEO.
Myth #8: The More Content Produced, The Better!
Not really sure where this myth came from, maybe SEOs that want you to spend more money than necessary? Either way, sometimes more isn’t better.
Google even explicitly said so in their webinar: Is more content better? SEO Mythbusting.
You could have 300 subpar blogs on one topic, which looks good to the untrained eye. But to Google’s algorithm, you might be better off binning all of the useless content and keeping the stuff that matters.
While it’s true that having more pages with valuable, in-depth content can improve SEO, simply churning out endless content without regard for quality can be detrimental.
Google has also stated, in their recent ‘Helpful Content’ documentation that content creators should avoid writing for the algorithm, and only write about topics you’re knowledgeable about. There’s no mention of longer content being better or worse than shorter content – quite the opposite in fact:
“Are you writing to a particular word count because you’ve heard or read that Google has a preferred word count? (No, we don’t.)” – Google, 2025.
Well, there you have it. The top SEO myths I’ve found, debunked!
If you’re stuck in SEO-hell and want some content that resonates with your target audience, then get in touch.