SEO Myth #1: Syndicate Content Will Always Hurt Your SEO
Many bloggers and website owners publish syndicated content on their websites. It refers to a situation where you publish an article that has earlier been published elsewhere on the Internet; you mention the source and do not take credit for the content. So, does this practice hurt your SEO in any manner? To understand the answer, you need to first ascertain if you are violating the rights of the original content creator. With syndicated content, you do not violate the original author’s Private Label Rights (PLR) if –- You clearly mention the source of the original article
- The original author has offered a Creative Commons license for reposting his article(s)


SEO Myth #2: Links Are More Important Than Content
There was a time when having more backlinks was more important than content to rank your web pages in Google. That was a long time ago. This year, it’s better to stop believing in this long-busted myth. The first time Google made a serious effort to penalize websites that abused link building techniques and resorted to keyword stuffing was in April 2012 when it announced the Webspam Update. Backlinks are still important. But, they are not more important than content! Considering content as less important has been one of the most popular SEO myths of yesteryears. Google employees Matt Cutts and Andrey Lipattsev confirmed way back in 2016 that the first three ranking factors include:- Content
- Links
- RankBrain
SEO Myth #3: XML Sitemaps Will Automatically Improve Your Website’s Search Rankings
The XML sitemap’s main function is to assist search engines in crawling and indexing pages of a website. Search engines are keen to find out if your website has added any new pages. With an XML sitemap, Google knows that your site is up-to-date. But, does XML sitemaps automatically improve a website’s search engine ranking? The short answer is ‘no.’ Not submitting an XML sitemap is one of the most common SEO mistakes made at the time of launching a new website as it augments the search engine’s page crawl and content discovery process. Sitemaps are especially helpful when –- You are launching a new website
- Your site was recently launched and there are not many external links to it (search engines craw by following one link to another)
- Your existing website has a large number of pages (say, more than 500)
- Your site has a huge archive of articles, reports, etc. that are not intuitively linked to each-other

SEO Myth #4: Backlinks from All Kinds of Authority Websites Aide in SEO
SEO experts are always on the lookout for backlinks from high-authority websites. After Google began penalizing websites for low-quality backlinks a few years ago, SEO professionals began using guest posting on third party websites as a strategy to generate high-quality backlinks. But, many digital marketers believe in the myth that backlinks from all kinds of authority websites helpful in SEO. The reality is that you cannot take ‘relevance’ for granted. Therefore, when you acquire backlinks from a high authority website, you must take context into consideration. For instance, if your website offers ‘financial advice’ but gets a backlink from a high authority website that publishes content on ‘weight loss,’ it may be of little help.SEO Myth #5: Domain Authority is everything and Google Takes It Very Seriously
Until 2013, the search engine giant Google used to assign a PageRank score (up to 10) to a web page. In 2016, Google made it clear that the search engine was no longer using the metric anymore. When PageRank score disappeared from the scene, many third-party domain-authority scores such as Ahref’s Domain & URL ratings, Majestic’s Trust & Citation Flows, and Moz’s Domain & Page Authority became popular among digital marketers. These scores do reflect the worth of a webpage but, they are never a true reflection of how search engines such as Google perceive or value a webpage. This year, stop believing in the myth in 2020 that Google takes domain authority seriously. Gary Illyes in Oct 2016 made it clear that Google does not have the concept of “overall domain authority.”