There are only five more months of 2014 before we welcome in the New Year and within that time, there is still a lot of money to be made online. Many have believed in the power of SEO for so long, but not everything that they tell you is accurate. Here are a few myths that will get you back to reality. Myth #1: Optimizing All Anchor Texts with Keywords Help By definition, anchor text is the text that is hyperlinked whether it be a phrase or a keyword. In the golden days, optimizing anchor text with special keywords helped boost search rankings but during the last year, the Google algorithm updates diminished that power. Linking keywords to internal and external sites are no longer an effective strategy and over-optimizing anchor text can actually hurt you instead (losing your rank/manually penalizing you from search engines). Myth #2: Guess Blogging hurts SEO Due to top heads denouncing guest blogging for SEO purposes, many assumed that guest blogging in general would place them in Google’s crosshairs. The only reason for this was because Google had recognized many websites, also known as spam blogs that were originally created to manipulate the search rankings. Generally these sites contained low-quality content that was only used to gain links. If it is done poorly, you will be penalized but one way to handle it properly is to ensure you get exposure on high-profile websites rather than smaller and unknown ones. Myth #3: Not Having Follow Links Creates No Value Backlinks marked as “rel=nofollow” do not provide the as great a value than regular follow links do, because apparently they do not pass the Page Rank. Regardless, these “nofollow” links are ideal and important for businesses. There is value in the search engines for algorithm rankings and of course it sends a signal to Google to show that it is a “natural backlink profile” not harming you at all. Not having any “nofollow” links in a backlink profile can actual cause Google to keep an eye on you. In conclusion, marking links “nofollow” doesn’t mean you won’t generate traffic or leads for your company. Myth #4: Google Cannot Read JavaScript or Ajax This is a common misconception that Google cannot read JavaScript or Ajax but in reality, Google can! Before the Ajax application made it difficult for search engines to process such content through the browsers and made it invisible to crawlers. Despite their constant efforts to refine its techniques, Google’s crawl and index information has grown dramatically. Read about the pushState method at Google’s Webmaster Help Section to find out about the changes. Myth #5: Be Ranked Nationally and You’ll be Successfully Searched In reality, the push for Google+ and Google-Map local searches actually beat out the competition for national search results. This is because Google Maps and Google+ show up first as more and more people actual use their mobile devices for internet searches. Don’t get too comfortable with the way it all works as this is an ever changing industry. What works today may not tomorrow. Best of luck! Melanie Han Social Media/Content Writer