This was a question sent to our support email by an anonymous person with a fake return email address. Even though we couldn’t reply to him, here are the reasons for “some” of the Search Engine Optimization related information being contradictory!

We will of course use Google as an example.

Whenever Megan searches on Google, it is in Google’s best interest to make sure that she finds what she is looking for.  If Google were to show irrelevant or useless results, Megan will decide to check this other search engine called, what was that,  Bing?

The algorithms used by Google to decide which results are relevant to Megan is Google’s proprietary information.  Google is not going to open up their source code and tell us the exact way their algorithms work.

According to Google, there are over 200 factors that decide the order in which the search results are finally sorted and displayed to the user.

So, how do we know what are the best SEO practices?  SEO specialists try and piece together this information from… 

1. What the search engines tell us to do through their “best practice guidelines“
2. Clues based on the patents filed by various search companies.
3. What we learn by analysing the search engine result pages (SERP).
4. What common sense says Google and other search engines will want to do.
5. Ideas and insights from people who are good at figuring things out.
6. Opinions from people based on what they want to believe, based on random observations or based on some “school of  thought” they belong to.
7. Misinformation from people who have a vested interest.

Most controversies and contradictions arise because of  6 and 7.

The best way to separate the bad from the good is to verify things on your own and apply common sense.