Matt Cutts Dispels More SEO Myths – Barking Up the Wrong Tree?

When Matt Cutts talks, any self-respecting SEO professional listens and listens hard!Once again, the online community has been blessed with a few choice words from Google’s Mr. SEO himself, who this time around has turned his attention to a selection of on-going SEO rumours. He’s not often this candid when it comes to laying bare what’s right and wrong in the eyes of the web’s Lord and master, which makes now the perfect time to take heed and bite the bullet if you have in fact been led down the wrong path with a rumour or two.One thing’s for sure – if Matt Cutts says something is good or bad in the eyes of Google and you don’t act appropriately, more fool you! There’s a time and a place for experimentations and all manner of speculation when it comes to SEO, but when it comes to the closest we’ll ever get to hard and fast rules to live by, he’s pretty much the gospel.     Here’s the latest roundup of SEO rumours and myths to now consider well and truly busted by Google’s very own guru:1 – Those Who Pay for Google AdWords Will Always Rank Better“We sort of feel like we should get those two conspiracy camps together and let them fight it all out,” explained Mr. Cutts.“And whoever emerges from one room we can just debunk that one conspiracy theory.”Now, this will always be one of those rebuttals that you have to take with a pinch of salt or two. The reason being that in order for Google to exist, it needs to take money from firms that want to pay for advertising space. And as it’s a good idea to keep said partners sweet, technically it’s just common sense to assume they’d do better in the rankings. Google says they don’t, critics argue to the contrary…and the war of words rages on.2 – Each Algorithm Change is Designed to Make Businesses Pay for AdvertisingAnother obvious theory whereby the harder Google makes it for folk to get by on rankings alone, the more likely they are to pay for advertising. According to Cutts though, this is all pure garbage.“If somebody clicks on ads, that’s great. But we’re not going to make an algorithmic change to try to drive people to buy ads. If you buy ads it’s not going to algorithmically help your ranking in any way, and likewise, it’s not going to hurt your ranking if you buy ads.”3 – SEO Tools Can Save Your Website“The idea that you’re going to be able to buy some software package and solve every single problem you’ve ever had, is probably a little bit of a bad idea. Using some automated software package, and trying to do white hat SEO with it, which to me sounds like buying a gun and trying to use it as a hammer.”Self-explanatory, really.4 – Black Hat SEO Can Still WorkLeading SEO professionals have been saying this isn’t the case for years, but what does Cutts have to say on the subject?“If somebody had a fool-proof way to make money online, they would probably use that way to make money, rather than packaging it up into an eBook and selling it to people, or patching it up into a tool and selling that to people.”Or in other words; if black hat SEO worked, we’d all be doing it!