SEO Myths: 10 Things Google Says Not to Focus On

Ten popular pieces of SEO advice can come off a blogger's to-do list, because Google's own SEO Starter Guide files them under "Things we believe you shouldn't focus on".

That section of the guide is the selection rule for this list: every item below is one Google addresses there. The guide was last updated on 10 December 2025, and the section read the same when checked on 8 October 2026. For each item you get the myth, what Google says about it, and a better use of the same time, mostly taken from elsewhere in the same guide. Google's general message on all of them is to do whatever works best for your kind of business (Google SEO Starter Guide).

New to the subject? What is SEO covers the basics, plus three other misunderstandings: that you can pay Google for rankings, that results are guaranteed and that SEO is fast.

1. Filling in the meta keywords tag

The myth: a keywords meta tag tells Google what your post is about.

What Google says: the keywords meta tag plays no part in Google Search (Starter Guide).

Do this instead: if your blogging platform or SEO plugin offers a keywords field, leave it empty. Spend those minutes on the page title and meta description. Google uses the title element, among other sources, to build the title link in its results, and occasionally uses the meta description for the snippet below it (Starter Guide). How to write SEO titles and meta descriptions covers both.

2. Repeating your keyword a set number of times

The myth: a post ranks better when its keyword appears often, or at a target density.

What Google says: repeating the same words to excess, even in varied forms, tires readers, and keyword stuffing goes against Google's spam policies (Starter Guide).

Do this instead: use the words your readers would use, then move on. Google says its language-matching systems are sophisticated enough to connect your page with many searches even when the page doesn't use the searchers' exact terms (Starter Guide). If an older post already reads as stuffed, keyword stuffing shows how to repair it passage by passage.

3. Putting keywords in your domain name or URL

The myth: a domain or post URL that contains your keyword ranks higher.

What Google says: for ranking, keywords in a domain name or URL path do almost nothing on their own beyond showing up in breadcrumbs (Starter Guide).

Do this instead: choose a domain name readers will remember; Google's advice here is to apply normal marketing good practice. For post URLs, readable still beats random. Parts of a URL can appear in results as breadcrumbs, so Google suggests building URLs from words that could be useful to readers (Starter Guide). Does your domain name affect SEO? shows how to check a name before you buy it.

4. Choosing a .com (or any other ending) for rankings

The myth: you need a .com, or an ending that matches your topic, to rank.

What Google says: the ending only matters when you target users in one country, and even then its effect is usually small. Otherwise, Google Search doesn't mind which ending you use (Starter Guide).

Do this instead: pick an ending your readers will trust and type correctly. A country ending only makes sense when the blog is for one country's readers. Google's own example is using a .ch domain to sell Dutch cheese to searchers in Switzerland.

5. Hitting a minimum or maximum word count

The myth: a post needs to reach a certain length before it can rank.

What Google says: the length of a post doesn't affect its ranking by itself, and there's no magic minimum or maximum number of words to aim for (Starter Guide).

Do this instead: write until the reader's question is answered, then stop. Natural writing still has an upside: Google notes that varying your words means using more keywords, which by itself gives you more chances to appear in Search. The guide describes compelling, useful content by its qualities, not its size: easy to read, unique, up to date, helpful and reliable (Starter Guide). How to write a blog post starts from the questions searchers actually ask.

6. Picking a subdomain or a subfolder for SEO

The myth: a blog ranks better at example.com/blog than at blog.example.com, or the reverse.

What Google says: decide on business grounds and do whatever suits your business (Starter Guide).

Do this instead: use whichever setup is easier for you to run, and don't restructure an existing blog for SEO alone. Google says search engines will probably make sense of your pages as they stand, however the site happens to be organized (Starter Guide). Its advice on grouping pages into folders is aimed at large sites, those past a few thousand URLs.

7. Chasing PageRank

The myth: links, and the PageRank they pass, decide where you rank, so links come before everything else.

What Google says: PageRank, which uses links, is one of Google's foundational algorithms, but links are far from the whole of Google Search (Starter Guide).

Do this instead: put link effort where you control it. Link related posts on your own blog, with link text that tells readers what they will find (Starter Guide). Internal links for SEO shows where to place them. What is a backlink explains what links from other sites do, and domain authority explains the link scores SEO tools calculate.

8. Fearing a duplicate content "penalty"

The myth: having the same content at more than one URL on your blog gets you penalized.

What Google says: having some content reachable at more than one URL is fine and nothing to worry about. Google calls it inefficient, but says it won't lead to a manual action (Starter Guide).

Do this instead: save your concern for the case Google singles out: copying other people's content, which it calls another matter entirely. Write your own posts rather than republishing other people's. If you want to tidy your own duplicates, the guide suggests redirecting the extra URL to the one you prefer, or adding a rel="canonical" link element when you can't redirect. Then it adds that this deserves little worry (Starter Guide).

9. Getting heading order and count exactly right

The myth: headings must run in strict H1, H2, H3 order, and a page needs a certain number of them.

What Google says: for Google Search, headings used out of order make no difference, and no page has a magic ideal number of them (Starter Guide).

Do this instead: keep them in order anyway, for people. Google says semantic order is a big help to screen readers. Use headings to split a long post into sections a reader can scan, and apply Google's rule of thumb on quantity: if you suspect there are too many, there probably are.

10. Treating E-E-A-T as a ranking factor

The myth: E-E-A-T, Google's shorthand for "experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness", is a score Google uses to rank posts (Google: creating helpful content).

What Google says: the guide raises the belief that E-E-A-T is a ranking factor, and its entire answer is "No, it's not." (Starter Guide)

Do this instead: show readers the qualities themselves. Google's helpful-content guidance says its systems use a mix of factors to find content that demonstrates them, and adds: "We strongly encourage adding accurate authorship information, such as bylines to content where readers might expect it" (Google: creating helpful content). For a blog, that means a real byline and an honest account of what you know first-hand.

What the time is better spent on

Google's guide names the biggest lever plainly: of all its suggestions, making content that readers find compelling and useful is likely to do the most for how your site shows up in search results (Starter Guide). For a small blog, the list above turns into a short routine:

• Answer the reader's question fully, in their words, without padding (items 2 and 5).

• Write a clear title and meta description for each post (item 1).

• Use readable post URLs, and keep headings in order (items 3 and 9).

• Link related posts to each other (item 7).

• Put your name on your posts and write from what you know (item 10).

To check several of these basics on one post (title, meta description, main heading, canonical URL and image alt text), run its address through SearchCub's Page checks. It reads the page's HTML only, so it won't show whether Google has indexed the post; why a page is not indexed covers that question.