Last week, Google published updated guidelines for Mobile SEO, essentially that if your mobile site is configured incorrectly then you won't rank in mobile search results. In the wake of this announcement, SEO blogs have rushed to claim that if you don't have a mobile friendly site then you won't rank in mobile search results. Notice the difference?

How did they jump to this conclusion? Is it based on fact or fiction? In this post I'm going to take a look at how an SEO rumour gets started, and hopefully show that even respected industry bloggers can get things wrong sometimes.

By its very nature, SEO relies on the sharing of industry information. Those new to SEO or those without the time to test themselves rely on bloggers and industry experts to share their findings so they know what to spend their time on.

This word of mouth sharing is what makes things so interesting - you hear a titbit here and give it try, read an article there and experiment on your own site.

The problem is, this industry has a serious case of the Chinese Whispers.

What often begins as a harmless experiment or some words of advice can soon become "the next big thing" or a "shocking revelation".

And in an industry that, let's face it, has its fair share of navel gazers, when a rumour enters the mill, it gets ground up (or whatever it is mills do) for days and weeks on each and every SEO site, from the very best to the very worst.

Our SEO Workshop is based on facts, not rumours - we will teach you the latest trends but we'll also give you advice on sorting the truth from the guesswork.

Mobile SEO Ranking Factors

Take the latest Mobile SEO "revelation": a recent post on Google's Webmaster Central Blog outlining changes to Google's ranking of mobile sites.

These are pretty simple really: if you have a dedicated mobile site then make sure it is technically set up for mobile crawlers. If your site redirects mobile users to the wrong stuff (i.e. goes to the mobile site homepage instead of the article they want) you'll be devalued. If you serve up 404s instead of redirecting to a mobile friendly page, you'll be devalued.

That's basically it, and while they're not necessarily glaringly obvious ranking factors, they're pretty common sense ones. This is what Matt Cutts tweeted as the announcement was made:

Important: if your website has smartphone errors, we may change rankings for smartphone users: http://t.co/tYneIdhXVS #smx

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) June 11, 2013

SEO Rumours Galore

That's all well and good. The problem comes when those changes are misinterpreted or even intentionally twisted to sound like something bigger than they are. So from those small changes, you suddenly arrive at tweets like this:

Google going to penalize bad mobile experiences and demote those sites #SMX #12C#mobileseo
— Greg Sterling (@gsterling) June 11, 2013

Now that makes things sound a whole lot different. The initial impression I got from that tweet was that Google would penalise anyone that didn't have a mobile site - effectively saying mobile-optimised sites were favourable.

This headline on SE Roundtable doesn't really help either.

"Google Takes Stance On Mobile SEO: Site Not Mobile Friendly, You Won't Rank Well."

Matt Cutts at SMX

Further developments came to the fore after a Q&A session with Matt Cutts at SMX in which he revealed that page speed will likely be a factor in mobile search ranking in the (near?) future, as it is on desktop. The problem is, this just confused things more with people coming to conclusions like this -

@tomcottrill basically googles penalizing mobile sites with poor user experience, especially for site speed and bad redirects.

— kaled fattah (@Kalfatt) June 12, 2013

They will be, but not yet for site speed.

You can't blame people though; this sort of thing is all too easy what with perpetual news feeds and an insatiable craving for information. Let's face it, this is not the first and it certainly won't be the last time the words of Matt Cutts and other Googlers get taken out of context.

Classic SEO Rumours

There have been plenty of similar cases but there are three that really stick out in my mind: social signals, negative SEO and most recently, press releases.

Social Signals

For years now, people have been decrying the death of the link of as a ranking factor, arguing that Google and others are moving towards using social signals as a primary part of the algorithm instead.

It's just not true. Sure, it seems with Google+, they're looking for a way to include social as a factor at some point in the future, but there's been no official confirmation that this is the case and it certainly isn't one now.

Even more so with other sites like Twitter and Facebook - the relationship between the social giants and Google isn't exactly rosy, so there's no way they'd give them access to the data they require.

Aside from all this, the reason social just isn't a factor is because it's too easy to game. Buying likes and followers is all too common practice, especially in this industry, so it's just not a viable or reliable signal.

Add to that the fact that Google has already spent years sculpting and perfecting an algorithm that focuses on devaluing spammy signals, do you really think they're going to add another signal that's just as easy to spam?

If you're reading this and thinking 'but the sites that rank higher always have more social signals!' then I recommend reading Will Critchlow's post on Correlation vs Causation.

Negative SEO

Now this is a tricky one because in fact, it does exist.

The thing is, it really should not be a priority for any SEO nor business owner.

The problem is articles like this one in The Guardian that give the impression it's some huge problem that everyone should be worried about.

Certainly it happens and when it does it can have a significant impact on your site, but ultimately it's very rare.

As Julia Logan (an expert in the area) has frequently said, there are things that you should address first, which could be giving the impression of a negative SEO attack on your site.

Things like poor technical SEO and even hangovers from tactics that you employed that were once considered above board and are now somewhat shady, like comment spam, should be thought about way before you jump to the conclusion of negative SEO.

It's really a case of using Ockham's Razor: the simplest solution is usually the correct one, and in this case, claiming negative SEO certainly isn't the simplest solution.

If you're still worried, use our guide to finding Negative SEO links and then download our Free Link Removal Guide so that you know which links to remove and how to get started.

Press Releases

Claims that links from press release sites do impact rankings have got SEOs everywhere all flustered. Matt Cutts himself said: "Note: I wouldn't expect links from press release web sites to benefit your rankings, however." which was what spurred on SEO Consult and others.

The problems with this study have been well documented; it was conducted with a nonsensical keyword that, not to put too fine a point on it, could have been ranked by a child on a site with as much authority as Cutts'.

For a term like 'sreppleasers' that will have no other signals, of course a press release will help but only because it's the only signal there is. Let's say there are 500 ranking factors; if a term has none of the other 499 then yes, a link from a press release will have an impact.

It's also worth noting that Cutts' words were 'press release websites' not press releases in general. This is important because all the SEO talk of press releases having no value is really just confused hubris.

Despite similar tests, nothing is conclusive and yet you have those on either side of the fence shouting that their way is gospel. It's not, it's open to interpretation and yes, more tests.

The Reality of SEO

Rumours and myths like these will always be a part of SEO. It's our job to weed out the facts from the fantasy and carry on doing all the right things as best we can.

The truth is though, if you're 'doing it right' none of these myths should faze you. They should be acknowledged, considered and then completely and totally put to one side.

To find out what really does and doesn't work, you should come on one of our SEO Courses; always up to date and always the best, proven tactics taught.