Myths and Disinformation in SEO World Traced to Deliberate Leaks from Alta Vista
There are many prevalent myths that never seem to quite die out when it comes to search engine marketing. Although most of the seasoned industry experts are quick to debunk these theories, no one can remember quite how they started or how to stop them from infecting newbies.
Isos has uncovered an informant ( referred to as “Deep Scoot” for his own protection) who was employed by Alta Vista “back in the day” and has shared some disturbing information with us.
“Alta Vista liked to screw with webmaster’s heads” said Deep Scoot with a laugh. “I was in charge of the Office of Disinformation, and my job was to come up with believeable sounding bullsh1t and feed it to the public. I gotta say, I was really good at my job and I’ve never enjoyed a job more.”
When pushed for specifics, Deep Scoot pointed out one of his favorite “releases.”
“I gotta say, this one has lasted longer than any other myth I created,” Deep Scoot related, beaming with pride.
Back in the year 2000, there was an article on AltaVista describing how the keyword meta tag was rated by the search engine spider. The document mentioned that the words in the keyword meta tag has the same value as the other words on the web page itself, except for one very important case: if your meta keyword tag contains keywords that do not occur in your main web page, your page will be penalized. The document went on to say that your ranking may improve if you use both the title tag and relevant first few lines in your web page without any meta keyword tag.
“I mean look at it, it’s pure genius! By putting it out there, then removing it we created reasonable doubt that we ever said it in the first place!” Deep Scoot chortled. “We created a paranoia surrounding meta keywords that lasts to this day! Use ‘em, get better results or penalized, don’t use ‘em and be safe but miss out on a real SEO advantage. It’s a paradox that still troubles newbies to this day… and that was over 6 years ago!!”
That’s only the tip of the iceburg when it comes to the smoke and mirrors that was Alta Vista… and a legacy of confusion and conspiracy theories.
We asked industry guru Matt Cutts of Google about the idea that a search engine would deliberately leak incorrect information, but his secretary said he was “in a meeting” and couldn’t come to the phone. (Just to set the record straight, we heard him in the background saying “Hey, watch what happens when I do this!” followed by gales of maniacal laughter… )
Next article… more common myths traced to the Office of Disinformation at Alta Vista. Stay tuned…
1 comment February 6th, 2006
