Google’s digital marketing course offers bad SEO tips

Do you hear the noise? It is SEO that calls Google today.

New digital marketing and Google; The e-commerce certification course, which was announced on May 2, contains terrible SEO advice so shockingly bad that one google search attorney – Danny Sullivan – disavows it.

What happened. It all started with a tweet from international SEO consultant Gianluc Fiorelli. In it, he shared a screenshot of a slide discussing how to avoid keyword stuffing:

Here’s Google’s official advice from the course:

“Seriously …” write more than 300 words “? and “keyword density”? ” Fiorelli wrote on Twitter. “I mean… keyword stuffing is bad, sure! but solving it by spreading the SEO myths that SEOs are trying to eliminate?

“I know this course is very basic, but for this very reason, myths like these should not be taught. Did SEO in Google check the course? “

“You can ignore it.” Danny Sullivan, a Google Search Liaison liaison, responded to Fiorelli, essentially rejecting the course.

“I’m not in the team that produced this, nor are they part of the search team,” replied Sullivan. “As a member of the search team, we don’t recommend any restrictions or ‘density’ or anything like that. This can be ignored; I will pass it on.

He then linked to Google’s search engine tip, the Google SEO Starter Guide. There is no mention of a minimum keyword density or minimum word count in this document.

Keyword Density. Keyword density is the percentage that tells you how often a keyword or phrase is used on a page. Divide the total number of keywords or phrases used by the total number of words used. Then multiply by 100 and you have your percentage. (Or just copy and paste the url or text into the free online keyword density calculator.)

Here’s the cool thing about keyword density. I have spoken to many SEOs in the past who have sworn that they have successfully established the right keyword density in the past and it has helped them rank their pages. The exact keyword density varied – I heard that the best place is between 2% and 10%, depending on who you spoke to (and in what year) and what industry they used it in.

So the myth about keyword density has a grain of truth to it. Because it used to work.

But let’s be clear: there is no “industry standard” for keyword density.

Google downplayed keyword density back in 2006, when former Googler Matt Cutts shared some advice on writing helpful articles that readers will love. In part he wrote:

“… in the space on the page, I recommend that you think more about words and variants (” long tail “) and less about the density of keywords or repeated phrases.”

In a 2011 video, Cutts was asked, “What’s the ideal keyword density for a page?”

But the Google search engine has grown significantly since 2011. Today, it is not unusual to find certain pages ranked for specific keywords without using the keyword for which it is ranked on the page.

Keywords are absolutely important. But there is no magic keyword to content ratio to guarantee traffic and rankings.

Eric Enge, president of Pilot Holding, wondered why Google was even concerned about keyword density. Enge said:

Corporate-level SEO consultant Jessica Bowman said she was shocked to see Google define the keyword density that Google and SEO leaders have been questioning for years. She also said:

Marie Haynes, owner of Marie Haynes Consulting, also said she was quite surprised that the Google course provided specific advice on keyword density. She wondered if perhaps the person responsible for writing the content for this course was not fully SEO experienced.

Word counter and SEO. Where did this 300-word advice come from? I am very suspicious of the Yoast site. Compare this quote:

“We advise you to write more than 300 words for regular posts or pages, while product descriptions should be more than 200 words. Why? More words helps Google better understand what your text is about. Overall, Google has a tendency to rank longer articles higher. ”

To what Google says in its run:

See the similarity? It could be a coincidence. Or not.

The representatives of the Google search engine repeatedly said that the number of words or the length of the content was not a ranking factor. Here’s what John Mueller said on Google:

Benu Aggarwal, president and founder of Milestone, said Google has no place in any discussion of creating high-quality content when it comes to word count. Aggarwal said:

Regardless, the correlation between word count and ranking has long been a hot topic in SEO research. The problem, as always, is that correlation studies are generally for entertainment purposes only.

I started working in SEO in 2007. At around this time, 250 words was considered the best practice for blog posts. After that, it basically started to grow every few years. 250 became 500, then 1000, then 1500. Recently I saw HubSpot claim that 2100-2400 is the ideal length for a blog post.

We also had some popular concepts like 10x content and skyscraper content (until people figured out “results could vary” and not all wanted to read the short story before learning how to screw a light bulb in).

My advice on writing content is simple: write what’s worth. It should be long enough to be comprehensive and better than what your competition has posted.

Word count is really one of those “it depends” situations – it depends on the type of content, format, purpose, audience, industry, search intent, and many other variables. Additionally, blog posts are not product pages or any other type of page. As Enge told me:

Why is it wrong. Google said, “All course instructors are Google employees who are experts in their field.” But this advice clearly questions the validity of this course and the value of the certification.

This situation made me think of a quote from the movie “Inception”:

“An idea is like a virus. Resistant. Highly contagious. And even the tiniest grain of an idea can grow. It can grow to define you or destroy you. “

Replace “idea” with “SEO myth” in this sentence, and that’s the problem. Someone from (or on behalf of) Google has written this course. I suspect that many Google employees have viewed and agreed to the content of this course.

Now, many are predicting that some people will use this course to claim they have “SEO Certification” from Google.

There have been many bad myths about SEO over the years. However, most of these myths have always been traced back to conclusions drawn by practitioners and influencers publishing articles or ‘research’, speaking at conferences, or sharing updates on social media.

Google has provided many general SEO best practice tips, but nothing as specific and utterly wrong as it before – let alone digital marketing training that finishes with official Google certification.

Bowman said it was another reminder that you need to be careful what kind of content you read – because sometimes it is outdated advice, even if it was recently posted. Bowman also said:

In fact, most representatives of the Google search engine have tried to debunk these bad SEO myths in the past. Repeatedly.

Why do we care. Google touted the certification as a way to upgrade or retrain employees. Problem: This course has some bad SEO advice. Everyone who attends this course learns bad practices that someone will have to help them unlearn at some point.

Yes, the course is now “free”. But people are investing their time (which is one thing they can never get back) on this certification, all in order to learn some bad SEO practices that wouldn’t even help you rank ten years ago.

While Sullivan dismissed it, saying it could be ignored, those attending the course are unlikely to read his tweet by disavowing it. Or other tweets and social media updates calling for inaccuracies. Or articles that summon him, including this one. This is the problem. And it’s one that cannot be ignored.

Jori Ford, director of marketing at FoodBoss, has praised Sullivan for his response, but he hopes to see a more thoughtful response that outlines what Google is doing to improve / improve rather than saying don’t follow the advice. Ford said:

In 2016, Google said SEO certification was a “bad idea”. Well, they were right. Here we are in 2022 and SEO is part of Google’s digital marketing certification. And it sure proves to be problematic, just a few days after it was launched as part of digital marketing certification.

Google is a trusted authority. It is the largest search engine in the world. Most of the people taking this course (again taught by Google employees who are experts in the field) trust the information they teach about SEO. Hopefully, Google will update this course and be taken over by real SEO experts.

If Google continues to teach SEO myths, those myths will continue to spread like a virus. Only this time the myth comes straight from Google itself.

New on Search Engine Land

About The Author

Danny Goodwin is the Senior Editor of Search Engine Land. In addition to writing everyday about SEO, PPC and more for Search Engine Land, Goodwin also manages a list of experts in the field. He also helps in the programming of our SMX – Search Marketing Expo conference series. Prior to joining Search Engine Land, Goodwin was executive editor of the Search Engine Journal, where he led the brand’s editorial initiatives. He was also an editor at Search Engine Watch. He has spoken at many major search and virtual event conferences, and gained his knowledge from a wide variety of publications and podcasts.

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