Why?

Well, particularly because people want results of what service does, which is rank your website very high and in prominent ranks within search engines.

The following are most common scams within SEO industry, amounts within titles can be any amount, so I have inserted an "X" to signify numbers.

Ok,...

SEO Myth #1 -- "If You Build It, They Will Come..."

Did you see movie "Field of Dreams"? Well, this is very much like it.

You develop a site or pay someone to develop one for you. And after its all finished, you tell all your friends to go look at it.

However there's only one problem, only ones that have looked at it are your friends who you told to go look at it.

Heck, its on World Wide Web, whole world should see it. Right? Wrong.

Having a website, doesn't simply "automatically" alert everyone to go see it. People don't just start "showing up" on your site, just because it is YOUR website.

If you want to have visitors to your website (and, hopefully, you do), you have to take ACTION and do things for it to happen. a.k.a Advertise. You have to get word out, about your site.

And if done correctly Search Engine Optimization will position your website correctly on search engines under your appropriate keywords and people will come.

SEO Myth #2 -- "Get A Guaranteed #1 Position In XX days/weeks..."

This has got to be one of worst claims ever, and most used scam with engines of all time. I'm sure you've seen it titled this way or a variation thereof.

See, engines constantly change and alter their "rules" or "algorithms" to which and how they rank websites. So, constantly having a site ranked #1 is almost impossible, as we don't know how or when these rules will change.

But twist to this Myth is that getting a #1 position is easy, however, it's usually only for keywords that will not do you any good, or keywords that people are not searching for.

So, whats good of having a #1 rank for keywords that no one searches for? There isn't one. For those unaware it's like; "WOW #1 in search engines!!", however, it's not bringing you any traffic, since it is a very UNcommon keyword phrase.

Being #1 with very common searched for keywords and phrases is what SEO is all about. And this is where fierce competition in search engines are.

SEO Myth #3 -- "Submit To X,XXX Search Engines..."

Now, this may sound good at first, but search engines that your site are submitted to, no one knows about or knows anything about them. So what good are submissions?

And as above they won't bring you any traffic, as no one knows about them.

Most or all of these search engines are too obscure and are "unknowns", and they aren't being used much, if at all. So, adding your website to a directory or search engine database of some 45,000,000 web pages or more, is no good.

I've publicly complained about lack of click-through traffic of top ranked sites from both Yahoo and MSN search http://searchengineoptimism.com/Google_refers_70_percent.html Even though most of my web sites and those of clients are very highly ranked in all three search engines, Yahoo and MSN send less than one quarter of all search traffic to any of those sites. Google sends rest - over 75% of search traffic referred comes from searches originating on Google's English speaking sites in UK, Australia, Canada, etc.

Is that because nobody can see past PPC ads (Overture Sponsor Ads) on MSN search? No, "Sponsored Sites" aren't THAT dominant on SERP. Is it because only one fourth number of people search at MSN and Yahoo? No, it can't be explained that way either. Who knows? Maybe those who search at MSN and Yahoo simply want to search without bothering to visit those top ranked sites? Could it be that blue color and "Sponsored Sites" label actually dissuades people from dropping down to organic results or those sponsored links are more clicked at MSN than at Google? I just don't know.

If test I ran today proves to be a reflection of where they are going with their new search technology though, I'll be nothing short of ecstatic on public unveiling of "New" MSN search. As a matter of fact, I may be about to fall in love with MSN search.

In this test, I did some searches for several terms I am targeting for myself as well as several other phrases I'm targeting for SEO clients. ALL of those searches rank our sites in first page or two at all three of top tier search engines. The search I've emphasized here in this test though, was for phrase "Domain Name Tutorial" at: http://www.website101.com/Domain_Name/

I chose that phrase because, inexplicably, it doesn't rank well for me at current official MSN search and may prove to be a perfect example of difference between new and old versions on public launch of MSN searh later this year or early in 2005.