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Can you always believe what people say?
Aaron Wall is a noted Search Engine expert who really does seem to know what he's talking about. I must admit that I did hesitate using the term 'expert' a moment ago because, all too often, an expert is simply a drip under pressure but that definition certainly doesn't apply to Aaron Wall.

A few days ago I was reading a rant that Aaron was making about Google - and the smoke they blow at Webmasters. And I had to agree with him on just about every point he was making.

For us as Webmasters it's important to understand that sometimes Google does not always tell us the complete unvarnished truth. Perhaps the Google employees who are talking to Webmasters actually believe what they're saying but, unfortunately for them, what they say is often completely different to what Google actually does.

Of course if someone with the stature of Matt Cutts says something all his sycophantic followers are going to repeat it until everyone believes it. However, that doesn't change the fact that all too often what actually happens in practice is completely different to what Matt and his colleagues say.

Lets look at a few examples here.

Content is king
Google will tell you that the way to good search engine placement is by providing quality original content. Take a little wander around the Net via Google's search engine results pages (SERPS) and you will soon begin to notice that the top sites more often than not only have average or even poor content and as for it being original ... well that's just a laugh.

You see, it's not really about content at all otherwise those mediocre sites wouldn't be anywhere on the first five pages of Google's SERPS. Instead, it's all about links. Google likes to tell you that they can judge the value of a site by the sites that link to it but that's another little white lie.

Google will tell you that if you have a quality site others will link to you and that will help them judge your site. The only problem with that is that it's almost a fairy tale. Links can be and definitely are manipulated and the mediocre sites on the top of the SERPS are a clear indication that they have a linking strategy in place that is helping them get their crap content to the top of the SERPS.

Duplicate Content
While we're talking about content let's also look at duplicate content. Google will tell you that if you use the same content that others have used your pages won't rank well in the SERPS.

Once again, take a wander around the Net via Google's SERPS and you will soon start to see that there is a lot of duplicate content out there that is appearing high in the SERPS. Steve showed me an example of that yesterday. On the first page of the SERPS for a reasonable term were four sites all using the same content - it was easy to spot because Steve wrote the copy that appeared for the top site and had been copied word for word by other three sites.

I have to say that I am always going to be a big fan of original content. Neither Steve nor I need to copy anyone's work to get good search engine placement but if you don't have that skill ...

Links
Now let's go back to links - those wonderful indicators that will come naturally if you have good content and will tell Google that your site is worth appearing on the top of the SERPS.

Of course, Google isn't going to let anyone buy or sell links and if they catch you they'll put a negative value on those links that you did buy or sell. There was a time when that was quite acceptable to Google but then they found that they could money from it too and once they started making money selling links they got greedy and have tried to stop everyone else doing what they do.

Instead they keep telling people that links will come if you have a great site. It's a bit like 'build it and they will come' and just as delusional ... but Google said it so it must be right.

Of course it isn't right so if you want to get your site up in the rankings you really have to work hard to manipulate the linking system. And lots of people are doing it and Google can't stop it.

Unfortunately it's not something that happens overnight for most of us. But once you understand that the only one who will really deliver the links to your sites that Google wants to see is yourself the way ahead becomes clearer.

So there are just a couple of things for you to think about. In this business never accept anything anyone says without questioning it first and comparing it with your own experience.

Sometimes what some gurus and spokesman say can be quite different to what actually happens ... and not every expert is a drip under pressure.