Widespread SEO Myths
SEO myths are running rampant right now, and the rise of LLMs only accelerates the problem. These tools act like aggregators, pulling in and repeating the same widely circulated best practices, even when those practices do not translate into rankings, clicks, or leads. When everyone repeats the same advice, it starts to feel true, even if it is not producing results. The biggest risk is building an SEO strategy on consensus instead of outcomes.
Best Things SEOs Can Do to Avoid the Myths
The best SEOs in the immediate future will not be the ones who follow the crowd. They will test, test often, and measure what actually converts to leads. They will review SERPs constantly, study what competitors are doing, and stay willing to adapt when the landscape changes. The best way to stop buying into myths is to try new things, track results over time, and let performance data guide decisions. This is exactly why Rankings Playbook started in the first place, to test and scale techniques instead of repeating generic advice with the hopes of sharing those results.
Things I Consider Myths
Schema: Schema is rarely the thing that props a page up. It can help with rich results, but it is not a ranking factor, and hyper extensive schema on every page is usually overkill.
Page speed and CWVs: Core Web Vitals and page speed are not make or break if users are not experiencing problems. Improve obvious friction, but do not obsess over scores.
AI generated content: AI content cannot rank is also a myth. AI content can rank if it follows spam policies and guidelines. The idea that Google can reliably detect and penalize all AI writing is overstated.
Content is king: Do not confuse good content with rankable content. Relevancy and topical authority matter more. You can spend a year writing the best piece on a competitive keyword and still not rank if you lack the authority signals needed to compete.