Myth #1: The Higher Your Google PageRank (PR), the Higher You'll be in the Search Results Listing. This myth is frequent, and is the source of many complaints. People often notice that a site with a lower PageRank than theirs is listed above them, and get upset. While pages with a higher PageRank do tend to rank better, it is perfectly normal for a site to appear higher in the results listings even though it has a lower PageRank than competing pages.

Myth #2: The Google Toolbar will List Your Actual PageRank - When Google created their toolbar it was a boon for many Webmasters as this was the first time we got to see any value related to our PageRank. However, the toolbar has also caused some confusion. The toolbar does not show your actual PageRank, only an approximation of it.

Myth #3: PageRank is a Value Based on the Number of Incoming Links to Your Site - This myth is a frequent source of incorrect assumptions about Google. People will often see that a site with fewer incoming links than their own site has a higher PageRank, and assume that PageRank is not based on incoming links. The fact is that PageRank is based on incoming links, but not just on the number of them. Instead PageRank is based on the value of your incoming links.

Myth #4: Searching for Incoming Links on Google Using "link:" will Show you all Your Backwards Links - Similar to Myth #3, people will sometimes look for backwards links to a site on Google and fine none, but if the site does have a PR listed and it is in Google's cache, they know that the toolbar isn't just guessing. The reason for this is that Google does not list all the links that it knows about, only those that contribute above a certain amount of PageRank.

Myth #5: Being Listed in the Open Directory Project Gives you a Special PageRank Bonus - Google uses Open Directory Project (DMOZ.org), to power its directory. Coupling that fact with the observation that sites listed in DMOZ often get decent and inexplicable PageRank boosts, has lead many to conclude that Google gives a special bonus to sites listed in DMOZ. This is simply not true.

Myth #6: Being Listed in Yahoo! Gives you a Special PageRank Bonus - This myth evolved much in the same was as Myth #5. Google has been partnered with Yahoo! for a number of years by providing secondary search results, and just recently (Fall, 2002), Yahoo! started using Google to provide primary search results. Because Yahoo! uses Google, many have assumed that Google also uses Yahoo!, which is not the case. The only PageRank you will gain from being listed in Yahoo! is the same as the PR you'd gain from any other site of equivalent weight.

Myth #7: Google Uses Meta Tags to Rank Your Site - This myth is left over from the days when most search engines used meta tags. However, Google has never used them. This fact may be contested by some people, so I wouldn't post it without proof.

Myth #8: Google Will Not Index Dynamic Pages - Some search engines have, in the past, had problems with dynamic pages, that is, pages that use a query string. This was not due to any technical limitation, but rather, because search engines knew that it was possible to create a set of an infinite amount of dynamic pages, or they could create an endless loop. In either case, the search engines did not want their crawlers to be caught spidering endless numbers of dynamically generated pages. Google is a newer search engine, and has never had a problem with query strings. However, some dynamic pages can still throw Google for a loop.

Myth #9: Google Will Not List Your Site, or Penalize it, if you use Popups - This is a relatively minor myth but it still pops up (pun intended) every once in a while. Google has an advertising program called Adwords, and one of their policies is that they do not allow sites that use popup windows to participate in this program.

Myth #10: Google will Penalize you if You're Linked to by a Link Farm - Google has policies against the use of artificial means to increase your PageRank, which specifically include things like joining a link farm. Even so, Google can punish you if you link to a linkfarm from your site, or otherwise put hidden links in your pages. So the simple truth is that you can be punished for what you do to your own site, but not for getting linked by another site.

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