The internet and online experience evolves at an extremely fast rate. It only makes sense that optimizing your website for the search engines would also morph and evolve as years go by. That can make for some problems. While the internet is evolving, all the old information is still available. You will find SEO guides, blog posts and even companies that offer outdated information. Don't waste your precious time with this "Old Hat" SEO. Make sure you avoid these common outdated tactics:

1. Keyword META Tag - At one time search engines were not very advanced. There was no "Google algorithm". Quite often, if you used the META Keyword tag you could see results. That is certainly not the case anymore. There is really no benefit to using this META tag and stuffing it with keywords. Google is much more interested in your content. Even though many popular SEO plugins have a keywords field, the only reason to use it is superstition. Google themselves have come out and stated that this tag is not used in search rankings.

2. Search Engine Submission - It actually blows my mind that companies still offer this as a service. If companies still sell this service, then people must be buying it. You don't have to. Gone are the days where you have to manually submit your website to the search engines. Search engines, in particular Google, will find your content. Their robots are scouring the net constantly, if you have backlinks pointing towards your site it will get found even faster. Why pay someone to submit your website to the search engines when they will find you anyways?

3. One for One Link Exchanges - Ahh, the link exchange. This was the go-to move for Search Engine Optimization specialists of yesteryear. This was so popular many websites would have a "Link To Us" page that prompted visitors to offer a link exchange. Like any SEO tactic that gets abused, Google caught on to this and took steps to make the one for one link exchange much less effective. For the most part, a one for one link exchange simply cancels itself out now. Of course, if Adobe or some other ridiculous high PR site offers you a link exchange I would still do it, I just wouldn't scour the net looking for link partners.

Search Engine Optimization is a long and daunting task. If you want to make sure your SEO efforts are their most effective, then use the most current tactics you can find. You need to avoid falling into the Old Hat SEO trap. Things like keyword meta tags, search engine submissions and link exchanges are just time traps that lost their effectiveness years ago. SEO takes a person who is constant and current, make sure you are one of those people and you will reap the benefits.