36 More SEO Myths That Won’t Die But Need To

The overwhelming response to my last article, 36 SEO Myths That Won’t Die But Need To, prompted a follow-up feature, and in the process I ended up with a significant number of additional myths. Apparently, our industry is far better at creating myths than eliminating them.

That shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Every time Google introduces a new feature, publishes a clarification, or quietly changes the way results are displayed, a new round of misinformation begins. Years ago it was PageRank, meta keywords, and duplicate content panic. Today it is AI Overviews, E-E-A-T misunderstandings, “ranking in ChatGPT,” and the belief that publishing 500 AI-generated pages is somehow a content strategy.

Technology changes. Human behavior doesn’t.

People still want shortcuts. They still want certainty where none exists. They still want a checklist of “the top five things” without first understanding the actual problem.

This second list focuses less on tactical myths and more on the organizational and strategic misunderstandings that hold companies back. In many businesses, the biggest SEO problem is not technical at all. It is internal misunderstanding—who owns SEO, how success is measured, what actually drives rankings, and what deserves investment.

And now, without further ado, 36 more SEO myths that need to go.

1. SEO Should Be Owned By IT

Because SEO touches site architecture, crawling, rendering, templates, and development workflows, many organizations assume it belongs inside the IT department. That is usually a mistake.

SEO is fundamentally a marketing discipline. Its purpose is customer acquisition, demand capture, brand visibility, and revenue growth. It influences how your company is discovered and how potential customers move through the buying journey. That makes it a business function first and a technical function second.

IT is an essential partner. Development teams make execution possible. But asking IT to own SEO strategy because they manage the servers is like asking accounting to run your brand strategy because they understand spreadsheets.

Marketing must lead. IT must enable. Confusing those roles creates friction, delays, and usually a lot of missed opportunity.

2. SEO Is A Subset Of Social Media

There are plenty of intersections between SEO and social media, but one is not a subset of the other.

Social platforms help create awareness, audience growth, mentions, and often the conditions that lead to editorial links. SEO helps capture existing demand and build long-term visibility through search. One supports discovery; the other supports findability.

They strengthen each other, but neither sits underneath the other. SEO is no more a subset of social media than it is of public relations, customer service, or brand marketing.

Treating SEO as “the thing social helps” is just as shortsighted as treating social as “the thing SEO supports.” The strongest organizations understand that these are interconnected systems, not parent and child departments.

3. SEO Is A Standalone Activity

One of the most expensive mistakes companies make is treating SEO like a separate project rather than an operating layer.

They launch a site first and then ask someone to “add SEO.” They redesign navigation, rebuild templates, rewrite URLs, and only afterward bring in the SEO team to clean up the damage. This is like building a house and asking where the electrical wiring should go after the drywall is finished.

SEO starts much earlier:
site architecture
navigation
taxonomy
content structure
internal linking
technical accessibility

These are not finishing touches. They are structural decisions.

SEO is not a bolt-on feature. It is embedded in how the business builds and maintains its digital presence. You do not “finish” SEO any more than you finish sales or customer service.

4. First Launch The Site, Then Add SEO

This deserves its own myth because it happens constantly.

A site redesign without SEO involvement is often a beautifully designed disaster. I have seen companies spend six figures on a redesign, only to lose years of accumulated search visibility because nobody mapped redirects, preserved internal link equity, or protected high-performing landing pages.

Designers optimize for aesthetics. Developers optimize for deployment. SEO protects discoverability.

All three must work together.

Bringing SEO in after launch is usually just a more expensive way to learn why it should have been there before launch.

5. SEO Is Separate From PPC, PR, Content, And Brand

This silo thinking costs companies real money.

SEO does not exist independently from paid search, public relations, content strategy, brand development, or even customer experience. In fact, many of the strongest SEO gains come from these intersections.

A strong PR campaign creates authoritative links and brand mentions. Paid search reveals high-converting queries and landing page insights. Content strategy builds topical authority. Brand trust improves click-through rates.

SEO is not the center of the marketing universe, nor should it be. But it should absolutely be integrated with the rest of it.

The best SEO programs are never isolated. They are embedded.

6. SEO Is Free Traffic

No, it isn’t.

Organic traffic may be more cost-efficient over time than paid acquisition, but it is not free. There are real costs involved:

Strategy
Content creation
Technical implementation
Design
Development
Authority building
Analytics
Ongoing optimization

People like to call SEO “free traffic” because clicks do not arrive with a visible invoice attached the way paid search clicks do. That does not mean they were free. It means the invoice showed up somewhere else—usually payroll.

The companies that treat SEO as free tend to underinvest in it, then wonder why competitors keep outranking them.

7. I Can Hire One Junior SEO And They’ll Handle Everything

This is one of the most dangerous assumptions in hiring.

SEO is not one skill. It spans technical analysis, content strategy, information architecture, analytics, authority building, stakeholder management, and increasingly, understanding how AI-driven search surfaces information.

Hiring one person with a year of experience and expecting them to “run SEO” for an entire organization is not a strategy. It is delegation by wishful thinking.

Junior practitioners can be excellent. But they need systems, leadership, and support. They need senior decision-making around prioritization and tradeoffs.

You cannot outsource strategic maturity to a job title.

8. Just Give Me The Top 5 Things To Fix

Preferably before anyone has looked at the site.

This question is as useful as asking, “How much does it cost to fix the average house?”

It depends.

What kind of house? What is broken? How competitive is the market? How much technical debt exists? How strong is the authority profile? What is the business actually trying to achieve?

There are no universal top five fixes. There are only priorities based on context.

Anyone handing out identical SEO prescriptions without diagnosis is usually selling a template, not expertise.

9. Senior Executives Always Know The Right Keywords

Enter the CEO keyword list.

These are the trophy terms: broad, high-volume phrases that sound important in a boardroom but often convert terribly in reality. They are usually driven by ego rather than economics.

“Rank us for marketing.”

Wonderful. Which kind? For whom? At what stage of intent? What is the actual commercial value?

Meanwhile, the real opportunity often sits in highly specific, intent-rich queries nobody in the executive meeting mentioned.

This is a delicate problem because you do not want to embarrass the CEO. But you also do not want to spend a year chasing visibility for terms that do not grow the business.

Choose wisely.

10. Spending More On Google Ads Helps Organic Rankings

This myth should have died years ago, but it still shows up.

Paid search and organic search are separate systems. Buying more Google Ads does not buy more organic trust. There is no hidden arrangement where ad spend improves rankings.

What paid search can do is provide excellent intelligence. It reveals query behavior, conversion patterns, message testing opportunities, and landing page performance. That information can absolutely improve your SEO strategy.

But paying for ads does not purchase organic visibility.

If it did, SEO would be much simpler—and much more expensive.

11. It’s Either SEO Or PPC

This is like asking whether you should breathe in or breathe out.

SEO and PPC solve different problems. Paid search gives speed, immediate testing, and fast visibility. SEO gives compounding returns, authority, and long-term acquisition.

The strongest strategies use both.

Paid search can validate which opportunities deserve long-term SEO investment. SEO can reduce dependence on paid channels over time.

Choosing one and rejecting the other is rarely strategic. It is usually budget panic disguised as philosophy.

12. We’re A Big Brand, So We Don’t Need SEO

I hear this from well-known companies far more often than I should.

Brand recognition helps, of course. It improves trust, click-through rates, and often link acquisition. But brand awareness is not technical optimization, and fame does not guarantee discoverability.

Large brands still lose rankings. They still lose visibility. They still get outranked by smaller, more focused competitors that better satisfy intent.

Recognition does not fix poor site architecture. Trust does not replace crawlability. Being famous does not excuse weak internal linking or poor content structure.

Even household names disappear from valuable search journeys when they assume the market will simply find them.

It won’t.

Ask any major publisher that lost traffic to a niche specialist with stronger topical authority.

13. One Conference Tactic Is The Secret To Victory

Someone attends a conference, hears about a clever tactic, and comes back convinced they have discovered the missing lever.

Usually they have discovered garnish, not the meal.

Advanced tactics work only when the fundamentals are already strong. Structured data enhancements do not rescue weak architecture. Internal linking tricks do not fix thin content. Entity optimization does not save a site nobody trusts.

Most advanced SEO tactics are multipliers. They amplify what is already working. They do not replace the basics.

The wider the foundation, the higher the building.

People love secret tactics because they feel efficient. But there is no substitute for doing the boring foundational work correctly.

14. We Already Have Plenty Of Links

Authority is not a static asset.

Many businesses treat backlinks like trophies that can be collected once and admired forever. That is not how the web works.

Old links signal trust and history. New links signal continued relevance and importance. You need both.

A site living entirely on authority earned five years ago looks very different from a site that continues attracting mentions, references, and editorial attention today.

Links are not just about quantity. They are signals that the market still cares.

Authority compounds, but it also ages.

Link earning is not a project you finish. It is evidence that your business remains worth talking about.

15. SEO Takes Forever To Start

This myth can be very convenient for bad consultants.

“Just give it more time” is an excellent way to keep billing while producing very little.

Yes, some SEO outcomes take time. Authority growth takes time. Trust takes time. Major structural changes take time to be crawled, processed, and reflected in rankings.

But diagnosis should not take forever. Prioritization should not take forever. Technical clarity should not take forever.

You should be seeing movement—if not in rankings, then in understanding, implementation, and measurable progress.

Patience is necessary.

Vagueness is not.

If months pass and all you have received is another explanation of why patience is important, you may not have an SEO strategy. You may have a subscription.

16. SEO Is Always A Massive IT Project

Sometimes it is. Often it isn’t.

Companies frequently assume SEO requires a full replatform, six months of development, and a steering committee before anything meaningful can happen. That assumption kills momentum.

Yes, there are cases where serious engineering work is required. Site migrations, rendering failures, faceted navigation disasters, and broken information architecture can absolutely demand large technical projects.

But many wins are operational:

improving internal linking
consolidating duplicate pages
fixing title tags and templates
strengthening content hubs
cleaning indexation issues
improving crawl paths

The myth that SEO always means a giant IT initiative often becomes an excuse for doing nothing.

17. Google Penalizes Duplicate Content

I have said this for years: most duplicate content issues are filtering issues, not penalties.

People hear “duplicate content” and imagine Google sending punishment. Usually what is happening is much simpler. Search engines are trying to determine which version of a page should be treated as primary.

Tracking parameters, printer-friendly pages, faceted navigation, session IDs, syndicated content, and international variants all create versions of the same thing.

That is a canonicalization problem.

Not a moral failure.

Google is trying to reduce redundancy and improve clarity for users, not punish the existence of similar pages.

This is why canonical tags, internal consistency, and proper site structure matter so much.

Clarity solves most duplicate content problems.

Panic does not.

18. Meta Descriptions Control Your Entire Google Snippet

Meta descriptions do not function as commands to Google; they function as suggestions.

Many site owners assume that writing the perfect meta description guarantees that exact snippet will appear. In reality, Google often chooses otherwise. Depending on the query, it may pull snippet text from visible page copy, headings, lists, or other relevant sections of the page if that content appears to better match the user’s search intent.

This is why people obsess over writing flawless meta descriptions and then wonder why Google displays something else.

Meta descriptions still matter because they can improve click-through rates when Google chooses to use them. They are persuasive ad copy for the SERP, not fixed instructions for the search engine.

Write them for humans, not as though they are legally binding contracts.

19. A Link From A High Authority Domain Guarantees Rankings

People get hypnotized by domain-level metrics.

“Yes, but it’s a DR 90 site!”

Wonderful. From which page?

A link from a powerful domain is not automatically a powerful link. Page-level authority, topical relevance, editorial context, and placement matter far more than the logo on the domain.

A highly relevant editorial citation from a strong page can be extremely valuable. A buried mention on an archive page no one visits may be functionally meaningless.

This is why link analysis requires actual thinking, not just score worship.

Not all links from powerful domains are powerful links.

Nuance matters.

20. Rankings Beyond Page One Are A Great KPI

I have seen agencies proudly report, “We now rank #27.”

That is not success.

Tracking rankings outside the top ten can be useful for measuring progress, especially when a campaign starts from nowhere. But presenting page-three visibility like a business win is performance theater.

If a keyword ranks on page three, the practical business impact is usually close to zero.

Traffic matters. Qualified traffic matters more. Conversions matter most.

A ranking without outcomes is simply a prettier version of hope.

This is why ranking reports alone are such dangerous comfort blankets. They create the illusion of progress without forcing the harder conversation about whether the business is actually growing.

21. Google Uses Chrome, Toolbar, And Browser Data Directly For Rankings

This theory refuses to disappear.

People assume Google must be using every possible behavioral signal from Chrome, Android, Analytics, and everything else to determine rankings.

Google certainly has enormous amounts of data. That does not mean every available signal becomes a ranking factor.

I have seen sites with dominant real-world engagement fail to rank, and weaker sites outrank them because they better satisfy intent, structure, and authority requirements.

People love secret ranking theories because they feel sophisticated.

Most rankings are still explained by fundamentals.

Not hidden browser conspiracies.

The more time you spend searching for invisible ranking signals, the less time you spend fixing visible problems.

22. SEO Is A Chess Game Of Tricks

Only if you are a spammer.

People love describing SEO as an endless duel where SEOs invent manipulations and Google tries to catch them. That certainly exists, but it is not where sustainable businesses should live.

Spam tactics come and go. Best practices remain surprisingly stable:

Clarity
Accessibility
Relevance
Authority
Trust
User satisfaction

The people constantly looking for loopholes usually end up becoming case studies in why shortcuts are expensive.

If your strategy depends on Google never noticing, it is not really a strategy.

It is a countdown.

23. More Tags On Blog Posts Means Better Rankings

I once heard someone confidently recommend using at least 40 tags on every blog post.

Forty.

Apparently taxonomy had become a lottery system.

Tags are organizational tools. They can help users navigate related content and, when used carefully, they can strengthen internal topic relationships. But they do not create authority simply by existing.

In fact, excessive tagging usually creates the opposite problem. Every unnecessary tag can generate a thin archive page with little unique value, poor internal relevance, and wasted crawl budget. Suddenly you have thousands of low-quality pages competing for indexation because someone believed “more tags” meant “more SEO.”

Use tags when they improve structure and user experience. If they exist only because someone told you search engines like large numbers, they probably shouldn’t exist at all.

24. Creating Fake Local Listings Improves Local SEO

Yes, people still try this.

Registering every office room, every phone extension, or every possible variation of a business name as a separate Google Business Profile is not a clever growth tactic. It is spam.

For a while, some businesses managed to gain visibility by flooding Google Places—and later Google My Business—with fake listings, fake suite numbers, and fake service locations. Some conference presentations even treated this like an advanced local SEO strategy.

It wasn’t.

It was abuse of the platform.

Local visibility is built through legitimate signals: real locations, real service areas, strong local landing pages, accurate citations, trustworthy reviews, and local authority built over time.

Shortcuts in local SEO tend to end the same way shortcuts in every other part of SEO end: with cleanup work.

25. Canonical Tags Are Just As Effective As 301 Redirects

They are not interchangeable.

A canonical tag is a hint. A 301 redirect is an instruction.

When you use a canonical tag, you are telling search engines which version of a page you would prefer they treat as primary. When you use a 301 redirect, you are telling both users and search engines that the old URL has moved and should be replaced.

Those are very different things.

Canonical tags are useful for handling product variations, filtered URLs, and duplication where multiple versions legitimately need to exist. Redirects are necessary when a page is actually gone and should no longer be accessed. Understanding when to use each type and why matters far more than knowing they both exist.

Treating them as substitutes creates confusion, weakens consolidation, and often causes ranking loss that could have been avoided with a cleaner implementation.

Technical SEO rewards precision. This is one of those places where precision matters.

26. Visible SEO Metrics Reveal The Full Truth

Years ago this myth centered around Toolbar PageRank. Today it has simply changed clothes.

Now it shows up as Domain Rating, Domain Authority, Trust Score, Authority Score, or whatever proprietary number your favorite tool puts in a dashboard.

These metrics can be useful for prioritization and comparison, but they are still estimates. They are models created by tool providers trying to approximate strength and trust across the web.

They are not Google.

A page with a lower visible authority score can outrank a stronger-looking competitor because it better satisfies intent, solves the user’s problem more clearly, or fits the query more precisely.

Use these metrics as directional indicators, not as final truth. The moment you start treating them like a direct window into Google’s ranking system, they become misleading.

The tool is helping you make decisions. It is not revealing the algorithm.

27. Bounce Rate Is A Ranking Factor

Bounce rate has been blamed for more SEO problems than it deserves.

People like simple explanations, and bounce rate feels like one. If users leave quickly, the page must be bad. If the page is bad, Google must rank it lower.

Reality is rarely that clean.

A bounce can mean dissatisfaction, but it can also mean the exact opposite. If someone searches for a phone number, finds it immediately, and leaves, that is technically a bounce and practically a success.

Bounce rate is often a reflection of intent matching, landing page purpose, and user behavior—not a universal quality score.

Google is not looking at your Google Analytics bounce rate as some master judgment of whether your page deserves rankings.

People spend far too much time trying to lower bounce rate and far too little time understanding why users arrived in the first place.

Context matters more than the metric.

28. Perfect HTML Validation Improves Rankings

Take any competitive search term and run a validation check on the top-ranking pages.

You will quickly discover that flawless code is not a prerequisite for strong rankings.

Search engines are remarkably good at dealing with imperfect HTML. They care far more about whether the page is accessible, understandable, useful, and technically crawlable than whether every validator gives you a green checkmark.

That does not mean validation is useless. Clean code helps prevent rendering issues, unexpected behavior, and long-term maintenance headaches. It is good engineering.

But your ranking problem is rarely caused by one unclosed div.

People often reach for validation because it is measurable and neat. Rankings are usually influenced by messier things like content quality, authority, and site architecture.

Those are harder to fix, which is exactly why they matter more.

29. Cleaning Up HTML Automatically Improves Site Speed

Not usually.

Performance conversations often focus on the wrong bottleneck because visible code cleanup feels productive.

The real problems are usually elsewhere:

heavy JavaScript
render-blocking resources
poor caching
image bloat
slow server response
third-party scripts
unnecessary frameworks

Minifying a few lines of HTML while shipping enormous JavaScript bundles is like reorganizing your desk while ignoring the fire in the hallway.

Site speed work should be prioritized by impact, not aesthetics.

Cleaner code can be useful. Faster user experience is the actual goal.

Those are not always the same thing.

30. Google Cannot Detect Artificial Link Schemes

This is optimism disguised as strategy.

Three-way links, private blog networks, link wheels, disguised paid placements—people continue to believe these structures are invisible if they are “smart enough.”

They are not.

Natural link profiles follow patterns. Artificial ones do too. Search engines employ people and systems specifically designed to recognize manipulation across large link graphs.

The assumption that obvious manufactured authority will remain permanently hidden usually ends badly.

If your link strategy depends on Google never noticing what you are doing, that is not a strategy. It is borrowed time.

The people selling these systems rarely stick around for the cleanup.

You do.

31. SEO Without Link Building Is Complete SEO

There are agencies that claim to offer comprehensive SEO while refusing to address authority building at all.

That is incomplete.

Links are not the only ranking signal, but in competitive environments they remain one of the strongest ways search engines evaluate trust, reputation, and relevance.

You can improve technical structure, fix internal architecture, and produce excellent content, but if stronger competitors continue earning editorial citations, expert mentions, and authoritative references, they will usually remain stronger entities in search.

Modern link building should look more like digital PR than old-school link exchanges:

original research
expert commentary
industry partnerships
earned media
useful resources worth citing

The method changed.

The importance did not.

32. SEO Is About Rankings, Not Conversion

This is where a surprising amount of SEO work falls apart.

A page can rank first for a high-volume keyword and still produce very little business value. Traffic alone is not the goal. If visitors arrive and do not convert, subscribe, inquire, buy, or move deeper into the relationship with the brand, then rankings have solved only part of the problem.

Too many SEO campaigns stop measuring at visibility. Rankings become the report, while everything that happens after the click is treated as someone else’s responsibility.

That approach misses the point.

Search visibility creates opportunity, but revenue comes from what happens after the visit. This is why title tags, meta descriptions, URL structure, landing page clarity, trust signals, internal navigation, and conversion paths all matter. Improving click-through rate from position four can sometimes outperform moving to position three. Improving the landing page experience can outperform both.

A strong SEO strategy connects rankings to outcomes. Otherwise, you are optimizing for applause instead of results.

33. .edu And .gov Links Carry Magical Weight

People still talk about .edu and .gov backlinks as though the extension itself gives the link special power.

It doesn’t.

Matt Cutts went on record on the topic of .edu links in an interview with me:
“There is nothing in the algorithm itself, though, that says: oh, .edu–give that link more weight. It is just .edu links tend to have higher PageRank, because more people link to .edu’s or .gov’s.”

Educational and government websites often have strong link profiles, long-standing authority, and stricter publishing standards. That is why many of those links perform well. It is the environment around the link that matters.

A forgotten resource page on a university subdomain is not automatically a strong link. Meanwhile, a highly relevant editorial citation from a respected industry publication may be far more valuable.

People chase the domain extension because it feels simple.

Google evaluates the page, the relevance, and the credibility behind it.

That is much harder to fake.

34. Never Link Out—Preserve All Your Link Juice

There was a time when some site owners treated every outbound link like a financial loss.

The theory was simple: if PageRank flows through links, then linking to other websites must weaken your own authority. The solution was to avoid outbound links entirely.

That created a lot of unhelpful websites.

Useful outbound links improve trust. They support claims, cite sources, provide additional context, and help users move deeper into a topic. A page that references authoritative sources often feels stronger and more credible than one that behaves as though no expertise exists outside its own domain.

Search engines understand this context as well.

Of course, linking carelessly to weak or manipulative sites creates problems. Outbound links should be deliberate. But refusing to cite strong sources because of fear over “losing link juice” is not strategic thinking.

It usually signals a misunderstanding of how authority works on the web.

The strongest websites are often the ones most comfortable linking to other strong websites.

35. AI Overviews Mean SEO Is Dead

Every major Google change seems to trigger the same obituary.

SEO was declared dead after Panda, after Penguin, after featured snippets, after voice search, and now again because of AI Overviews and generative search experiences.

Search behavior is changing. Some informational queries are answered directly in the results. Some clicks that once went to publishers now stop on the SERP. Visibility is becoming more distributed across search results, AI summaries, video surfaces, and platform-specific discovery.

That is real.

But it does not mean search optimization stopped mattering.

If anything, authority has become more important. Large language models and AI-driven search systems rely heavily on recognized entities, trusted sources, expert citations, and strong brand signals across the web. Businesses that are consistently cited, referenced, and associated with expertise are more likely to appear in those environments.

The tactics evolve. The need for authority does not.

Companies that treated SEO as a shortcut feel threatened by these changes. Companies that treated it as a long-term visibility strategy usually adapt much faster.

Search did not disappear. It became more complex.

36. SEO Ends When You Reach Page One

Some businesses treat first-page rankings like a graduation ceremony.

The keyword reaches page one, the report looks good, and attention moves somewhere else under the assumption that the work is complete.

That assumption usually leads to slow decline.

Competitors continue improving. Search intent shifts. Google changes layouts. New features reduce click-through rates. AI Overviews absorb attention. New entrants publish stronger content. Existing pages age and become less useful.

Visibility in search is not permanent because the environment itself is never static.

The companies that maintain strong rankings over time are the ones that keep working after the ranking is achieved. They update content, improve internal linking, strengthen supporting pages, expand authority signals, and protect the assets they have already built.

Getting to page one matters.

Staying there requires the same discipline that got you there in the first place.

Final Thoughts

SEO myths survive because they offer easy answers to difficult problems. They promise shortcuts, simplify complexity, and make it easier to sell quick fixes than to explain how search actually works.

The cost of believing them is real. Businesses waste time chasing meaningless metrics, investing in tactics that create no lasting value, and ignoring the structural work that actually improves long-term visibility.

Search engines continue to evolve, but the fundamentals remain remarkably consistent. Relevance, authority, trust, technical accessibility, and a strong user experience still matter far more than clever tricks or temporary loopholes.

Most SEO success comes from doing the basics well, doing them consistently, and continuing to improve long after the first rankings appear.

The myths may never fully disappear, but they should never be allowed to shape strategy.

Last Updated: May 21, 2026

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For more information on Google Analytics, including how to opt out from certain data collection, please visit https://www.google.com/analytics. If you opt out of any service, you may not enjoy the full functionality of the Website.

Other Third Party Tracking Tools. We may also collect or receive information from third parties, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and/or other third-party social media and similar sites.

How to Access Your Personal Information

If you have provided personal, billing or other voluntarily provided information, you may access, review and make changes to it via instructions found on the Website or by emailing us at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com. To manage your receipt of marketing and non-transactional communications, you may unsubscribe by clicking the “unsubscribe” link located on the bottom of any related email from the Company. Emails related to the purchase or delivery of orders are provided automatically – Customers are not able to opt out of transactional emails. We will try to accommodate any requests related to the management of Personal Information in a timely manner. However, it is not always possible to completely remove or modify information in our databases (for example, if we have a legal obligation to keep it for certain timeframes).

How We Use and Share the Information

We use the collected Information to understand customer needs, including regarding our Website services to:

present you with information through our Website and email services;
provide our services, process orders, and administer our programs;
maintain and improve our Website;
respond to your requests, and provide customer service, including in response to any problems that may arise, such as difficulties in navigating our Website or accessing certain features;
solicit your feedback, and to inform you about our products and services and those of our third-party marketing partners that we feel may be of interest or value to you;
personalize or display advertisements to you on third-party platforms;
improve our services or offerings; and
fulfill our legal or contractual obligations to you.

As with transactions elsewhere, when you purchase products, services, or programs via our Website, your credit card company will also retain certain information regarding your purchase. We will not otherwise provide any personal data to your credit card company without your permission.

We may share the Information collected with joint venture partners, affiliates, agents, current or prospective business partners, businesses under common control, third-party businesses or partners participating in administering our programs or services, or to those providing business functions such as technical support, customer service, marketing assistance, etc. These businesses will only have access to information as necessary to perform their functions and to the extent permitted by law.

In the event of the sale or transfer of our business to a third party buyer, including in the event of bankruptcy or liquidation, we may, as necessary, share your data with the buyer or transferee.

In the event that we have to collect on a debt owed to us by you, we may, as necessary, share your information with an attorney or a court of law to enforce our rights and collect what is owed.

Under certain circumstances we may be obligated or compelled to disclose the Information: when required by law, court order or government agency, or when disclosing such Information is reasonably required to protect the Company, its property, the Website, the safety of visitors or others.

Retargeting / Personalized and Behavioral Ads

We may, using the techniques described above, and in conjunction with third party marketing partners, gather information from your visit to our Website for purposes of providing relevant advertising content to you in the future. This means that through third party marketing partners or third party sites such as Google, Facebook, or Instagram, we may display advertisements to you (remarketing or retargeting), based on usage data collected during your visit to our website.

Google Analytics: As described above, we use Google Analytics on our website. We may utilize any of the following advertising features that utilize the Google advertising cookies: Remarketing with Analytics, Demographics and Interest reporting, Segments, and Double Click integration.

To opt out of seeing personalized ads via the Google platform, please visit https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en

For more information regarding how Google uses cookies in advertising and how you can control advertising cookies, visit http://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads/

To personalize the ads you see via the Google platform, visit http://www.google.com/settings/ads

For more information on how Google uses data when you visit its partners’ sites or apps, visit http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/

Or, via an opt-out browser add-on, you can opt out of having your site activity available to Google Analytics. For more information, or to install the opt-out browser ad-on, please visit https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/181881?hl=en Please note that if you opt out of any service, you may not enjoy the full functionality of the Website.

Google Ad Words: We may utilize Google Ad Words, which provides certain of the information collected on our website to the Adwords advertising network. To opt out of Google Ad Words, visit https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en

Facebook Custom Audience: We may utilize Facebook’s Custom Audience capability which allows us to display ads on Facebook to individuals on our email lists or in our database. We may provide personal information to Facebook, such as your name, email address and phone number to enable Facebook to identify whether you are a Facebook account holder. To opt-out of the Facebook Custom Audience, please email us at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com with (1)“Facebook Custom Audience Opt-Out” in your Subject Line, and (2) your name and email address in the body of the email.

Other Personalized and Behavioral Advertising Services: We may participate in other retargeting services that are similar to those described above.

Managing Cookies Via Your Browser:

You may be able to change your cookie preferences via your browser settings. Please visit your browser’s help section for assistance with turning on notifications regarding cookies, or disabling cookies through your browser.

Managing Cookies on Your Mobile Device:

You may be able to change your cookie preferences on your mobile device either via your browser settings, or via the settings (preferences) on your device. For additional info, please visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/mobile/

Use Caution When Sharing Information Online

When you voluntarily make your Personal Information available online in an environment shared by third parties – including in webinars, classes, online conferences, via email, on message boards, chat rooms or on blogs, or via telephone calls or conferences – that information can be viewed, saved, collected, heard, and/or used by others outside of the Company. We are not responsible for any unauthorized third-party use of information provided in these contexts. Please be mindful whenever you share any information online.

Security of Your Information

The security of your Personal Information is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. While we incorporate standard industry practices internally and with our services providers, which we believe is sufficient for the information involved, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. Because we work with third-party businesses and vendors in various aspects of our business including operating this website, database management, website security, etc., we cannot guarantee the absolute security of our databases, nor can we guarantee that the Information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to and from us over the Internet. Any information that you provide to us via email should be treated with extra caution, as we cannot control the level of security available through email providers.

Children

We are strongly committed to protecting the safety and privacy of children who visit our website. We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 13 through the Website. If you are under 13, please do not give us any Personal Information. We encourage all parents to talk to their children about online safety and to monitor their children’s use of the Internet. If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 13 has provided Personal Information to us, please contact us, and we will make best efforts to immediately delete that information from our databases.

External Websites

While we have carefully chosen those vendors with whom we work, especially those involved in the transmission of data on behalf of our business, we do not control and are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of third-party websites, including those of affiliates, business partners, sponsors, advertisers, or other websites to which we may link from time to time. When visiting any third-party websites, you are responsible for reviewing the privacy policy and terms of use applicable to each site. They may be different than those that you see here.

California Privacy Rights

Pursuant to Section 1798.83 of the California Civil Code, residents of California have the right to request from a business with whom the Californian has an established business relationship, certain information with respect to the types of personal information the business shares with third parties for direct marketing purposes by such third party and the identities of the third parties with whom the business has shared such information during the immediately preceding calendar year. To request a copy of the information disclosure provided by the Company pursuant to this provision, please contact us via email at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com.

Our California Do Not Track Notice

Consistent with our policies described above, we collect information from our visitors on our website and across third party websites where applicable, to provide relevant content and advertising. We do not support Do Not Track (“DNT”) signals of web browsers.

DNT is a setting in your web browser that informs websites that you do not want to be tracked. You can enable or disable DNT through the Preferences or Settings options of your web browser.

Visitors Outside the U.S.

Our Website and the servers that make this Website available worldwide are located in the United States. The Internet laws in the United States govern all matters relating to this Website. Any information you provide in subscribing to or visiting our Website will be transferred to the United States. By visiting our Website and submitting information, you authorize this transfer, processing, and use.

EU Visitors and the GDPR

If you live in the EU, certain of your data may be subject to protection by the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”), a privacy regulation intended to help you have greater control over your personal data.

Under the GDPR, you have the following rights, which we extend to all of our website visitors:

to know what information is being collected, as disclosed in this Privacy Policy (“right to transparent information”);
to object on grounds relating to your particular situation to the collection or processing of certain kinds of information (“right to object”);
to withdraw consent even after it has been given, without affecting the lawfulness of the processing of your data prior to your withdrawal (“right to withdraw consent”);
to access, modify or update your information so that it is correct (“right to access” and “right to rectification”);
to have your information deleted or erased (“right to erasure” or “right to be forgotten”);
to have your data transferred or ported elsewhere (“right to data portability”);
and the right to restrict processing in certain situations (“right to restriction of processing”).

For purposes of the GDPR, to the fullest extent possible we do not directly collect or maintain personal data of our EU visitors or clients. This is done through partnerships with third-party vendors who have systems designed for the collection and storage of data on behalf of their clients (“data processors”). The data is only kept as long as is reasonably required to accomplish the purpose or purposes for which it was collected. Certain data may be expunged or utilized more quickly than others, and depending on your engagement and behaviors, including purchasing behaviors, we may be engaged in a business or contractual relationship with some longevity. (For example, if you purchase a course or program, or services that span over some time, you will continue to receive communications in regards to those offerings or services).

The categories of data processors with whom we work, and that help us in the collection of information that allows us to serve and interact with you include website analytics provider(s), website and web form plug-ins and related third-party services that allow us to maintain an up-to-date online platform and communicate with you electronically, an email service provider or providers to assist in managing email correspondence with our visitors, customers and list, as well as payment processor(s) and/or merchant account(s) to help us transact sales online and follow up with you regarding any purchases. For a list of specific data processors with whom we currently work, please visit our list here.

Those within the Company that may have access to the data include Officers, Directors, Managers, Supervisors, Salespersons, or those providing customer or technical support. Access to the data is provided for specific purposes, generally related to communicating with you, fulfilling our contractual obligations, providing customer service or technical support, collecting payment, or monitoring performance of marketing and sales efforts.

You may contact us at any time to have your information with us or any of these processors updated or corrected, deleted, or to obtain a copy for your records. Additionally, you may opt out of receiving any additional emails or marketing messages from us by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our email notifications.

Further, if you feel that we have not complied with the relevant data protection regulations, please contact us by sending us an email at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com with your first and last name, your country of origin, and a summary of your concern or complaint. We will endeavor to respond at our earliest possible convenience to address your concern. If contacting us does not resolve your complaint, you may have additional options.

Residents in Designated Countries may also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant EU data protection authority. You may access a list of the Data Protection Authorities in the EU here.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

The Company may update this Privacy Policy from time to time as necessary to protect our users and to comply with a changing environment. Please review the Privacy Policy when you visit our Website to remain updated on our current policy. We have no intention of making any changes to our Privacy Policy and practices to make them less protective of personal information collected in the past. By accessing the Website and/or using our services after making any such changes to this Privacy Policy, you are deemed to have accepted such changes. Please be aware that, to the extent permitted by applicable law, our use of the Information is governed by the Privacy Policy in effect at the time we collect the information. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Whenever we make changes to this Privacy Policy we will update the date at the top.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us via email at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com with “Privacy Policy” in the subject line.