110: A Candid Conversation w/Barry Schwartz on His Story, Productivity, Core Updates & More

Today’s episode I think is an important one for anyone who’s a part of, or interested in, the SEO industry. Whether you’re an actual practitioner, maybe newer to the space, or just following along and love SEO – you’ll probably get something out of this discussion.

I wanted to talk with Barry and get more details around things a lot of people are curious about…

For one, he’s known for being very prolific, publishing up to 5+ articles per day, following the SEO news, sharing things via Twitter, engaging with the community … AND running a company full time (that has nothing to do with SEO).

And I wanted to get his take on the state of Google right and now, and where things might be going. Barry is often the one reporting news — but I wanted to give him the spotlight and learn more about someone who is truly invaluable in this industry.

Some of the many things covered:

* Barry reacts to his very first blog post from 2005!

* Why Barry started blogging to begin with

* How Barry got a Wiki page

* His thoughts on Danny Sullivan’s role at Google

* The best way to send Barry SEO news tips

* Does Google give Barry info “off the record”?

* The recent Google Core updates

* Zombie Clicks (?)

And more – enjoy!

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* (Coming very soon!)

Show Agenda and Timestamps

Episode Introduction [0:23]

Barry’s Introduction and topic overview [1:27]

What are the different publications and how do they all work? [2:09]

Search Engine Roundtable, Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Land [2:44]

What is RustyBrick? [4:43]

What is Barry’s role at RustyBrick? [8:00]

Barry’s back story and the world of SEO [9:03]

What prompted Barry to start the RustyBrick Weblog? [9:36]

Where a lot of people cover the SEO industry when Barry started Search Engine Roundtable? [12:24]

How has Barry been so consistent with blogging about SEO for so long? [14:13]

How does Barry keep up with everything that is happening? [15:33]

Is it helpful when people ping Barry with things? Is there a best way to share information with Barry? [16:59]

How does Barry physically get 5 stories out in a day? [18:18]

How Barry multitasks so things do not pile up [20:13]

Is trying to pay attention to everything in the SEO world stressful?  [22:16]

Is Barry generally live on Twitter or does he schedule his posts? [23:52]

How did Barry get a Wikipedia page? [25:32]

Google [26:56]

Danny Sullivan [27:00]

Barry’s take on Danny Sullivan’s position at Google [27:35]

Does Barry think the feedback SEOs give Danny is actually getting back to Google? [29:44]

What is Barry’s take on the current state of Google’s SERP? [31:13]

What does Barry think the thought process is behind all the SERP changes and what are they optimizing for? [33:15]

What does it mean when Google says the Ad team and the Organic team are separate? [34:40]

Why does Barry think there are so many snarky comments to posts and in the SEO world? [35:45]

Twitter Questions [37:30]

Owais Shah – How [do] SEO influencers and journalists like yourself handle pressure from the community when there is a major algorithm update and you don’t know what to say! [37:35]

Jas – How do you handle difficult clients and how do you know if the difficult client is worth it should you decide to keep them? [39:21]

CORE Updates [41:52]

What does Barry think Google is looking to do with the core updates? [42:17]