We've had so many updates lately! It's almost impossible to know why your traffic is down. And for many sites traffic *is* down tremendously.

In this episode I've discussed the craziness we've seen this year with Google updates. September Core Update. Helpful Content Update. Two spam updates...there are so many things that have happened!

On top of that many sites are losing traffic to Google Explore and because of ChatGPT.

We also discuss whether topic filter bubbles in search and continuous scroll on desktop could be impacting you.

And um, I just can't talk about E-E-A-T without bursting out laughing. Still, this is very important as Google is now valuing not just Expertise, but also Experience.

I hope you enjoy this episode!

Links:

Buy Marie's book on Google Spam Updates:

https://www.mariehaynes.com/product/spam-update-book/

Buy Marie's book on the QRG:

https://www.mariehaynes.com/product/quality-raters-guidelines/

Contact Marie:

https://www.mariehaynes.com/contact/

I interviewed Charles Floate, an SEO known for ranking websites in ways that go against Google's spam guidelines. We discussed PageRank and the importance of links in Google's algorithms. Charles revealed ways he's been able to manipulate Google's guidelines and succeed, though I don't condone such practices.

Our chat helped me reform my thoughts on links and their power to move the needle for rankings. Links are most definitely important in Google's algorithms and will likely remain the core for quite some time. But as Google develops new ways to identify quality content, most of which comes with AI innovations, I believe PageRank is not as important to SEO as it used to be.

In this video Charles shows me how he is able to get sites to rank. Some of what he is doing is actually improving E-A-T!

I must reiterate that breaking Google's policies can lead to serious consequences While good links can be powerful, building your own links is often either ignored by Google, or can cause manual or algorithmic penalties which can be very difficult to identify and recover from.

My hope with this video is not to encourage blackhat SEO tactics, but rather, to talk about the power of GOOD links and how that power is much more than PageRank.

Thanks for doing this, Charles. I enjoyed our chat!

Charles Floate on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/charles_seo

https://www.youtube.com/user/D4rkHacking?app=desktop

Marie’s info:

https://twitter.com/Marie_Haynes

https://mariehaynes.com/contact/

Contact Marie for a referral to companies that can help you get good links and mentions from authoritative sites in ways that comply with Google’s guidelines.

My book on auditing links (used by many agencies to train their link auditors).

My book on using the Quality Raters’ Guidelines as a checklist for site quality.

Wix SERPs Up Podcast with Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter:

https://www.wix.com/seo/learn/podcast

This week we learned from Google's HJ Kim that E-A-T is used for every single query searched on Google! In this episode Dr. Marie Haynes shares advanced information on how to assess E-A-T.

Audience questions answered:

Does E-A-T matter for tech blogs?

Is being mentioned on a big news site good for E-A-T?

Does adding expert reviewers help?

How would an ed-tech platform increase E-A-T?

How do you measure E-A-T?

Should you update old articles that were not written with E-A-T in mind?

Common E-A-T mistakes and misconceptions

Examples of sites doing well after improving E-A-T

How do you do an E-A-T audit?

Marie's QRG Book: https://mariehaynes.com/book

Links

SMX Next: https://marketinglandevents.com/smx/next/agenda/

About the QRG:

https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/hsw-sqrg.pdf

The QRG:

https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

How search works:

https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/how-search-works/ranking-results/

Efficient storage and query of schemaless data

https://patents.justia.com/patent/20220358160

Google’s Guide to creating helpful content

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content

The video version of this podcast will be up on YT soon!

The October 2022 spam update had a massive impact on many sites. Many of these were "niche sites" - not overtly spammy, but still breaking Google's spam guidelines. With this update, it looks like Google's AI spam fighter - SpamBrain has gotten much better at finding unnatural links - links made for SEO purposes.

This is an important listen, even if you were not impacted by this update.

Buy Marie's Quality Rater's Guidelines Book/Checklist:

https://mariehaynes.com/book

Google's Spam Policies (If you were hit, you likely were doing one or more of these things)

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies

Google's guidelines on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content:

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content

What Google has said about guest posting:

https://www.mariehaynes.com/google-guest-posting-recommendations/

Gary Illyes talking to Danny Sullivan about links being labeled as "footer", "penguinized" and so on:

https://searchengineland.com/googles-link-labels-260892

What links can you get that comply with Google's Guidelines?

Marie's Moz Whiteboard Friday. It's old, but still good.

https://moz.com/blog/what-links-comply-googles-guidelines-whiteboard-friday

The September Core update feels different to me! In this episode I share my thoughts after analyzing many pages that won and lost following this Google core update.

The most important thing a site can work on if hit is ensuring that you are the best option to meet the immediate needs of the searcher. If we thoroughly understand the intent of searchers, we can create content that helps them meet that need better than other sites.

In this episode I review two pages that did well following the September core update. They may look like they are lacking E-A-T, but I think Google promoted them because they quickly met searcher needs.

I also share how the Helpful Content Update may have introduced a way for Google to better determine which pages are meeting the needs of searchers.

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2019/08/core-updates

https://www.amsivedigital.com/insights/seo/winners-losers-of-the-september-2022-core-update-product-reviews-update/

https://www.semrush.com/blog/september-2022-core-update-impact/

https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/how-search-works/ranking-results/

https://www.amsivedigital.com/insights/seo/winners-losers-of-the-september-2022-core-update-product-reviews-update/

https://www.wix.com/seo/learn/resource/content-lessons-google-may-2022-update

https://moz.com/blog/click-based-seo-engagement-signals

Interview with Alan Kent from Google. Machine learning is discussed at 18:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZuEQY11khw

How the quality raters work:

https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/hsw-sqrg.pdf

Frédéric Dubut of Bing on SEOs shifting to intent research instead of keyword research

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTriTRmEf34

Register for free to watch Marie’s talk on Google’s quality questions at SMX Next:

https://attend.marketinglandevents.com/smx-next-2022?i=H0RFJApYbpWJKGGJ1ihWY0ciBytHmhUB

Book a strategy session with Marie:

https://mariehaynes.com/contact

https://mariehaynes.com/book - QRG checklist book

SEO is changing so much! In this episode Marie shares what SEOs can learn from Google’s Search On 2022 event. Is Google going to replace Amazon as the place where people go to buy online? Google announced many changes coming to shopping. Many of the upcoming changes to search are going to make the life of SEOs difficult. If you want to stay on top of these changes, listen to Marie’s thoughts on how search is changing and how we can keep up.

Marie’s notes on the Search On event:

https://twitter.com/Marie_Haynes/status/1575195686366085120

Search On Google 2022

https://blog.google/products/search/search-on-2022-announcements/

Newsletter:

https://mariehaynes.com/newsletter

Marie’s book on using the QRG as a checklist for site quality:

https://mariehaynes.com/book

Contact Marie:

https://mariehaynes.com/contact

The September 2022 Core update is live! The helpful content update has finished rolling out. In this episode we discuss:

1) How the September Core Update and Helpful content updates may be related

2) What to look for in early analytics data to see if you’ve been hit

3) Google has told us specifically how to recover - It’s all about content and E-A-T

4) Why Google’s core update questions are so important - machine learning likely plays a role!

5) A bit on how we analyze competitors’ pages after a core update hit

Apologies for the pointer clicking as I was screensharing! I’ll mute that sound the next time I record my screen.

Links mentioned:

https://developers.google.com/search/updates/ranking

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/08/helpful-content-update

Resources on E-A-T:

https://www.mariehaynes.com/resources/eat/

https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gccNPlL-a1g

Marie’s newsletter:

https://mariehaynes.com/newsletter

Marie’s book

https://mariehaynes.com/book

Contact Marie

https://mariehaynes.com/contact

In this special podcast episode Marie welcomes Alan Kent from Google. Alan is a developer advocate who currently works on communicating changes in regards to Google’s product reviews updates. The product reviews updates are discussed in detail. Alan also shares some very interesting thoughts on how machine learning is used by Google in this type of algorithm.

Links:

Google Search Central videos with Alan Kent

All things Google Merchant Center with Alan Kent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EMAqeyKYgk

How to improve your ecommerce websites presence in Search results (6 tips)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIUQolZDecM

How to SEO optimize your ecommerce website (8 tips)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGyZqUs9XqA&list=PLKoqnv2vTMUPAMjD4uEeBjlMaB-Jj1iSo&index=7

How to make your ecommerce website stand out in Google Search (6 tips)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEpiG_AbaxA&list=PLKoqnv2vTMUPAMjD4uEeBjlMaB-Jj1iSo&index=8

How to optimize images for your ecommerce website (6 tips)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQH9IpcAucY

Send examples to Alan:

https://twitter.com/akent99

Google added more information to the "About this Result" information in the search results. Their wording on what they've added to this feature is very similar to some that is in the Quality Rater Guidelines. In this episode of Search News You Can Use, Marie discusses how we can possibly use this info to improve E-A-T.

Links mentioned in this episode:

https://blog.google/products/search/information-literacy/

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2019/08/core-updates

https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/hsw-sqrg.pdf

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/12003459

Marie’s book

https://mariehaynes.com/book

Contact Marie

https://mariehaynes.com/contact

In this episode Dr. Marie Haynes discusses five interesting changes Google has made to the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, including some information from a new Google document about the raters and the work they do. We’ll learn more about what YMYL is and what Google is looking for in terms of E-A-T for the topics you write on.

Links mentioned:

https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

https://www.blog.google/documents/37/How_Google_Fights_Disinformation.pdf/

https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/hsw-sqrg.pdf

https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/ho w-search-works/ranking-results/

Marie's book:

https://mariehaynes.com/book