If you earn a powerful link, you should receive that link. Unfortunately, many news and media publishers are nofollowing those links, which tells Google to not pass signals, including PageRank, downstream to the pages that earned those links.

I cover the situation, including examples of that happening, why it’s happening, how Google’s view of nofollow has changed over the years, and even include an example of it happening to me! In addition, I cover important FAQs for news and media publishers that might be nofollowing links now (in order to clear up any confusion about when to link normally versus using nofollow).

A link is a terrible thing to waste, so please link out normally. Site owners will appreciate it, Google will appreciate, and the entire web ecosystem will appreciate it.

Blog post covering the topic:

https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/news-media-publishers-link-out-ditch-nofollow/

Chapters:

00:00 When links go wrong. Why some news and media publishers are nofollowing links.

02:08 Examples of news and media publishers nofollowing earned links.

03:30 Link Madness Inception: When it happened to me recently!

04:47 But wait, nofollow is just a hint to Google now.

06:00 Help me, help you. FAQs for news and media publishers.

08:57 Just link out normally. It’s the way the web works.

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Google recently rolled out two additional waves of manual actions for site reputation abuse targeting the EU (including Germany in the second wave). As I’ve been analyzing those drops, I noticed that sites are handling content violating the spam policy in several ways (and some are not the correct ways). For example, disallowing via robots.txt and canonicalizing are NOT valid approaches. Instead, noindexing or removing the content completely are the correct methods for dealing with a manual action for site reputation abuse.

In this video, I cover four methods that are being employed now by site owners and why only two are valid. I provide specific examples of sites using each approach and how that worked, or didn’t work, for the site at hand.

Companion blog post covering the topic: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/how-to-block-content-site-reputation-abuse/

Chapters:

00:00 New manual actions for site reputation abuse and how sites are trying to block content

00:49 Disallowing via robots.txt (NOT VALID)

03:39 Canonicalizing site reputation abuse content (NOT VALID)

04:35 Noindexing content (VALID)

05:44 User-agent blocking

06:15 Removing content completely (VALID)

06:50 Summary: Two valid choices for blocking content for site reputation abuse

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GSC data for AI overviews, including clicks and click-through rate, has been nearly impossible to view... UNTIL NOW. But there's a catch. You need a manual action! My latest episode covers my blog post titled The Twiddler That Didn’t Twiddle – How To Track Clicks and Click Through Rate For Google’s AI Overviews (but only if you have a manual action.)

In this video I explain the loophole in Google right now where sites with manual actions can still rank well in AIOs even when they are heavily demoted (or removed) from ranking in the core search results (10-blue links). But I also explain that you better move fast. I don't know how long it take before Google closes that loophole.

This may be one of the few times (or only time) a manual action will benefit a site owner.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction - When the Twiddler Doesn't Twiddle

00:50 Murky and Confusing AIO Performance Data

01:29 Google's loophole where sites with a manual action can rank in AI overviews

02:42 Lily Ray's tweet and my retweet about sites ranking in AIOs with manual actions

03:07 Twiddler Down! When Twiddlers don't Twiddle

03:54 How deindexing with manual actions works

04:40 The maddening adventure of tracking AIOs

05:39 You couldn't see pure AIO performance data... until now!

06:20 Steps for tracking pure AIO data in Google Search Console

08:10 Examples of AIO clicks and CTR in Google Search Console

09:20 Click-through rate with #1 AIO rankings.

10:20 A note about using regex in GSC to combine queries.

11:17 Summary - The only time a manual action can benefit a site owner.

Blog post: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/how-to-track-aio-performance-gsc-manual-action/

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Interested in the amount of collateral damage that can occur when major Google algorithm updates roll out? Well, a recent appearance by Mark Zuckerberg on the Joe Rogan podcast provides a great explanation of how classifiers, confidence levels, and precision work with machine learning algorithms. He also covered how adjusting confidence can impact the amount of collateral damage occurring when updates roll out. And if you swap “Social” for “Search”, Zuckerberg could be talking about any major Google algorithm update.

In this video, I cover Mark's comments about classifiers and collateral damage, I cover how classifiers are used by Google with major algorithm updates (and part of its core rankings systems), I cover yo-yo trending and why that can happen with certain sites, and I end by covering the future of broad core updates (from my perspective).

Blog post: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/classifiers-confidence-and-google-algorithm-updates/

00:00 Introduction

00:39 Mark Zuckerberg about classifiers, confidence levels, and collateral damage.

01:58 The connection to SEO and Google algorithm updates.

03:18 The September 2023 Helpful Content Update (HCUX)

04:23 Classifiers and Google's guide to search ranking systems

05:18 Yo-yo trending with Google updates

06:25 The 'Kitchen Sink' approach to remediation is the path forward.

07:17 The future of Google's broad core updates.

09:02 Wrapping up.

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I cover the December 2024 Spam Update including key information about the rollout, what the update targeted, recovery from spam updates, and the difference between spam updates and link spam updates. Then I cover five case studies spanning doorway pages, scaled content abuse, AI-generated content, and more.

Blog post: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/google-december-2024-spam-update-case-studies/

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OpenAI revealed some important new features for ChatGPT Search as part of its 12 days of ship-mas in December. Day 8 yielded local search with maps integration, new treatment for navigational queries (which opens up ad opportunities), and then live mode now having the ability to tap into Search for up-to-date information. I cover each of these features and then end with a live demo of ChatGPT live mode with Search.

Chapters:

Learn why it’s important to fully understand all of the subdomains for your site. I have come across this situation a number of times over the years and I’ve seen some ugly situations. There are times companies don’t realize there are subdomains running either with legacy content, hacked content, spammy content, or even subdomains with malware or other security issues. And those issues can impact the site SEO-wise and ad-wise. I cover how sites can be suspended in Google Ads based on malware running on those rogue subdomains.

I cover several ways to find subdomains running that have search visibility, including GSC crawl stats, Bing Webmaster Tools Site explorer, third-party visibility tools like Semrush, ahrefs, and Sistrix, and I also cover some creative site queries.

So don’t get blindsided by your subdomains. Run some quick checks and surface them. You never know what you’re going to find.

Read my blog post:

https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/find-subdomains-with-search-visibility/

00:00 How to find subdomains for your site.

00:36 Why it’s important to find your subdomains.

01:28 Quality at the hostname level.

02:46 Security problems causing AD problems.

03:32 GSC Crawl Stats reporting.

04:58 Bing Webmaster Tools Site Explorer

05:45 Third-party visibility tools like Semrush, ahrefs, and Sistrix.

07:00 Creative site queries.

08:05 Bonus: Hosting providers can help.

Episode 18 of 'SEO From The Front Lines", I cover my blog post regarding site-level impact on rankings versus page-level. It's an incredibly important topic that site owners and SEOs need to understand. Based on Pandu Nayak’s comments at a recent creator summit where he said Google only using page-level ranking signals, and NOT site-wide signals, I decided to use the ‘Gabeback Machine’ to prove that statement wrong. Over the years, I have documented many, many examples of Googlers explaining that there are site-wide signals that can have a big impact on rankings across a site. The examples include tweets, videos, patents, and even Google’s own documentation about major algorithm updates. That includes videos, tweets, patents, and even Google's own documentation explaining more about site-wide signals. My blog post also contains information about major algorithm updates like Panda, Penguin, the helpful content update (HCU), and Pirate which all had a site-level classifier (or employed site-wide impact). Then I cover many statements from Google about broad core updates, site-level evaluation, impact to Google surfaces like Discover and News, and more. So join me as I use the ‘Gabeback Machine’ to document Google’s site-level impact to rankings. Yes, it’s real.

Chapters:

00:00 Pandu Nayak's comments about page-level versus site-level ranking signals.

01:42 An introduction to the 'Gabeback Machine'.

02:30 Google's history of crafting major algorithm updates outside of broad core updates.

04:09 Exhibit 1: HCU

05:13 Exhibit 2: Penguin

05:45 Exhibit 3: Medieval Panda

06:45 Exhibit 4: Pirate

07:40 Site-level is at the hostname level (subdomain)

08:28 Exhibit X: Links, Tweets, Videos, and Patents

08:56 Quality is a site-level signal.

09:31 Paul Haahr about site-wide signals.

11:21 FAQ from the March 2024 core update about site-wide signals.

12:10 Lower-quality content can pull down the higher-quality content.

13:30 Rich snippets impacted by overall quality. 13:52 Panda scores impacting rich snippets.

14:14 Google researchers about authority and trust.

15:05 Discover impacted by site-level quality signals.

15:40 Pages can rank higher from the start on sites that Googler trusts.

16:06 Revisiting Pandu's comments about page-level versus site-level signals.

My blog post covering Google's site-wide signals: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/google-site-level-impact-gabeback-machine/

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In episode 17, I cover some huge visibility drops for sites that are violating Google's 'Site reputation abuse' spam policy. For example, some prominent sites are dropping over time including some of the largest publishers on the web. Over time, Google seems to have algorithmically hit large publishers with affiliate sections of their sites, including Forbes, Fortune, CNN Underscored, WSJ Buyside, Marketwatch Guides, and more. It makes you wonder if Google is testing its 'Site reputation abuse' algorithm update, or if other changes are impacting those sections strongly...

00:00 A Nightmare on Affiliate Street - Site Reputation Abuse and Large Publishers Dropping

01:32 Forbes Advisor drops.

03:05 APNews Buyline and Times Stamped dropped as well.

04:30 Fortune Recommends drops on October 11th.

06:15 More sites drop including Marketwatch Guides, WSJ Buyside, and CNN Underscored

07:40 Revisiting manual actions from May 2024 for 'Site reputation abuse"

08:35 Wrapping up, moving forward, and stay tuned for updates about this.

Here's the blog post with all the details: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/a-nightmare-on-affiliate-street/

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I cover two case studies underscoring the importance of catching sneaky mobile SEO problems in Google's mobile-first indexing world. The first case study involves canonical tags that weren't being published on mobile versions of the pages across a site with 100K+ urls. The second case involves thin content becoming even *thinner* since less content was being published on mobile versions of the pages. That was on a stie with 40M urls. I also covers several tools and tips for surfacing those problems. I also cover tools and tips for surfacing mobile SEO problems, including the URL inspection tool in GSC, crawling tools like Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, and Lumar, Chrome extensions, and then even site queries using quoted text. With Google switching to mobile-first indexing, it's using Googlebot-Smartphone for indexing purposes. That's why it's important to make sure all of your content, structured data, directives, canonicals, and more are located on the mobile versions of your pages. If not, Google will not pick that up.

00:00 The importance of catching tricky mobile SEO problems.

00:40 Google's switch to mobile-first indexing.

01:38 Case Study 1: Playing hide and seek with canonicals.

03:10 Case Study 2: Thin pages becoming *thinner* on mobile.

05:35 Tools and tips for checking for mobile-first indexing problems.

9:37 Summary: Make sure you don't miss the mobile view.

Blog post: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/mobile-first-indexing-seo-problems-case-study/

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