Webcology

It’s about six months even in the ongoing COVID crisis and we’re starting to see numbers crawl upwards in central and western Canada again. Transmission appears out of control in the United States though some states appear to have a handle on it.


It was a busy week in search with a lot of items to cover.


Google has shown such volatility various forecasting tools are constantly suggesting a Google Update is underway. Jim and Dave talk about the idea this is just the way Google is supposed to operate after a major update takes place. Jim is of the opinion Google is sorting things out as its engineers make a larger number of tweeks to the algorithms than they normally do as affects of the previous core-updates are understood. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-volatility-continues-30128.html


A few housekeeping news items

Affiliate links are mostly treated as nofollows https://www.seroundtable.com/google-affiliate-links-nofollow-links-30124.html

Manual penalties have long term consequences. Don’t expect to clean your way back into Google’s good graces quickly if your history says you’re likely to mess about again. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-dont-expect-same-rankings-after-manual-action-recovery/380948/

Webmasters should view Core Vitals as reported in Google Search Console as low hanging fruit in their bids to build better and more useful websites. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-speed-is-complex-to-measure-30123.html

The Crawl Anomaly report in Google Search Console’s Page Performance metrics will be replaced by something that might actually be useful for webmasters. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-remove-crawl-anomaly-data-30117.html


Winston Burton has written what Dave refers to as “the best primer on machine learning” at Search Engine Journal. It’s on the SEO Required Reading list. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/machine-learning-seo/208415/


Lastly, Adam Reimer has written a document on how to deal with temperamental SEOs on your staff. We love Adam but we also love being that temperamental SEO. It’s a good piece but... side-eye or something. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/work-with-seo-guru/373894/

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Google says a lot of things. Sometimes the search engine’s spokespersons are incredibly transparent and sometimes they’re bizarrely opaque. Sometimes they contradict each other and sometimes the effects of technologies being innovated on the far side of the Googleplex aren’t as well known by their spokespersons around the world. Today Jim and Dave discuss a number of things Google’s said in the last week that directly contradict things they told webmasters previously, focusing on core-update recoveries and the importance of core web vitals as potential or future ranking signals. We also talk about a terrible case of negative SEO, the Change.org petition for Google to restore hidden search term data for SEMs, and congratulate John Mueller for being named Search Personality of the Year. We also noted the panel hosted by Ginny Marvin, “The SEO Gender Gap and How to Close It”, being held online, Sept. 11, 2020.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's been about six weeks since Jeff published a Search Engine Journal article (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/math-decode-google-algorithms/374391/) questioning the methods, conclusions, and qualifications of many SEO studies that try to decode Google's algorithms.


Jeff Ferguson, partner at Amplitude Digital, joins Jim and Dave to talk about the statistical science, or lack thereof, behind some of what many might consider foundational studies in the SEO industry.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A general show about SEO and Google news. Dave and Jim talk about Google’s upcoming open virtual conference, announcements Google reps made during the week, the difference in importance between content and links, and weirdness with the newest version of WordPress.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A new episode

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Jim and Dave walk through the weekly news touching on many of the things affecting the search engine world this week. We spend a lot of time talking about how search engines now render pages based on an article Dave wrote in Search Engine Journal with input from a few notable Googlites. We also cover a vulnerability in DIVI WordPress Themes, TikTok as a Greased Up Punching Bag, how four-letter comments can hurt your blog, and how non-ranking factors can cause tiny algorithm adjustments that could affect a website’s placements.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A new episode

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Jim and Dave talk through a weird set of news stories that point to a future in marketing built on writing, crafting, treating, and moving data. It was a strange episode because we meant to cover a series of seemingly unrelated stories without realizing the thread connecting the majority of them was improvements in AI and how big data is changing the careers of search marketing professionals.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

One of the originals, Terry Van Horne joins Dave and Jim to talk about both old school and new entity driven SEO. A wide ranging conversation touching on Terry's new podcast with Bill Slawski, the evolution of Google over Terry's career, and how schema and AI are changing the ways Google works.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Week 18 of the COVID crisis and the world feels like it's trying to find control. This turned out to be a general news show looking at a dozen or so things that happened over the week.

When you've lost Lego, you've lost the moral high ground. Hundreds of brands have vanished from Facebook as the advertising boycott pushes Mark Zuckerberg down to 4th richest person on Earth and driven Facebook to remove items of hate speech and ban several profiles for fostering or promoting hate, violence, or insurrection. Coca Cola joined yesterday.

WWJSD? (What Would John Smith Do)
Googlebot's alter ego, John Smith was seen filling up shopping carts and abandoning them near checkouts at major ecommerce platforms around the Web, just to check the prices of bread. Charges of annoyance and wonked analytics followed.

Bruce Clay's Declaration of SEO

Google treats plural and single versions of words differently.

Do winning websites use plug-ins?

A fun show somewhat beset by bandwidth weirdness

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy