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...

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...

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...

In this episode of “SEO From The Front Lines”, I cover the ranking swings and volatility in Google Search post-August core update. There has been a lot of chatter about ranking changes AFTER the Google August 2024 core update rolled out. After digging in, I noticed a ton of volatility across several dates post-core update. And beyond that, I noticed that a number of sites heavily impacted by the August 24th tremor have started to reverse course on some of those dates. For example, sites that...

In Episode 14 of ‘SEO From The Front Lines”, I cover how some publishers are hijacking the browser back button and providing a feed of articles that drives users to more publisher content, including sponsored content and ads. That’s versus allowing them to return to the sites they visited from… Disabling, or hijacking the back button, is a tricky and deceptive tactic, since users might not know they actually stayed on the same site. And that’s especially the case when visitors arrive on the...

Google’s August 2024 broad core update finally completed on September 3, 2024 after a 19-day rollout. It was a huge update that impacted many sites across the web. In the final episode of core update notes, I cover HCU(X) sites recovering, the big tremor from 8/24 into 8/25, forums seeing volatility, an update on a site pumping out a ton of AI content, and then how site owners can move forward after the update. That includes understanding the difference between relevancy adjustments, intent...

This is Part 3 of "Core Update Notes" for the August broad core update. I cover an update on September Helpful Content Updates sites (HCUX), tremors I'm seeing during the update, sites violating Google's Site Reputation Abuse spam policy, how YMYL sites can surge even with a fraction of the links of competitors, how Google will eventually catch up with sites heavily publishing AI-generated content without human involvement, how LinkedIn pulse and advice are dropping with the August core...

Part 2 of "Core Update Notes" for the August Google broad core update. I cover the latest with helpful content update sites surging back from the dead, reviews sites also rising from the ashes, Google confirming that AI overview rankings can be impacted by broad core updates, how SERP features could be impacted during core updates, and the connection between the May 3rd and May 10th unconfirmed updates and the August core update. 00:00 Google August 2024 Core Update Notes - 8/23...

Episode 10 of 'SEO From The Front Lines" covers what I'm seeing so far with the August 2024 core update. Includes sites heavily impacted by the September Helpful Content Update surging back, if Google is handling site reputation abuse algorithmically, the ranking bug that happened while the core update started rolling out, impact to YMYL sites, and more. 00:00 August 19th "Core Update Notes" - What I'm seeing so far. 00:49 Some September Helpful Content Update (HCUX) Sites Finally...

With Google's hidden gems update in the fall of 2023, both Reddit and Quora surged like crazy. Although many are focused on the surge of Reddit, with good reason, it's important to understand that many forums surged in the fall of 2023. I have covered this heavily on X over time. So I just rank the visibility numbers for 97 forums I'm tracking across verticals. The percentage change year-over-year was wild. 88% of the forums saw 100% growth or more. And a number saw 1000% growth or more. In...

While checking Bing Webmaster Tools recently, I noticed a huge change across sites starting on May 29, 2024. The more I dug in, the more volatility I saw. It sure looks like Bing pushed some type of large algorithm change that impacted many sites across the web. The surges and drops I'm seeing are across sites and verticals, so it's not just one niche. I reached out to Bing's Fabrice Canel to see if Bing pushed an update and he explained nothing specific rolled out around that date, but he...

Learn why an algorithmic approach to enforcing Google's site reputation abuse policy is the way forward. I first cover manual actions Google applied on May 7, 2024 and how sites handled the content violating the site reputation abuse spam policy. Then I explain why blocking via robots.txt isn't a valid approach to blocking that content, as well as how noindexing content can also go haywire. I end the podcast covering how some international sites were unaffected when manual actions were...

Google was testing a change to how it provides links in AI Overviews in the search results. I was in the test last week and captured some video of it in action. The new treatment provides an overlay of search results on top of the AI overview. You can tap a group of favicons to see all of the pages where the AI sourced the answer from. In addition, there were small link icons that would trigger a smaller overlay containing the page(s) where that part of the answer was sourced from. I saw this...

With Google recently expanding support for translated results in the search results, I explain how to export those translated results by country from Google Search Console via the GSC API and Analytics Edge. I also cover how translated results work, what they look like in the search results, how to opt-out from having your content translated, and more. View the blog post now.

Confused about aggressive and disruptive ads and how that impacts a site with major algorithm updates? Well, the Ad Experience Report in Google Search Console might add to that confusion. Glenn Gabe of GSQi explains how the Ad Experience Report in Google Search Console fails to provide an accurate view of the advertising situation for site owners, and how that provides a false sense of security. Glenn explains how aggressive ads can impact a site during broad core updates and how the Ad...

I cover scary and confusing surges and drops in indexing in Google Search Console (GSC) and why that might be totally fine for site owners and SEOs. If the surges are due to urls categorized as "Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt", then that can cause the spike and drop you are seeing. And since Google is on record that it can't impact the site quality-wise, it can be totally fine. This is a companion video to my blog post covering the topic:...

Now that AI overviews rolled out in the United States in Google Search, I dug into Google Search Console (GSC) to track those overviews (the queries and landing pages ranking there). In this episode, I walk you through several examples of sites ranking lower on page one in the 10-blue links, but also ranking in AI overviews at the top of the SERPs. Based on that, I was hoping I would clearly be able to track those overviews. Nope, it wasn't clear at all.

Glenn presented at SMX Advanced about the latest Google algorithm updates that rolled out in 2023 and 2024, but due to a tech glitch, he had to cut the presentation short by a few slides (due to time). So, he decided to record the end of the presentation and post it here! Glenn covers an interesting March 2024 core update case study, the counterbalancing of systems, the 'site reputation abuse' update, and then covers some key points from the entire presentation.