google

Mark Zuckerberg about machine learning classifiers.

Mark Zuckerberg Talks Classifiers, Confidence, and Algorithmic Collateral Damage (And it relates to Google Algorithm Updates)

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 … Read more

Google December 2024 spam update

Google December 2024 Spam Update Analysis – 5 Case Studies Covering Scaled Content Abuse, AI Content, Doorway Pages, and more

The end of 2024 was a crazy time SEO-wise with Google pushing multiple major updates at the end of the year (and throughout the holiday shopping season). First, we had the November 2024 core update, which rolled out on November 11th and took over three weeks to complete. Then we had one week off before … Read more

New features in ChatGPT Search for December 2024

ChatGPT Search creeps closer to Google – OpenAI’s Ship-mas brings maps for Local Search, improved results for navigational queries, and live mode with Search

We are quickly witnessing the Googlization of ChatGPT and the ChatGPTization of Google Search. It’s a fascinating time to be involved in Search, that’s for sure. I cover several new ChatGPT Search features announced as part of OpenAI’s Ship-mas. On the eighth day of ship-mas OpenAI announced some exciting news about its ChatGPT Search product. … Read more

How to find subdomains for your site

Find your subdomains. Know your subdomains – The SEO importance of finding all subdomains for your site.

Whenever I jump into helping a new client, it’s always interesting to get a lay of the land. For example, manually reviewing the site, scanning the GSC reporting, checking third-party visibility tools, triggering an initial crawl of the site, etc. And for large-scale and complex sites, you just never know what you’re going to find. … Read more

The Gabeback Machine

Documenting Google’s site-level evaluation and impact on search rankings using the ‘Gabeback Machine’ [Googler Quotes, Videos, Documentation and more]

It’s not like all urls on a site suddenly become low quality overnight… It’s a site-level adjustment that can impact rankings across an entire site. Update: November 19, 2024: Google just updated its “Guide to Search ranking systems” page to include a paragraph right up top about using site-wide signals and classifiers. You can read … Read more

A Nightmare on Affiliate Street

A Nightmare on Affiliate Street – How Google is picking off sites one by one that are violating its ‘Site reputation abuse’ spam policy

Update: I heard from Google’s Danny Sullivan and he confirmed that Google is not testing its ‘Site reputation abuse’ algorithm at this time. So the drops are from other changes that Google is pushing that must be impacting those affiliate directories strongly. Update 2: I just received a response from Google after following up to … Read more

Mobile SEO problems in Google's mobile-first indexing world

PSA: The importance of catching sneaky mobile SEO problems in Google’s mobile-first indexing world [Case Study and Tools]

In 2017 I wrote a post covering the risks of having mobile SEO problems as Google’s move to mobile-first indexing was approaching. That post focused more on sites running m-dots and the various issues that could arise based on Google’s plans to use the mobile version of a page for indexing. Well, we’re now in … Read more

Google's hidden gems update impacted forums heavily across the web

Beyond Reddit and Quora: How Google’s Hidden Gems Update Yielded Explosive Growth In Search Visibility For Many Forums

In May of 2023 Google wrote a blog post where it explained it was planning to update its systems to surface “hidden gems”, or content written from a “personal or expert point of view”. We eagerly awaited that update when the ‘fall of insane updates’ arrived including three core updates, a massive helpful content update, … Read more

Google's site reputation abuse spam policy

Google’s site reputation abuse spam policy and why an algorithmic approach to enforcing violations is the way forward

Google began enforcing its site reputation abuse spam policy on May 7, 2024 after announcing the policy two months earlier (when the March 2024 core update rolled out). At that time, we didn’t know if enforcement would be handled via manual actions, an algorithm update, or a combination of both. It ended up being just … Read more

How to export Google translated results from Search Console by country

How to bulk export translated results from Google Search Console by country via the GSC API and Analytics Edge

Google recently announced that it expanded translated results in the search results to more languages, which was great to see. Also, it’s important to understand the data is available in Google Search Console’s performance reporting (and available via the API with some added benefit). I’ll explain more about that soon. But while speaking with site … Read more

The Ad Experience Report in Google Search Console and how it fails site owners.

The Ad Experience Report in Google Search Console: Why It Fails Site Owners, How It Provides A False Sense of Security, And How It Could Be Improved

In 2017 Google announced the Ad Experience Report in Search Console. I remember the announcement like it was yesterday. The overarching idea was brilliant. Provide a set of reports that let site owners know when their advertising situation yielded a terrible user experience. And they also announced that if a site was failing a review, … Read more