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#SEOSLY SEO Newsletter Good morning/afternoon/evening, my SEO subscriber! It's Olga Zarr bringing you a weekly update of top SEO news and top SEO resources. A lot of things have been happening in the SEO industry over the last two weeks. I did all the dirty work and am now bringing you the gist of what you should know. In this episode, I am covering mostly: - Two Google updates that are still being rolled out and their (huge) impact,
- Top SEO and local SEO news,
- Cool resources from other SEOs including Glenn Gabe, Andrew Holland, Tom Demers, and more.
P.S. If you aren't already, follow me on YouTube, X/Twitter, and LinkedIn. I share lots of stuff there as well. ---
This episode of the SEO Newsletter by #SEOSLY is here thanks to Cora, Wix Studio, and JetOctopus. If you want to become a sponsor of this newsletter, just reply to this email.
--- The Google Core/Spam Updates Have Been BIG So Far 🔥 The latest Google Core and Spam updates, which started rolling out in March, have been highly impactful so far. Many sites have received manual actions, with some being completely deindexed, and the core component is expected to better reward helpful content. The manual actions are not specifically targeting AI-generated content but rather aim to address the manipulation of rankings that violate Google's guidelines, such as thin or misleading content, and sites that lack substantially unique or helpful content compared to other pages on the web. The update is still being rolled out so the best thing to do is WAIT. Has your site lost traffic after a Google update? I can help you. 🛟 Tons of you have reached out to me asking for help in assessing the traffic drop. I wish I could help all of you but my time is limited. However, I will have some availability in late April and May for a maximum of two website assessments. The price of a full website assessment ranges from 5K to 12K USD depending on the size of the site and the complexity of its issues. This investment will provide you with a detailed report that analyzes every aspect of your website, identifies the causes behind your traffic drop, and offers a clear roadmap for recovery. If you're interested in leveraging my expertise to regain your website's traffic, simply reply to this email. Alternatively, you can use the contact form on my website. Please note that I am not accepting all the website assessment requests and the wait time may range from 4 to 8 or more weeks. The dos and don'ts of AI content creation I've published a bit sarcastic article where I share my dos and don'ts regarding AI content creation for SEO purposes. I also summarized Google recommendations regarding AI content and added my own insights. I invite you to check it! The best practices I share in the article are very true, especially in light of the current Google updates. 
>> Check my article on AI content creation << P.S. Some of you complained that my SEOSLY site was loaded with ads. This was true because I had auto ads turned ON and I didn't even realize it. I think it is now fixed and reading stuff on my site should be an almost ad-free experience. New Episode of the SEO Cash Flow with Myriam Jessier In today's short episode, we talk about weekly summary emails. What are they? Should you send them? How impactful are they? >> Watch the episode NOW << Top SEO news this week A lot is happening as always. Here is the top SEO news from this week. Google Advises Patience as March 2024 Core Update Continues Rolling Out Google's Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, has urged website owners and SEOs to remain patient as the March 2024 core update continues to roll out over the coming weeks. He advised waiting for the update to complete before making any fundamental changes to websites, as rankings may fluctuate during the rollout process, and the final impact may not be evident until the update is fully implemented. 5 Things to Know About The Google's March 2024 Core Update As Julia McCoy explains, Google's March 2024 core update is a significant game-changer in the SEO industry, with the potential to impact websites on a scale similar to the Panda and Penguin updates. The update focuses on removing low-quality, unhelpful, and irrelevant content from search results, with some websites being completely deindexed. Penalties have been swift, affecting even older websites that survived previous updates. Factors like outdated content, errors, and AI-generated content have contributed to the vulnerability of sites. To adapt to these changes, website owners should focus on improving E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness), enhancing user experience, and conducting comprehensive site audits to identify and fix issues. Received a 'Pure Spam' Manual Action Notice? See What It Means for Your Site and How to Address It Google has posted a detailed explanation of the pure spam manual action. A "pure spam" manual action is a penalty Google issues to websites that use aggressive spam techniques violating its policies. This can significantly impact a site's visibility on search results. To resolve the issue, website owners should: Understand the violation by reviewing Google's spam policies -
Audit the site to identify spammy content or techniques -
Remove or revise problematic content and practices -
Request a review after cleaning up the site Removing the manual action doesn't guarantee immediate restoration of previous rankings. Focus on compliance, quality, and a long-term strategy for lasting success. Traffic drops without a manual penalty may require a comprehensive site audit to identify areas for improvement. Reach out to me if you are interested in a full website traffic drop assessment. The price ranges from 5K to 12K USD. John Mueller's Site Dropped From Google Search 😱 John Mueller's personal website, johnmu.com, was temporarily deindexed from Google Search, causing speculation within the SEO community. John responded to the situation with humor on social media, hinting that it might be related to his site's unique robots.txt file or a test he was conducting using Google Search Console tools. The site was restored to the search results within a day, and John later received a notice from Search Console about the issue, although it had already been resolved by then. Interaction to Next Paint is Officially a Core Web Vital 🚀 Rick Viscomi announces that Interaction to Next Paint (INP) has officially replaced First Input Delay (FID) as a stable Core Web Vital metric, marking a significant step forward in measuring interaction responsiveness. Chrome's Core Web Vitals tools will now prominently feature INP, and FID will be deprecated, with developers having until September 9, 2024, to transition to INP. Viscomi provides a general workflow and resources to help developers find and fix INP issues on their sites, emphasizing the importance of optimizing code to handle user interactions efficiently. Google Adds "Additional Review" Option for Denied Google Business Profile Reinstatement Requests Google has updated its help document on resolving suspended or disabled Google Business Profiles to include a new feature that allows users to request an additional review if their initial reinstatement request is denied. This update enables users to provide supplementary evidence to strengthen their appeal. The help document has also been expanded to cover various aspects of the appeal process, such as preparing evidence, submitting appeals for multiple profiles, and fixing issues with reinstated profiles. Google Officially Replaces "Perspectives" Search Filter with "Forums" Filter Google has officially replaced the "Perspectives" search filter with a new "Forums" filter, which is designed to help users find results specifically from forums like Reddit and Quora. The change comes after Google tested the "Forums" filter last month and found that it was more intuitive for users compared to the "Perspectives" filter. While the "Perspectives" filter will no longer be available as a search filter, Google will continue to show perspectives-related content in search results through carousels, clusters, and traditional web page listings. Google updates its page experience docs to clarify ranking signals Google has updated its page experience documentation to clarify that Core Web Vitals metrics are used as a ranking signal in Google Search, while other page experience signals are not directly used for ranking purposes. The updated documentation emphasizes that achieving good Core Web Vitals scores is important for success in Search and providing a great user experience. It also warns that focusing solely on getting perfect scores for SEO reasons may not be the best use of time. Google has made it clear that other page experience aspects, beyond Core Web Vitals, do not directly help a website rank higher in search results. However, they can still contribute to a more satisfying user experience, which aligns with what Google's ranking systems aim to reward. The Tool That Changed My SEO❗️ If you've followed me for a while, you've heard me ranting and raving about my all-time favorite tool – Cora. But I don't just talk about it because I'm an affiliate. I present it to you because it's completely changed the way I do SEO… And secretly, I want you to take advantage of this tool so you can stay ahead of the crowd and crush it as an SEO! Here is the introduction to the Cora SEO tool: 
>> See how Cora simplifies advanced SEO << Interesting SEO resources this week Here are a few super interesting articles and other SEO resources you should check. What is a web crawler, really? In this episode of Search Off the Record, Gary Illyes and Lizzi Sassman take a deep dive into crawling the web: what is a web crawler, and how does it really work? Listen along as the Search team is joined by an expert web developer in the SEO community, Dave Smart, for an in-depth and technical discussion of all things crawling, and maybe dispel some myths along the way. 3 underutilized Google Search Console reports for diagnosing traffic drops Tom Demers shows how to decode your website's traffic declines with GSC's detailed reports. To diagnose drops in organic traffic, Google Search Console offers several useful reports beyond the obvious ones mentioned in Google's guide. These include device segmentation to identify ranking and SERP layout differences between mobile and desktop, search appearance reports to understand the impact of specific search features, and crawl stats reports to identify technical issues or changes in crawl budget allocation. Link devaluation: The hidden threat of SpamBrain Andrew Holland explains why buying links could be a recipe for disaster as Google tightens its grip on spammy SEO tactics. The March 2024 Google core and spam updates have severely impacted sites that engage in spammy link-building practices, with many losing rankings or even receiving manual actions. Google's AI-powered SpamBrain is becoming increasingly effective at identifying unnatural links, such as those obtained through guest posts or link networks. As a result, the cost and value of white hat link-building techniques, like digital PR, are expected to rise, while black hat SEO tactics become increasingly risky and unsustainable in the face of SpamBrain's growing capabilities. 7 Reasons To Be Skeptical of 25% Search Drop by 2026 Roger Montti explains why the prediction that AI chatbots will cause a 25% drop in search volume by 2026 has zero chance of happening. He provides seven reasons to be skeptical of this claim: - True AI search engines don't exist yet; current chatbots rely on traditional search engines.
- Generative AI is still in its infancy and not ready for widescale use.
- AI search engines are not economically viable due to high costs.
- The prediction assumes search engines will remain unchanged, ignoring their constant evolution.
- Users distrust AI chatbots, especially for important queries, according to Gartner's own research.
- Gartner's advice to incorporate EEAT into content misunderstands the concept and is outdated.
- The impact of watermarking AI-generated content is questionable due to the various ways AI is used in content creation.
Montti argues that these factors, along with the failure of Bing Chat to significantly increase users or decrease Google's search volume, cast serious doubt on the accuracy of Gartner's predictions. Is Your Site Reliable? Meet Wikipedia's Reliable Sources List: Another Proxy For Google's Quality Raters Glenn Gabe has discovered a valuable resource for website owners and SEOs seeking to understand how their site's content is perceived by others - Wikipedia's list of reliable sources. The list, maintained by Wikipedia editors, scores websites on a scale from "Generally reliable" to "Blacklisted" based on the consensus of the editors. Although the list is non-exhaustive, it provides an objective view of a site's reliability through the lens of Wikipedia's editors and can help explain why a site is or isn't being used as a source on the platform. Gabe suggests that site owners and SEOs use the list to check their site's score (if listed), review scores of other sites in their niche, and examine sites beyond their niche to understand what makes a source reliable or unreliable. Even if a site isn't listed, the discussions among editors can provide valuable insights. Additionally, Gabe explains how to use Wikipedia's search function to find where a site is cited as a source across the platform, which can yield interesting findings about the content being cited and the authors behind it. How to Avoid Ruining SEO During a Website Redesign Mateusz Makosiewicz outlines six key steps to avoid ruining your website's SEO during a redesign. These include keeping a backup of the old site, testing the staging site for mobile friendliness and Core Web Vitals, running pre and post-launch site audits, maintaining the old URL structure, preserving important organic pages, and minimizing modifications to high-ranking pages. Who Sends Traffic on the Web and How Much? New Research from Datos & SparkToro Rand Fishkin, in partnership with Datos, has conducted a comprehensive study on web traffic referrals. It reveals that Google is responsible for nearly 2/3rds of all US web traffic referrals, with Microsoft sites, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo!, and Twitter being the only others that send more than 1% of referral traffic. The study also found that the "Long Tail" of the web, sites outside the top 170 most-visited, lost approximately 3.2% of referral traffic to the top sites over the 13-month period. Fishkin plans to revisit and update the study every 1-2 years, providing valuable insights into web traffic patterns and the behavior of companies and users on the internet. How to track rankings (the right way) Ever had a page climb to a great ranking position, only to see it plummet the next time you check? Most rank trackers give you a false sense of security. They only check your rankings once a day and miss the times they drop just hours after giving you the report. It's a slight reporting error, but it leads to confusion around how you're truly ranking for targeted keywords. If you want to see how I use the Cora Volatility Tool to claim stable, consistent rankings, I reveal the full process in this video: 
>> Watch how I use Cora to analyze my rankings. << Lawyer SEO guide (coming soon) 😱 If you're a lawyer or if you do SEO for lawyers, I've got a special announcement: My "Ultimate Guide To Lawyer SEO" is launching soon! It will be packed with my own insights, tips, and experience doing SEO for law firms. As a valued email subscriber, you'll be the first to know once it's ready! You can sponsor this SEO newsletter The SEO Newsletter by #SEOSLY has 7K+ subscribers. All of them are interested in SEO. - They are a mix of SEO professionals, small business owners, people wanting to learn SEO, and SEO consultants.
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