Confessions of an SEO®

Welcome to Season 5 of Confessions of an SEO podcast! This week I unpack a discussion on what do you do when Google Patents say one thing and the SERPS imply another? How can both things be true at the same time and our heads not explode? Get 45% off Magic Mind bundle with my link: https://magicmind.com/confessionsjan #magicmind #mentalwealth #mentalperformance ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf⁠⁠⁠⁠ &lt...

Welcome to Season 5 of Confessions of an SEO podcast! In this episode I'm sharing my schema testing data at least as how it stands here in January 2025. You can find my test write up on this page - https://bit.ly/indexdetector - slight scroll down to the words "Schema Testing on a BLANK page testing write up" And in the YT thumbnails - you'll find the video where I screen share my way through the...

Welcome to Season 5 of Confessions of an SEO podcast! In this episode i talk about an article about a Search On The Record podcast from Google engineers. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-podcast-discusses-seo-expertise/536606/ ⁠⁠https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf⁠⁠ <-------- Crawl or No Crawl Knowledge panel Interview with Jesper Nissen ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LssaigpBYiI⁠ Tools that I...

Final episode of Season 4! Wishing you and yours a wonderful, warm, expansive New Year! ⁠https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf⁠ <-------- Crawl or No Crawl Knowledge panel Mentioned in the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LssaigpBYiI link to the Monday training - Tools that I use and recommend: Indexzilla - ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.indexzilla.io⁠⁠⁠⁠ (LAUNCHED!!!) Cora Software ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

This is one of the last 2 episodes in Season 4. As I started to update my indexation history log, I saw that as of today this is my 1200th day of testing. Round numbers are fun and sobering too! https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf <-------- Crawl or No Crawl Knowledge panel Mentioned in the show: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/confessions-of-an-seo-1973881/episodes/no-such-thing-as-helpful-conte-22727...

This week I am sharing a very sensitive topic about SEO testing. At least, sensitive to me. Publishing a test and claiming it did something matters. There are protective measures in SEO testing as I learned it - 1. the test set up 2. the peer review using known search engine and indexation behavior to ensure that the test was indeed TESTING the hypothesis 3. a conclusion indicating if results were...

Too much outcome, not enough journey In this episode are updates about what I'm working on and things I want to get better at in 2025. Mentioned in the show Season 1, episode 2 - Why I Dislike Working With SEO Clients Tools that I use and recommend: Indexzilla - ⁠https://www.indexzilla.io⁠ (Coming Soon!) Cora Software ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit....

Looking for (helpful) content in all the wrong places In the countdown to the end of 2024, I talk SEO testing groups, not so Helpful advice for Helpful Content and look into 2025 for what I'd like to experience in the new year. Mentioned in the show ⁠ENTITY ELEVATION BLACK FRIDAY OFFER⁠ All the pricing and discounts can be found at https://www.entityelevation.com/ Special Annual Entity Membership...

Test results are in! Finally we have some data that gives us signals if the Helpful Content System Classifier is reading our content between the optimizations. Mentioned in the show ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://forms.gle/6GNwkHYDebjdfYU37⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ I'm inviting you to get your content indexed on my dime during the Alpha Test phase on IndexZilla - my indexer that was hatched from all the indexation testing data gathere...

Well, its not REAL SEO testing until you do it a couple more times. In this episode you get to listen over my shoulder as I launch two more tests in the ongoing series of "Does Helpful Content "READ" the words between our optimizations?" Its really my effort to demonstrate that HC is completely topical, even if there's a dash of technical seo in it that the engineers forgot to account for - or if...

Just when we thought we might get out of a Q4 Black Friday Google Core Update - they go an toss one in the mix on a monday - 3 weeks before Black Friday. To reward those that read these notes - Mentioned in the show ⁠⁠⁠https://forms.gle/6GNwkHYDebjdfYU37⁠⁠⁠ I'm inviting you to get your content indexed on my dime during the Alpha Test phase on IndexZilla - my indexer that was hatched from all the i...

Its early in the testing timeframe and it woud appears that the Helpful Content System does NOT read content - at least in a way that relates to your writing style. But there DOES seem to measure something. To reward those that read these notes - https://forms.gle/6GNwkHYDebjdfYU37 I'm inviting you to get your content indexed on my dime during the Alpha Test phase on IndexZilla - my indexer that w...

When it comes to getting advice from the SEO community about how to get out of a Helpful Content Update Smackdown, most of the advice implies that the HCS ACTUALLY reads your content. OK, I'm your huckleberry! Let's test. In this show I share more of the history of seo testing from the early days of 2015 -to today - and why I'm more than happy to test to see if the Helpful Content System actually...

Couldn't get my mind off Kyle Roof's groundbreaking contest entry that ended up providing evidence that Google doesn't read. Got me to wondering - does Helpful Content System read? So many people are advising that content has to be written more helpful, maybe it does? Mentioned in the show - Last week's episode ⁠⁠ https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/pzdKdZGuvNb How Kyle Roof Got SEO Famous by Kyl...

This past week was a bit of a roller coaster ride for many people in the US. Got me to thinking of a time when an SEO showed Google no mercy and gave us SEOs something that forever changed our view about Google. Wix Studio - ⁠⁠⁠⁠The intuitive way for agencies and enterprises to design exceptional sites⁠⁠⁠⁠ Tools that I use and recommend: Cora Software ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

I realize that is a bold claim. If you're looking for helpful content you're looking in the wrong place - I'm a bit of a radical on Helpful Content because I bring data. And so far my theory and fixes have held up- even GOOGLE confirmed what I found so far and even gave me the names of the things the Helpful Content System is programmed to measure. Finding it was actually the easy part. Applying i...

This was a big week - talked about the loss of the google cache AND how it impacted the indexation testing. THEN - The article by Lars Lofgren CNN and USA Today Have Fake Websites, I Believe Forbes Marketplace Runs Them Another reason why news sites are exempt from being held to the same standards of Helpful Content System. Magic Mind - Special Offer - use coupon code SEOPod20 and Wix Studio - ⁠⁠T...

In this episode - the return of an early type of segment called - The Facebook Question Grab Bag - if you've ever wondered which keywords belong in the same article or a separate one, I'll share how I do this process. Then we The article in Linkedin- ⁠Google Leaked Documentation and the Helpful Content System Wix Studio - ⁠The intuitive way for agencies and enterprises to design exceptiona...

You've heard me complain about Google - but today is not that day - I went positive and chose today to list the top 3 things that I'm grateful for about Google - Things mentioned in the episode - What Happened With My First SEO Client Wix Studio - The intuitive way for agencies and enterprises to design exceptional sites Good news on the indexer front. Can't wait to share it! You can t...

This episode did not come easy. It became more of my mini-version of the road to Ninevah - to quote Jonah, "do I really have to do this?" Yeah. I did. The curse of being able to see what is going on in an SEO strategy from the outside, is the inability to unsee it. I did not name names because I wanted to speak freely about my opinion about what I saw. Figuring this out, brought me no jo...

Indeed, One Rule to Wring Us All - pardon my Lord of The Rings pun today. I watched several LOTR adventures over the holiday. Today I went a little more into why we need to put field data into context. What questions can what we see tell us? Let us not be satisfied with repeating data without context. PLUS big news on the indexer front. Can't wait to share it. Things mentioned in the episode W...

This week I thought while I was on the road - it was time to revisit my conversation with Ted Kubaitis from 2022 in anticipation of Google sunsetting the parameter tool in Google Webmasters. Its particularly poignant given all the recent parameter issues and well, canonical if I'm being honest. Did everything turn out as Google planned? You can text Confessions - 512-222-3132 Check out my ⁠⁠⁠⁠...

Well, I hope you're happy - we got the update some of you were hoping for - or as I like to call it Spontaneous Something. Indexation is doing something and then I went through possible explanations of what we might be seeing because if I KNEW what we were seeing, I would likely have signed a non-disclosure with Google. You can text Confessions - 512-222-3132 Check out my ⁠⁠⁠HCS guide⁠⁠⁠ Ep 22...

This week's show is a gentle rant. It started innocently enough talking about an article of a published test on Javascript and Googlebots. Last week's episode Mystery of the Negative SEO Canonical You can text Confessions - 512-222-3132 Check out my ⁠⁠HCS guide⁠⁠ Ep 22 - ⁠⁠What's Canonical Got To Do With It⁠⁠ You will want to read my write up on what I observed in various sites that we...

In this week's show I share my trip down the rabbit hole that brought me right back to where I am. Here are links to the articles discussed in this episode. Negative SEO Canonical Google XML Sitemap Bug Tom Anthony Bug Bounty Details Google Developers Ping Demise Check out my ⁠HCS guide⁠ Ep 22 - ⁠What's Canonical Got To Do With It⁠ You will want to read my write up on what I observed in va...