Marie Haynes' Newsletter - November 11, 2022 - Episode 260 - Light Version

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Will Elon Musk destroy Twitter? I am fascinated watching this discussion happen. I do not think the Twitter community will move en masse to Mastodon, although it does look like a good platform provided you can figure it out!

In this episode I share my thoughts on John Mueller’s words that imply that Google is putting less emphasis on links in their algorithms. We’ll also discuss some odd algorithm turbulence and indexing issues, although there aren’t a lot of clear answers as to what is going on here.

Thank you to those who joined my subscriber only Zoom call on the spam update. I learned a lot by looking at your sites and really enjoyed the conversation. I want to do more of these calls. If you would like to suggest a topic for a group discussion, please do shoot me a message on Twitter.

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If your GSC data is delayed (especially with the API) it should be fixed soon

If you're seeing delays with search console API data, you're not alone. https://t.co/rROovmlkyS

— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) November 10, 2022

15,000 sites were hacked for SEO purposes

Most of these were WordPress sites. The hack makes it so that any users that are not logged in to WordPress get redirected to a spam Q&A site. What’s interesting is that the hackers are redirecting people via a Google search in an attempt to manipulate click metrics.

15,000 sites hacked for massive Google SEO poisoning campaign https://t.co/E84voppwL3

— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) November 9, 2022

You can check if you were hit by going to sitecheck.sucuri.net.

Google is putting less emphasis on links

At Brighton SEO, John Mueller said that over time links “won’t be such a big factor as sometimes it used to be. And I think already that’s something that’s been changed quite a bit.”

You can hear John’s clip here. There’s more discussion in the paid version of newsletter on this as it’s very important!

There have been unusual turbulence and indexing issues

If you lost traffic or have been struggling to get pages indexed since October 13, 17, 28 or November 3, you are not alone. We do not know what is happening but I feel something is changing in which content Google chooses to index. I’m keeping track of these dates and what we know on my algo update list.

How you edit your Google Business Profile is changing

Gah, another change to maps, I mean local listings, I mean GMB, I mean GBP.

All of your GBP profiles are not only editable from within the SERPs rather than from a dashboard like we have used for years. Find it by searching “Google Business Profile.” Also, posts are now called “updates”. If you manage a GBP you should take time to read this article.

The way you edit Google Business Profile is changing, but not everyone's happy about it.

Here's what's new, why it's happened, and what local SEOs think of the update.https://t.co/d1iaMTt3uM

— BrightLocal 🇺🇦 (@brightlocal) November 7, 2022

New attributes for reviews that will help cut down spam

Not claiming this is new, but I don't think I've noticed these Local Guide tags before — "27 barbecue restaurant reviews" with custom icon. Great way to build authority of reviewers! pic.twitter.com/5lX70YyQlQ

— Damian Rollison (@damianrollison) January 10, 2022

Possible issue with saving edits in GBP

(This has apparently been fixed – but if you were having trouble editing your business profile, this is why.)

Hearing reports of people having issues saving edits on their Google Business Profile via @LocalSearchLink https://t.co/VpzMjw0nEw pic.twitter.com/GSnLFlPPdW

— Joy Hawkins (@JoyanneHawkins) November 8, 2022

Last week’s podcast

Last week’s audio only podcast is an important one. I talk about the October spam update. Even if you were not hit, there is information in here that will help you understand what is important in Google’s algorithms in this day and age. So many people are doing SEO like it’s 2008 still.

Subscribe so you never miss an episode! I publish a new podcast every two weeks:

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I’m also experimenting a lot on my YouTube Channel. I’m going to start playing around a lot with YouTube Shorts. I won’t be putting all of these in newsletter, so please do subscribe if you want to watch me learn what works on YouTube.

Upcoming SMX talk

SMX Next is happening on November 15-16 – my last public talk for a while as I’m taking time to focus on creating my own content.

This is a really important talk. I share my thoughts on how machine learning is likely determining how much to weigh ranking factors for most queries. No SEO can decode Google’s algorithms. The more Google uses machine learning the better they will get at ranking content that is simply the most helpful. Thankfully Google has given us so many resources to draw on to understand how to create helpful content.

This teaser by Barry, talking about an algorithm update that was the precursor to Panda has me incredibly intruiged!

What’s in the paid version this week?

For those of you who pay for newsletter each week, there is once again a LOT covered. I share detailed thoughts on how you can use Semrush’s new link visualization tool to help improve E-A-T. Ahrefs also has a new feature that is incredibly helpful for improving E-A-T as well!

I share about:

• How the topic layer of the knowledge graph could be used to help determine if content contains original research or information.
• My detailed thoughts on why Twitter will not only not die, but possibly become THE home of the creator economy. This is a really big deal. Plus someone super influential followed me right before tweeting at Elon Musk that he uses the blue check mark to find cool people to follow which is a cool story!
• Helpful info on using GSC data to find content clusters, some more GA4 resources, some very interesting news on the AI front
• My thoughts on Mike King’s article on AI content along with some screenshots showing how the OpenAI helped answer many of my questions about large language models and machine learning use in algorithms.

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Looking for a new SEO job? SEOjobs.com is a job board curated by real SEOs for SEOs. Take a look at five of the hottest SEO job listing this week (below) and sign up for the weekly job listing email only available at SEOjobs.com.

Thanks for reading! I’d love for you to share this newsletter with others. The more I can grow my membership, the more time I can spend making this a helpful resource.

Have a great weekend!

Marie