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  1. What you need to know this week
  2. Marie's news / Podcast
  3. Helpful for Local Businesses
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The helpful content and link spam updates are FINALLY finished

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Last week’s episode See all episodes

I am still scratching my head trying to understand why Google didn’t just wait till after the holidays to release these updates. 

I’ve now added these dates to the algorithm update checklist:

  • December 5-Jan 12: December Helpful Content Update
  • December 14-Jan 12: December Link Spam Update

Glenn Gabe shared some examples of sites seeing lots of movement. This was before the update had fully finished.

This morning, I asked on Twitter and many people are reporting seeing big changes. Here are some:

 

Often, following a significant change in Google’s systems…(look at me, not always saying “update.”…we will see a lot of changes as the search results adjust. 

I would not recommend making any judgement calls or changes in reaction to these updates until we give things a few weeks to settle.

What I’m seeing my data so far

It is going to be extremely difficult for many sites to determine whether they’ve been affected by recent Google updates. Many sites have declines that appear to start on December 5 or 14. But, in many cases if you compare the data to the previous year, this is a common seasonal pattern. The SERPS often shift in the weeks before Christmas as holiday shopping patterns emerge.

So many sites that I’m examining have changes that I expect will be wrongly interpreted as an update hit or win. In the paid version, I’ve shared a few examples that will hopefully help you understand what’s going on with your data.

 

What should you do if you think you were impacted?

I am still continuing to look at sites as I develop my traffic drop assessment tool. (More below). If you submit your site I will send you a link to your report once the tool is ready for public use. My goal is to be able to walk you through determining whether or not you need to be concerned about losses seen. 

If you think you were impacted by either update, here is my current advice:

Wait before making drastic changes. No one knows how to recover or even what was affected. Reacting now would be foolish unless it is incredibly obvious what caused your losses.

It is always a good idea to be working on improving quality as described in Google’s documentation on helpful content. But, I would hold off on doing things like filing a disavow, pruning content or making any big changes to try and remedy losses before we have more information. 

I should also point out that filing a disavow is unlikely to help if you were impacted by either of these updates. If the link spam update is indeed causing losses, disavowing will not cause Google to start counting the links they have previously nullified.

Over the next few weeks as I work on making my tool as accurate as possible I will be thoroughly reviewing sites affected and will be publishing much more information in newsletter with my thoughts on recovery.

Join me in a zoom call to discuss the impact of these updates 

Next week, Thursday at 1pm EST, I will be running a Zoom meeting to discuss what we are seeing with these updates.

The only requirement to join is to be a paying member of newsletter. There are instructions for joining in the paid version.

Discussed further in the paid version

  • Does the length of an update predict its intensity?
  • Some examples to help you understand whether you’ve been impacted by December updates
  • Tips on E-E-A-T improvement, especially experience
  • Discussion on Bankrate and CNET openly disclosing they use AI writers as authors
  • Tips on schema for topical mapping and interlinking, topical authority, JavaScript tips, link building
  • The latest things I’ve found useful and interesting regarding AI and ChatGPT
  • Summary of Kate Toon’s interview with John Mueller
  • How to create a great awards page (and what the QRG says about that)
  • Analyze your site with NLP and knowledge graphs

Marie's news / Podcast

Podcast is still on hold while I work on my tool, book and course. It is hard to say when these will all be complete. They are all coming along well, but there is much yet to be done!

My next podcast episode will be a very interesting one…hopefully worth waiting for!

The latest on my traffic drop assessment tool

This was an interesting week. I got my new computer this week – a Chromebook instead of a Macbook Pro! It’s an amazing machine. I have no regrets so far.

On Monday I went through such a roller coaster of emotions while trying to install Linux and a programming environment on my Chromebook. I am not a programmer. I taught myself a few things over the years and have built a few tools. But there is a lot I do not know. Like, I thought this was a special message for me somehow (it’s not):

Penguin - Linux (not just for Marie)

I got stuck. And ChatGPT was down. I went from Youtube video to article to one frustrating search after the other with no clue what I was doing. And then imposter syndrome struck. What the heck am I doing trying to program a tool? You’ve tried this 5 different ways and you’re not even close…it will never work…you can’t even figure out what language to program in….just give up and go back to consulting. My brain was having a hard time.

And then magical things happened. ChatGPT came back online. I started asking questions and sharing error messages and within 20 minutes we had my problem figured out. By the end of the day, despite me starting over from scratch I had nicely functioning code that was spitting out the answer I wanted.

I can see the full path now of what needs to get done and how helpful this is going to be for so many. The great news is that I feel I have the skills (or the connections) to do what I need to do.

What a roller coaster of emotions. It is amazing how crippling fear can be. Once I started believing again that I could accomplish this, it all just started to flow.

How you can be involved:

Submit a site here. I’ll use it to test the tool. Once the tool is ready for testing, I’ll send you a link so you can get your report. The report will tell you which Google updates may have hit your site and what my general recommendations for recovery are.

I’ve had several of you reach out offering to beta test or to help me with the coding and development. Thank you! At some point I will have a developer help me. For now (this might be dumb) I’m really enjoying the challenge of doing this myself along with the help of ChatGPT.  We’ll see what happens when it comes to beta testing time.

I’ve started a waiting list for when I resume traffic drop assessments

Once I’ve completed my tool, I need to keep my skills up by thoroughly digging into actual websites that have been impacted by Google updates. I am not sure when I will be resuming offering site review services. There are several options I am considering.

You can help me decide what types of services to offer and sign up for my waiting list by using this form.

If you want to hire someone now to investigate a traffic drop

I am happy to recommend a professional for you to hire.

Helpful for Local Businesses

No more custom calls to action in GBP

Claire Carlile noticed new messaging in GBP that says, “Price ranges and specifying a custom call to action will no longer be supported from 15 Feb 2023. Current price ranges will be removed and all landing pages will have a ‘Visit site’ label.”

 

How to contact Google Business Support

 

It is common to get fake ownership requests for your GBP

If a question on your GBP gets 3 or more likes it will appear on your profile

SEO Jobs

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.

More in the paid version:

  • Does the length of an update predict its intensity?
  • Some examples to help you understand whether you’ve been impacted by December updates
  • Tips on E-E-A-T improvement, especially experience
  • Discussion on Bankrate and CNET openly disclosing they use AI writers as authors
  • Tips on schema for topical mapping and interlinking, topical authority, JavaScript tips, link building
  • The latest things I’ve found useful and interesting regarding AI and ChatGPT
  • Summary of Kate Toon’s interview with John Mueller
  • How to create a great awards page (and what the QRG says about that)
  • Analyze your site with NLP and knowledge graphs

I hope things are going well with your site. This is such a turbulent time!

Marie

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