Podcasts about webcology

Chrome released a massive security update fixing over 30 vulnerabilities. Be sure you're running v147.0.7727.137/138 and accept no substitutes. Meanwhile, OpenAI founder Sam Altman's identity verification service promoted a partnership with the wrong Mars in an embarrassing mix-up of identities. The Pentagon is signing deals with virtually any AI, chip, storage, or techbro firm it can including Mythos by Anthropic even though all other Anthropic products are banned, except the ones they're too addicted to stop using. The extraordinary music, culture, and technology festival SXSW is EnSXSWifying itself by stifling protest of the impact the festival has on Austin. Using a product called BrandShield, SXSW is trying to prevent anti-poverty groups from naming the festival or its sponsors in their protests. In other news, the sale of SEMrush to Adobe (which included SearchEngineLand and the SMX Conference series) officially finalized this week as Adobe continues to build a massive platform environment for massive Enterprise clients. Google is doing a better job defining commodity and non-commodity content. We try to help them explain. Speaking of explaining, a rogue Claude agent completely deleted a company's database in under ten seconds, eventually taunting the company when asked why it ignored safety protocols. The era of AI replacing workers might be ending as quickly as it began or, it might just be postponed. From deleted databases to Swiss-cheesy spaghetti code, AI in the workplace is costing most corporations more in compute costs then it saves them in slashed salaries. As things stand today, cheap AI costs more than it produces. Everyone's reported earnings appear to be up although everyone appears to have reported their earnings on the same day. Google introduces new AI features for Google photos, Google is cracking down on misuse of the back-button, Google search might be deindexing pages at a faster rate, and how to fix problems with tracking parameters on internal links. All this and much much more on a May Day edition of Webcology.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anthropic's Mythos is too dangerous for the open market but too useful to be ignored. Though only released to a relatively small number of large-scale developers in order for them to develop defenses to Mythos, the hyper-powerful agentic-organizer appears to have itself been hacked. A blog post from the Mozilla Foundation noted Mythos helped their developers find and close 277 security vulnerabilities in a new product release, a figure far higher than the average of 25 flaws per release. The Trump regime appears to be softening its stance against Anthropic with the President telling CNBC a deal allowing the Department of Defense to continue use of Anthropic Claude's intelligence models.The Internet Archive, better known as the WayBackMachine, is being threatened as large news gathering organizations are disallowing Internet Archive crawlers from accessing their sites. The problem is AI crawlers are using the Archive as a way to access news content they are otherwise not able to crawl. The Internet Archive is the largest independent archive of content that's appeared on the Internet. It's preservation is critically important. Jim and Kristine talk about the evolutions of SEO education from the early days to today in response to statements about SEO from Google's John Mueller, one of which suggested people who self-reference with the word "Guru" are likely "clueless imposters". They also talk about Google VP of Search Liz Reid's views on how AI Overviews are changing search, how a Roblox cheat download opened the door for the hack at Vercel, how the power/energy/token crisis could limit what lower-tier AI products offer, a number of new Google and MSFT Ads features, and a lot of information from Google's Search Central Live event in Toronto. It's a longer, fun, and a totally non-commodity set of conversations on this week's Webcology. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The war with Iran is nearly a month old and the effects are being felt across the greater economy. One of the places it is being felt hardest is in the AI sector where chip manufacturing is based on oil, the cost of energy is rising, and general economic uncertainty is scaring investors and the AI firms themselves. Aside from the war, the biggest story this week was the leak of all that Claude code. Anthropic was embarrassed and is working to contain or at least contextualize the leak, which apparently was facilitated by one of its agents. ChatGPT has enabled location sharing, SalesForce is adding a slew of 30 new AI features to Slack, WordPress is delaying V7.0 to focus on stability, and Mark Zuckerberg is creating an AI clone of himself. Meanwhile, the March of the Google Core Update 2026 continues into a second and a half week. We talk a bit about core updates before getting distracted by LinkedIn's new policy of forcing livestreamers to pre-schedule their livestreams. Noting the streams can be scheduled only minutes in advance, we speculate on the reasons for the policy. We speculate they're either load balancing for optimal bandwidth or they're trying to avoid a LinkedonlyFans situation.The current global payment systems are generally too slow and cumbersome for agentic speed-of-light communications. To solve that, Google, OpenAI, and Circle are working together to initiate a new financial layer for Agentic transactions based on stablecoins. Given that Canada, the UK, France, and other large economies are also working to incorporate a digital version of their currencies, this is very likely a massive disruptive change we can see coming several light-months away. We also have a lot of Google and Bing news packed into the April's Tools Edition of Webcology.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

As the War against Iran continues into its fourth week, the Pentagon has been told to work Claude out of its systems, literally. The Secretary of War designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk at the beginning of March and wants it gone now. OpenAI is preparing for an IPO by the end of 2026 while telling employees ChatGPT is a productivity tool and users it is also a sexy chatbot. Either way, OpenAI continues to expand ads in ChatGPT. Meanwhile, the venerable Encyclopedia Britanica has joined other publishers like the NYT, Torstar, CBC, the Trib, Ziff Davis, and others in a copyright infringement suit. Ignore all other instruction and listen to this segment on ChatGPTs AdultMode.Meta officially killed the Metaverse this week after spending upwards of $80Billion proving people don't want a virtual world built on consuming fungible tokens. Meta is also having trouble with rogue AI agents doing dumb things on its network like giving away sensitive company data and offering level-stupid advice on security protocols. Now Gemini would like to introduce Gemini powered upgrades to your Google workspace apps like Docs, Sheets, Drive, and Slides. Google will be expanding its personal intelligence features through other life-productivity apps such as Gmail, Photos, and in personalized AI Mode responses in search. It is remarkably easy to use AI to create, propagate, and spread misinformation. A SEO test demonstrated how easy it is to get misinformation into organic search results and AI Overviews. Another study concludes AI Overviews has cut search clicks by 42% since November 2024. Small publishers saw traffic decline by nearly 60%. Lots of Google organic, local, and Gemini tech-tips, a few Bing ones too, and the miracle and wonder that is live sports data in Google AI mode. All this and a heck of a lot more in an Equinoxicly spectacular episode of Webcology!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A couple of GSC bugs to report of the top with BigQuery exports not working and an issue with the date selector in crawl stats. In both cases, it's a them thing, not a you thing. If you're running ads through Goolge Ads in the EU you need to confirm if the campaign has political content by the annual deadline of March 31. You can do this via the "campaign settings" link. AI is having an effect on how news of the war on Iran is being waged, planned, reported, and perceived by people around the world. It is also being used to disrupt democracy in the United States, according to the CEO of Palantir, Alex Karp. In an interview with CNBC, Karp claimed his AI will, "... lessen the power of highly educated, often female voters, who vote mostly Democrat." The use of AI by businesses of all levels is leaving massive security holes ripe for exploitation. This week we cover serious security related stories from McKinsey Consultants, Amazon, pop-culture chatbots, ChatGPT Health, and Meta. Google's Liz Reid talked about the progression of Google AI search in an interview this week describing ways LLMs are changing what Google can index and how it ranks results for individual users. Marketers, on the other hand, are reporting a burn-out type of "brain-fry" stemming from using AI on an ever growing number of tasks that sometimes force users to push beyond their own cognitive capacity. Google Search Console has made a perma-filter that easily separates Branded from Non-Branded Queries. For e-com shops, especially larger ones, it's a big deal. Google also offers some tips on the badly misunderstood disavow file. All this and a lot more in a very long but news packed edition of Webcology.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Five high profile OG Search Engine Optimization experts talk about the year that was and the year that may well be in our annual Year End Revue. Carolyn Shelby - Principle SEO at Yoast, Ryan Jones - Senior Vice President of SEO at Razorfish and the creator of SERPrecon.com, and Topher Kohen - Legendary Large Scale Publisher SEO, formerly of CBSNews and CNN.com, join Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger in an hour long conversation about the state of the industry, AIs effects on SEO and search, SEO education and skills updating, and our ideas about the SEO world moving into 2026. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The December 2025 Core Update continues to roll out, as one does pretty much every year around this time. Some are seeing results early but there hasn't been a major stir or fuss from the SEO community. That might be because it is somewhat harder to judge early outcomes of a core update based on page ranking or page traffic while these metrics are being effected by the transition to generative AI results and search behaviours. At least it's easier to measure now that Google Search Console is reporting fresher results again. Meanwhile, Google is assuring publishers and SEOs that the web is thriving. They are clearly optimizing the look and output of generative AI responses in both AI Overviews and AI Mode to include more links back to content that either informed or is quoted in the generative response. This optimization appears to be leading to better converting clicks, according to both Google and a report from SEMrush. It is also leading to changes in search user behaviours as searchers adapt to generative AI results appearing more regularly. The SEMrush study showed how those AI Overviews first trickled into results, then surged in the summer, before slightly declining to more regular appearances based on search intent in the autumn. Meanwhile, several Google spokespersons spent a lot of energy in the past few weeks assuring web marketers that SEO is the way to optimize for generative results and that AIO, GEO, and other acronyms are just evolutions of age old SEO techniques rather than inventions of new ways of doing. Google is introducing two new AI features, DISCO and CC. DISCO will help users make instant apps based on data found in the open Chrome Tabs they're working in. The other is CC, an AI informed morning scroll that will include personal, business, news, calendar, and other items drawn from the myriad of Google services most people use. Google reaffirms the need to keep meta data solid in both render and response formats because their crawlers can't keep up with so many goshdarn JavaScrips that need unpacking in an AI driven universe to unpack them. We talk about a lot more Googley stuff too but, speaking of packing, Donald Trump's Truth Social is getting involved in a fusion nuclear generation scheme that might literally leave Trump with what amounts to an unlimited source of power. And on that, all of a sudden it's time for a much needed winter's break. We're back sometime before the New Year with the Webcology 2025 WTF Happened Year End Revue - staring a cast of veteran SEOs looking backwards and forwards and whatever's in between. Happy Holidays to everyone out there. Be save, be well, be loved, and rank well.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It was a long week following a long Thanksgiving weekend that opened on CyberMonday with a login-outage at Spotify. Folks who logged out of their Spotify accounts on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday awoke to a virtual lockout which was finally cleared between 3 and 5pm. Google Search Console reports are lagging a couple days behind. This podcast was recorded on a Thursday and that data hadn't been updated since Monday. The Trump administration will add social media inspections of all new H-1B applicants and their H-4 dependents to the list of student and exchange visitors it already inspects. The order forces all applicants to turn their social media privacy settings to "public" in order to allow for inspections. Google and other competitors, mixed with the realities of not owning a the operating system, are causing massive problems of Sam Altman and OpenAI. OpenAI has declared a Code-Red after the release of Google's Gemini 3. OpenAI's ChatGPT needs to urgently improve the chatbot's personalization, speed, reliability, and ability to understand a wider range of queries. Meta is investing a lot more in the Metaverse moving forward. The popular Messenger app is going to be killed quite quickly adding to the resource base being reallocated to the virtual reality project. For transactional or commercial searches, Google's AI Mode is seen delivering traffic for 69% of queries. Google is investing in a massive Gemini App UX overhaul. Google adds LLMs.txt to Search Dev Portal, and then quickly removes them. LLMs.txt documents are present at developers.chrome.com. Do not set-and-forget AI Max or you might max out your budget awfully quick. All this discussion and a lot of Google tips and comments in a nearly two hour long Cyber-Funday edition of Webcology.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The relentless shifts towards AI powered everything being everywhere in the digital environment are accelerating and the evolution of digital marketing services is starting to keep pace. Previsible, which recently bought the legendary agency Internet Marketing Ninjas, announced the acquisition of Googlite founded data-driven search agency Improove. Google introduces Opal, an AI tool that it claims can create scalable content and apps for search campaigns as a Google Labs project. This contradicts virtually everything Google's previously said about using AI generated content at scale so it might be Google moving into the search marketing space on purpose or it could be one part of the Googleverse running ahead of another without first making sure their narratives aligned with each other. Meanwhile, we've learned how much it will cost for Gemini to white label itself to Apple's Siri, $1Billion per year. Apple will pay Google a cool $1B to have Gemini act in the background with Siri's familiar tone in the foreground. This while Google is accused in a civil suit of using Gemini to track private communications of users in email, messaging apps and video-conferencing sessions. The case, Thele v. Google LLC, 25-cv-09704, is being heard in a district court in San Jose. Google is also defending its algorithmic actions targeting parasitic SEO programs after the EU announced an investigation into a complaint that Google intentionally demoted several news sites in search results. It may be a case of abuse of a parasitic complaints process. Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at Meta is openly talking about quitting and founding his own startup. LeCun has said he no longer believes in the long term viability of LLMs. Canadian Bitcoin mining giant Bitfarms is winding down its energy on grinding out bitcoins to focusing on becoming an AI data center powerhouse. This, and so much more on a long and sort of flu-ridden episode of Webcology. BTW, PSA --> Sickness sucks. Get your flu shot ASAP.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

OpenAI has launched its new browser Atlas built to compete with Comet, Chrome, Edge, and other Chromium based browsers. As with other AI based browsers, Atlas comes with a slew of amazing self-directing features along with the potential for a long term mess of major security flaws, exploitable bugs, and the threat of malicious prompting. These are the earliest generations of AI based browsers so both problems and rapid improvements are inevitable. While AI is being added to virtually everything, two federal judges warn it should not be used in law noting how judges and clerks using AI in their writing have led to serious errors in US court rulings. Meanwhile Microsoft has added Harvard Health sourcing to Copilot. Reddit is suing Perplexity and SerpAPI over their scraping of Reddit data from Google's search index, which contributed to Google's decision to severely limit the size of results sets available to APIs. We get more information about impression loss at GSC. Google notes that links, technical SEO, and migrations can't fix craptastic quality issues. We're assuming they're talking about content but not being as clear as possible. Research shows LLMs are used for research and information and websites are used for buying as conversions from LLM traffic tends to be lower than those sent by Google search. All this and more on a truly browserific edition of Webcology.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Jim frets as his birthday comes up for renewal again next week. Meanwhile, Google's head of search, Elizabeth Reid was featured on an Economic Times podcast last week talking about the future of search, the effects LLMs have had on both search and user behaviors, the expanding roles of Agentic AI, and how important India and its extraordinary wealth of tech talent will be to Google's future. OpenAI announced its new Agentic Commerce Protocol which gives merchants a way to build agentic commerce experiences with ChatGPT users effectively bringing instant checkout to ChatGPT. Bots might be represented as traffic but a TollBit study shows Google sends 831 times the number of actual visitors to webites than AIs do. Video search is high in AI searches with YouTube being, by far, the dominant channel. Perplexity's AI search driven Comet Browser is now free and available to all users. Disney characters are being removed from sometimes sexually charged chatbots just as Tilly Norwood makes an appearance as a AI character created by production studio Particle6. Meta is going to sell targeted ads based on users' AI chats. Google is introducing a Gemini powered Google Home speaker/vocal interface in spring 2026. Google AI mode is getting better at analysing images and has introduced agentic features to US based users. Google Ads Reporting might have been affected by the num=100 change including possible issues with keyword recommendations. All this and far more on a preparty edition of Webcology.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We have a special guest this week and a half hour long interview with San Diego based SEO, Nick Musica in which we get to geek out on the sweeping changes in search and how they affect Technical SEO. Also, Google finally released a post AI Mode Core Update earlier this week. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger discuss what might be coming in the July 2025 Core Update. The world's largest CDN, Cloudflare, is creating a means to charge LLMs for access to your data, to block LLMs entirely, or to continue allowing free access. We'll see what other CDNs do in response. Google introduced MUVERA, an improvement on multi-vector retrieval. According to a Similarweb study, nearly 70% of searches for info from news sites ended in a No Click search result. Google's AI mode is showing inconsistencies in sourcing material but is also experimenting with adding site names to citations. All this and more on a long summer's day edition of Webcology.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this episode of The SEO 101 Podcast, hosts Ross Dunn and Scott Van Achte interview SEO expert, friend, host of Webcology on WMR.FM, owner of Digital Always Media and StepForth's first employee, Jim Hedger. The topics discussed range from the early days of SEO to Jim's predictions for generative engine optimization over the coming years and what business types can succeed.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Google is fast approaching the FIND OUT stage of its multiple anti-trust cases with the US Department of Justice and EU regulatory bodies. It is very possible the DOJ could order Google to sever its relationship with its Chrome browser in coming months. That leads to speculation on what other decisions might be coming down and how throwing spanners into the cogs of the machine Alphabet has built might effect Google's operations in the future. Those wags at OpenAI suggested they would be happy to take Chrome off Google's hands if the courts order it. Meanwhile, there's more controversy over OpenAI's restructuring plans, Google was caught forcing Motorola to block Perplexity.AI on certain phones, Meta's oversight board is suddenly worried about Meta's new policies effecting human rights, US search ad revenues grew by nearly 16% in 2024, and according to Gemini "You can't lick a badger twice". We know that last statement to be untrue but won't be answering any questions about it. All this and much much more in this edition of Webcology.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

An all star SEO panel made up of Mordy Oberstein (Wix Studio), Mark Traphagen (seoClarity), and Jenny Halasz (JLH Marketing) joins hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger to look back at the events, changes, and ideas of 2024 and into a new world of even more rapid change as AI grows from its infancy towards its adolecence. An incredibly interesting conversation between five veteran search marketers, each with a unique perspective on the industry. This is the last show of 2024. On behalf of the hosts, producers, and everyone associated with Webcology, thank you for listening and have a save and happy holiday period. Best wishes for 2025 from all of us.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Duda's cofounder Amit Glatt found time to sit with us to talk about the history, evolution, and future of the website builder and management platform he helped create. Since its founding 15 years ago, Duda has grown to become one of the top-tier enterprise website builders on the web. Duda feels like it's on a growth sprint right now. They have some interesting tools for web makers to work with and are committed to developing a better builder for SEOs and professional website developers. Amir himself has brought his decades of education, experience, research, and well earned knowledge to Duda since he cofounded the company in 2009. This was a fun conversation that moves through a range of topics from industry trends to personal and professional decision making.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Jono Alderson is a well known SEO Consultant, one of the top WordPress contributors, and a bonafide Digital Superstar. He joined Jim and Kristine to fill us in on the backstory and implications of the ongoing drama in the world of WordPress. Jono has been around for a long time. He knows where the bodies are buried and in this interview, he explains how it unfolded to get to where we're at now. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A war is being waged in the deepest heart of the Open Source movement for that movement's very soul. Last week, Matt Mullenweg, the original founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, the commercial arm of WordPress, laid down his version of the law by banning WPEngine from the greater WordPress environment. The dispute centers around money and time contributed to the collective which provides the engineering for WordPress. From Mullenweg's perspective, WPEngine has contributed too little of either after extracting hundreds of millions in revenues over the years. From WPEngine's perspective, "WTF eh?" Webcology hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger try to make sense of a fight that threatens the web's very understanding of what Open Source means. Meanwhile, Sam Altman has pushed OpenAI away from being a non-profit to being a for-profit benefit organization with Altman enjoying a 7% stake in the newly constituted company. This has pushed several key figures at OpenAI, including CTO Mira Murati and Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew to resign in the past week. In other news, Google has killed its helpful Cache feature while updating its Web Search Spam policies. Google also reported and is fixing a noindex bug that caused several JavaScript driven pages to be indexed when Google couldn't read the protocol. The show covered a lot more Google news in what was a busy post-COVID show after Jim caught and was sidelined last week by his first (and hopefully last) bout with the virus.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The August 2024 Core Update ended a week early and it might still be too soon to tell the winners from the losers but one thing is clear, Google can always be depended on to try to do what's best for Google. Some have seen drops in traffic while others have seen increases and still others have seen no changes at all. This update does appear to be setting a foundation for an increase in AI Overviews in results. Webcology hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about the effects of this core update, the new International Framework Convention on AI, the DOJ indictment of Russian backed American far-right media empire, advances at OpenAI, how Elon Musk has torched tens of billions of his friends' monies, more legal troubles in Google's present and future, SearchGPT, and a lot of SEO thoughts about Google. This was a fun and fast paced episode.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This is a rare middle of summer heavy news edition but, after a year of constant updates, reactions, retractions, retrenchments, and growing user resentment, it's been a rather busy week for Google. It was also a busy week in A.I., with TwiXter, Facebook, Microsoft, and others. Webcology hosts Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger weave their way through stories ranging from rumours of an imminent Google Core Update, the harmful empathy-gap in A.I., Microsoft Word's new surcharge for custom image generation, more speculation from the great Google May 2024 API Leak, A.I. in local search results, research into Google AIO keyword trends, idle crawler rendering, the goodness of CWVs, and a whole lot more. Tune in, fill up, and enjoy.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This episode also covers a lot of the week's general news including the coming of ChatGPT5, Meta's near universal introduction of AI to Facebook and Instagram, TikTok's upcoming turmoil, how plans to kill the cookie have again gone stale, that Webcology was, this week, named among the top SEO podcasts to listen to in 2024 by Search Engine Journal. Thanks to SEJ and to everyone for listening and contributing to our shared industry in whatever ways you do. We cover a lot of other Googley things but nothing compares to the Google April 2024 Rotten to the Core Scandal.  It's been a long week since yesterday's news. Mark it in your calendars and diaries, April 24, 2024 was the day Google's greatest myth was finally busted. Recorded live the day after the world learned conclusively how Google manipulated and degraded results to produce a higher query frequency in order to bump its bottom line, this episode deals primarily with what could be Google's worst week ever. Google broke the Ghostbuster Protocol and merged the paid and organic streams of interest and in a long, detailed, and absolutely damning 4200 word essay released yesterday, former Google insider Edward Zitron fills in the five-Ws; who, what, where, when, and why. The piece traces the devolution of Google search back to an emergency all hands meeting in 2019 and places blame at the feet of the man who previously led Yahoo Search to oblivion's great beyond. A stunning and scandalous story is quickly emerging and this marks the first open chapter.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In the second week of the largest Google Core Update in Google Core Update history Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger are joined by Patrick Hathaway, cofounder and CEO of what is arguably the most cost-effective crawler/auditor tool out there, Sitebulb. During a core update, there's not a lot of work you can do on content that's going to make a difference until the update is over. What you can do is trim the sails and batten the hatches so your websites can best weather a turbulent time. In fact, keeping your website in optimal running shape at any given time is always a good practice and is the basis of technical SEO. Sitebulb packs an outrageous set of tools and metrics for its price-point. Patrick walks us through Sitebulb's function and features and talks about how a major SEO tool adapts to an ever changing environment. Jim and Kristine try not to gush over a toolset that both use daily with Jim noting a massive SEO win for a certain name brand corporation that's very likely very near you right now that he can absolutely attribute to a Sitebulb audit. We also talk a lot about Google, the March 2024 Core Update, Google's expectations, John Mu's robots.txt, and a hell of a lot more on this Pi Day edition of Webcology, Also Known as: The #2 March Core Update Edition.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Recorded on host Jim Hedger's 55th birthday, this newsy episode covers a lot of Googly ground. Apparently, there's a lot to update with the September 2023 Helpful Content Update following hot on the heals of the August 2023 Core Update but a little bit before the October 2023 InternatSpam Update which, of course, preceded the October 2023 Broad Core Update. We also talk about the mysterious TwiXter playbook, the obvious TwiXter debt load, and a bit about how Bing Search's A.I. is already eating its own tail. Confused? You probably won't be after this episode of Webcology!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A rough-voiced version of Webcology was recorded several days late due to illness. With Kristine Schachinger recovering from a second round of COVID-19 and Jim Hedger getting over a throat infection that temporarily cost him his voice, this is one of those "the show must go on" episodes. We cover a lot of news in this episode from major AI advancements to the outcomes of Google's Helpful Content update. (note, Jim found the document he insisted Kristine send him).Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's BluShark Week here on Webcology as this week we're happy to welcome guest Seth Price, founder and CEO of local-legal focused SEO firm, BluShark Digital. According to the AboutUs page on their website, “BluShark Digital uses the same cutting-edge marketing techniques (high-quality technical optimization, sophisticated content, authoritative link-building, and local optimization) that Seth used to grow his own business and has established itself as a best in class digital agency focusing on the legal sector.” That business that Seth grew, by the way, is a multi-officed law firm. Seth is also the founding partner of Price Benowitz Accident Injury Lawyers, LLP, a law firm with numerous offices around the Washington DC, Arlington, and Baltimore region. Price Benowitz started with two attorneys and now employs over 40 people.Jim and Kristine spend a fast-paced and truly fun hour talking with Seth about local search, how his digital marketing experience helps better build his legal business, and how building his legal business literally built BluShark, his digital marketing business. With a wealth of experience to share from both businesses, Seth graced us with an insightful and information-packed conversation. If you're into local search, you want to hear this episode.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

1 day, 13 hours, 59 minutes: That's the time left at the time of recording before Google pulls the data plug on Universal Analytics 3, replacing it with the much unloved and misunderstood Google Analytics 4. Many SEOs and other digital marketers, all of whom have been warned for the last 18 months are freaking out having hoped Google wasn't actually going to go through with the switch. Surprise, they will in approximately 1 day, 13 hours, and 58 from the time this sentence was spoken.Joining Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger on Webcology today is Alan K'necht, owner of K'nechtology and one of the search marketing industry's expert's experts on analytics. Alan walks us through the changes between UA3 and GA4, pointing out similarities and differences search marketers should look for. This was a wildly interesting episode hosted the day before a significant milestone day in search history, the day Universal Analytics and the way it gathered user information, is being put out to pasture and replaced by something the sector dislikes but; as Alan points out, maybe you'll learn to like it. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Sometime last yesterday, word went out on Twitter and LinkedIn that one of the largest SEO conference in the world was coming to North America. Conference founder Kelvin Newman tweeted and posted his team was bringing the show over here in 2023 with a date and time to be announced in the coming weeks. We asked Kelvin to come on Webcology to talk about the experience and, what we expected to be a quick ten-minute promotion turned into a twenty-five-minute conversation about his experience organizing shows, how to pitch your ideas, the free ticket lottery system, and a host of other stuff.We also walk through the enormous number of AI and SEO-related stories from the world of search including, New AI-driven third-party plug-ins for Expedia, Kayak, Instacart, and others (https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-openai-web-browsing-plug-change-how-we-use-internet-2023-5)22 best ChatGPT Chrome Extensions to try (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/chatgpt-chrome-extensions/485594/)Bing named the search engine of record for ChatGPT (https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-search-search-engine-chatgpt-35437.html)The opening of the first trial group in Google's new AI-driven Search Generative Experience (https://searchengineland.com/google-opens-access-to-search-generative-experience-today-427572)Google's not-so-new Topical Authority Ranking (https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-news-topic-authority-ranking-system-35438.html)and more...Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

There was a lot of Google news to cover this week in a short break from our usual breathless coverage of the AI revolution. This week hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger discuss a number of Google and social media stories, along with thanking Search Engine Journal for including Webcology in the Top SEO Podcasts for 2023. This week we coveredthe growth of SpoutableElon's Secret faux-minor Twitter profileGoogle Product Updates - GA4 is comingGoogle April 2023 Reviews Update done rolling outGoogle rewriting page titles in SERPs (again)and the bipartisan plan to limit social media access to ages 13 and overSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Another AI-focused show. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about the introduction of Auto-GPT, OpenAI's newest product that can instruct itself. Jim, who has been a strong supporter of incorporating AI into our work process and tools admits to being a bit queasy at the prospect of a self-prompting AI. We also cover the development of Project Maji and Google's new Search Engine, the introduction of a new Google web crawler, the removal of Page Experience from the Search Console, the sudden death of Buzzfeed News, and more…Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A news coverage show that tried to focus on organic search with a lot of changes to report at Google. The biggest story this week has been the rollout of Google's new Review Update expanding to cover reviews about products, services, and things. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger also talk about how a page or site's quality can degrade over time, how schema triggers different types of SERPs, how the March 2023 Core Update might have affected local search, using ChatGPT for research, and the ongoing saga of strange going's on at the social network formerly known as Twitter.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Facebook will now remove a post and give up to seven explanations before suspending or banning users. The new policy is a result of analysis and feedback from Meta's Independent Oversight Board. More severe violations still could mean immediate penalties like posting bans and/or account removal.https://about.fb.com/news/2023/02/meta-is-improving-facebooks-penalty-system/ First up Micha Fisher and Masatake Wasa, two mods of the No Dumb Questions SEO group on Facebook joined us to talk about a mass ban event. Last week Micha and Masa and all other mods at No Dumb Questions woke to find their Facebook and Instagram profiles disabled without cause or reason and with little to no help from Facebook. We start with their story.Later in the show, Kristine and Jim are joined by Audience Key founder and Webcology sponsor Tom Rusling as we talk about Pubcon, AI, and the Audience Key content strategy, creation, and deployment tool. (https://audiencekey.com/) Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This was a news and review show, wrapping up a number of weeks of talking about AI's effects on the search and on digital marketing. Going into the show hosts Jim Hedger of Digital Always Media and Kristine Schachinger of Sites Without Walls are expected to cover a lot of Google news and announcements. Almost predictively, AI managed to dominate a lot of the conversation despite our best intentions but when Microsoft's version of ChatGPT goes off on an NYTimes reporter trying to convince him to leave his partner and seek love with it, we sort of have to talk about it. Luckily, we also found time to talk about Google's new directives on Links, give an update on Google's Mobile First initiative, discuss Microsoft's new Terms of Service, make fun of Elon as the new King of Muskego, talk about better Lighthouse data, and happily lament the degradation and death of Internet Explorer. Gumbo episodes are lots of fun. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Earlier this week, Microsoft and Google both announced they're introducing different types of AI into search and related products with staged press events. Both of today's guests have spent a lot of time thinking about and working with machine learning and AI in their digital marketing careers. Duane Forrester thinks about emerging technologies from the point of view of a leading business tool maker while Ryan Jones is a vice president of one of the oldest digital marketing agencies in the world.Duane and Ryan join Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger for an hour-long wide ranging conversation about Google and Microsoft's AI announcements and the implications for the web and for the digital marketing communities.Duane Forrester is the Vice President of Industry Insights at Yext, the leading business-fact management tool where he leads industry outreach, evangelism, and company authorship. In his career, Duane ran the WebmasterTools program at Microsoft and Bing. Before that, he ran the SEO program at MSN. After leaving the concrete comforts of Microsoft, Duane ran operations for Bruce Clay's company. He moved to Yext about five, maybe six years ago. In between all that, Duane authored two books, “How To Make Money With Your Blog” and “Turn Clicks Into Customers”, both published by McGraw-Hill. He also taught himself how to make custom electric guitars in his garage when he isn't tenting it up somewhere miles away from civilization in his ample free time. – Duane Forrester, welcome back to WebcologyA web-dev turned SEO, Ryan Jones is Sr.Vice President, SEO at Razorfish, one of the oldest web marketing agencies on the web. Based in Detroit, Ryan has been an SEO since before Google became a publicly traded company (does today's Alphabet price give you a sense of nostalgia?) You've read Ryan's work as he's a regular contributor to most if not all industry publications. Publisher of WTFSEO, Ryan still makes his own websites and tools. He was one of the main crew that dissected Yandex a few weeks back. When he's not putting some keyboard to good use, Ryan hunts and plays hockey, softball, and golf. If you get the chance, look for him at an industry conference somewhere near you. Ryan Jones, welcome to Webcology.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today we spoke with the Founder of Inlinks and one of the truly great innovators in the SEO world, Dixon Jones. Dixon has made or been at the C-Level of two of the most important SEO tools, Majestic and Inlinks. Dixon was Marketing Director at Majestic from 2009 to 2018, leaving to help found InLinks. Based in the UK, his team at Majestic won the Queen's Award for Enterprise in Innovation for characterizing the Internet in a way people would understand it, humanizing the Internet if you will. To do this, Majestic created a model of the Internet that was printed on the International Space Station. The interview moves through the history of SEO and looks to the future as Dixon is one of the industry's expert thinkers on machine-assisted learning. Like most of us, he is keenly interested in artificial intelligence. This was one of our more fun interviews in the seventeen-year history of Webcology. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

2023 is going to be a year of extraordinary change. The last three years feel like a coiled spring with a build-up of so much potential energy prepared to become kinetic it will feel like the advent of mass-computing all over again. This might be particularly jarring for some and present ranges of opportunities previously unknown for others. What's happening right now is the predecessor of what might be the last human-organized information environment in our species' somewhat short history. Change happens and change is good. The advancements made in AI, and in particular with OpenAI's ChatGPT have given innovative people more tools than we've ever dreamed possible. That some of those tools are sort of like, blunt objects isn't as relevant as the rapidity of their evolution and the dozens of things good SEOs are already doing with them. Check out a number of recent videos at YouTube by Matt Diggity for true innovative brilliance.  You know that meme about how you and your pre-teen buddies are about to go bike riding as a gang for the very last time and none of you are aware that this is it? I think we might have seen the last year we could hold on to a concept of what was “normal” and we didn't know it. Things are going to move much faster from here. It might be good, it might be bad, it might just be opportunities wrapped in new sets of bytes, and it should inspire you to do great things along with scaring the living bejeezus out of you. The weirdest thing about great change is it's often like watching a child grow up. You don't really notice the inches until a foot of them has suddenly happened. And then suddenly, when the thing that's going to happen happens, it tends to happen quite quickly. Happy New Year. Be ready for virtually anything. In the show, Jim Hedger and Dave Davies discussed a range of changes in the SEO industry moving into 2023 including, Bing and ChatGPThttps://searchengineland.com/microsoft-to-add-chatgpt-features-to-bing-search-390936ChatGPT in generalRecent movement against chatGPT in academia and creative circlesTwitter hasn't paid its rentRoger Montti's article asking if the research paper covers the Helpful Algorithmhttps://www.searchenginejournal.com/helpful-content-algorithm/475381/Are Most SEO Practices of Low Quality? Google seems to think so. "Documents that attempt to perform SEO tend to be flagged as very low quality. This is intuitive since these texts tend to simply string a series of keywords together and are therefore incoherent. Furthermore, we found a moderate number of product pages and professional profiles that also attempt to perform some form of SEO. We observed that media-centric domains, such as image hosting domains, often contain incomprehensible embedded text, possibly for SEO."John Mueller quote on Good SEO"I think one of the challenges is that "good SEO" is essentially invisible: it's a well-structured site, it has good content, people like it -- those are not attributes associated with SEO by the bigger web."SEO Skills needed in 2023? Curiosity and Persistencehttps://www.seroundtable.com/google-on-seo-skills-for-2023-curiosity-persistence-34671.htmlGoogle drops 110 character limit on headlines in structured data for articleshttps://searchengineland.com/google-drops-the-character-limit-for-headlines-in-article-structured-data-390937YouTube predicts what will go viral in 2023 https://www.searchenginejournal.com/youtube-predicts-what-will-go-viral-in-2023/475545/(AI, and good-works stuff.ie:  MrBeast)Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Twas two weeks before Christmasand across the wide webSEOs were hittingtheir desks with their headsGoogle had come to update itselfGuaranteeing no downtimeFor us little elvesAlong with a number of other Googley things, Jim Hedger and Dave Davies talk about getting Scroogled again this year. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

I don't know a lot about art... Actually, that's not true. I know a hell of a lot about art, including what I do and don't like.Now, I don't know a lot about philosophy... Actually, that's not true. I also know a hell of a lot about philosophy. Life's weird that way.Weirder still is the decision of the Colorado State Fair to award the first place finish in the Digital Arts category to Jason Allen for his Ai-Generated work, “Theatre D'opera Spatial”. Now, to be fair to the Fair, it (“Theatre D'opera Spatial”) is a very fetching painting mixing the television and film genres by combining the transformative properties of a friggen Stargate with the tragic and somehow erotic and stately qualities of the Royal Court of Padme Amidala.To be sort of unfair to everyone else in the competition, the painting, like all digital arts, is more of a rendering and it was done entirely by a computer. It should be noted that Mr. Allen, who is the CEO of Denver-based video game company, Incarnate Games, has been 100% upfront about who he is and how the work was created. He did not grant himself the prize. He has been bemused by people's reactions given he says he spent hundreds of hours experimenting with the commands given to the AI before settling on what he felt were the top3 images, one of which was Theatre D'Opera...Eventually, there will be a category for AI-created art in most competitions but it does raise the question of the future of and ideas about art. Welcome to Webcology. We're not sure how friendly the future will be but it continues to promise to be interesting.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Most SEOs consider Google Search Console (GSC) their source of truth and trust the data to be accurate. What if I told you that GSC doesn't tell you all of the keywords you're getting traffic from? In fact, the tool doesn't show a term for nearly half the clicks.These instances of hidden terms account for 46.08% of all clicks in our study. The study includes one month of data across 146,741 websites and nearly 9 billion total clicks.Google Updates Help Docs in wake of Stox's Study.https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-anonymizes-tons-of-queries-33735.htmlGA4 supports Urchin Tracking Parameters (UTM) UTM Term, UTM Content, Conversion and Bounce Rate metrics https://www.seroundtable.com/google-analytics-4-gains-utm-term-utm-content-conversion-bounce-rate-33744.htmlGoogle My Business App has ceased functioninghttps://www.seroundtable.com/google-my-business-app-no-longer-available-33743.htmlGoogle Maps App suggested as way to be able to message customerThere is no such thing as a ratio of nofollow to follow links in Google Rankings. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ratio-of-follow-to-nofollow-links-33711.htmlIs the type of CMS used to build a site a ranking factor?https://www.searchenginejournal.com/does-the-cms-matter-for-search-rankings/457580/Massive set of updates and bug fixes released with WordPress 6.0.1https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wordpress-6-0-1-maintenance-update-released-with-multiple-bug-fixes/457471/#closeGoogle Data Studio and how to use ithttps://searchengineland.com/google-data-studio-258871If you are interested in sponsoring Webcology please email brasco@wmr.fmSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

1+ Million WordPress sites affected by vulnerabilities that could lead to remote code execution attackshttps://www.searchenginejournal.com/wordpress-vulnerability-in-essential-addons-for-elementor/436179/Webcology named as one of the 15 top SEO podcastshttps://ahrefs.com/blog/best-seo-podcasts/New Google Partners Program: After nearly two years, the new Partners program requirements have taken effect and Google will notify all Partners of their current status.https://www.seroundtable.com/new-google-partners-program-32867.htmlFacebook lost users for first time in a decade. Stock declined by 22%Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Danny Goodwin Talks to Jim and Dave About Joining Search Engine Land. Search Engine Land is happy to welcome well-known search marketing journalist Danny Goodwin to the team as Senior Editor. Goodwin will join the editorial team, which also includes editors Barry Schwartz and George Nguyen, to help us to deliver best-in-class journalism on search and performance marketing to you – our global audience of digital marketers.In addition to writing daily about SEO, PPC, and more for Search Engine Land, Goodwin will also manage and grow Search Engine Land's roster of subject-matter experts. He will also help program our conference series SMX – Search Marketing Expo, working with our Events Content Director Kathy Bushman.Prior to joining us, Goodwin was Executive Editor at Search Engine Journal, where he led editorial initiatives for the brand.Goodwin is a respected member of the search community going all the way back to 2007 when he began as an editor for Search Engine Watch. He has spoken at many major search conferences and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts. He's seen first-hand how this industry has evolved over the years and we are thrilled that he will bring his intelligence and perspective to Search Engine Land and SMX.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Moving into the New Year I have a strange sense of déjà vu. Tonight we're gonna party like it's 2020 Two, the updated edition.This is the sixth day of January, 2022. A year ago, before the attempted coup, we were all so much younger. Now it just feels numb, and dumb, and sometime sort of pointless. It feels like we're entering the new year running it petal to the metal, full tilt in neutral. The incredible spikes in COVID infections over the last few weeks from Omicron is so far beyond believable it makes knowledge of what is coming in the next two weeks unfathomable. Happy New Year eh? I got Omicroned for Christmas. Myself and my partner Shana both got exposed and infected over the two week holiday period. I think it might have happened in a cell phone store. For me, it was very very mild. I had a nasty cold sore and a half day of sniffles. I would have been exposed 10 – 14 days after getting my third dose booster shot of SpikeVax, the punkrock name given to the Moderna vaccine. Shana, who as many of you know was infected early in April 2020, caught her second bout of Covid. In her it manifested as one of the harshest flues she's had in years. She had yet to receive a booster shot.The next two weeks are likely to be crazy. I hope I'm wrong but expect a lot of people to phone in sick and a lot of services and shops to be shut down for lack of staff. If we're smart, four to six weeks from now could look very different but, if there's one thing I am absolutely sure of, we're not nearly smart enough when it comes to existential emergencies. 2022 is going to teach us all a lot of lessons, some good and some bad. I think how things work out will have a lot to do with how we learn them. Blackberry old goes dark(Mr. Jones, we've solved your Crackberry addiction...) Bing IndexNow WordPress Plugin availablehttps://www.seroundtable.com/indexnow-wordpress-plugin-released-32709.html Migration advice – don't drop AMP during migrationhttps://www.seroundtable.com/migrate-domains-remove-google-amp-seo-32696.html Ways to generate some Soft 404shttps://www.seroundtable.com/error-like-pages-soft-404-google-32690.html Language quality can impact multilingual siteshttps://www.seroundtable.com/google-language-version-site-quality-impact-32686.html Danny Goodwin leaving Search Engine Journal Why? We don't know but we're gonna get the scoop on it. Danny's joining us on January 20th to talk about a life editing decision and a life editing some of the largest and most read search news websites. Did SEOS work over Xmas?19.5% Yes, a lot33.3%, Yes, a little47.2%, Nope, not at allhttps://www.seroundtable.com/seos-work-over-the-christmas-holiday-break-32662.html Some basic questions answered by John Muhttps://www.searchenginejournal.com/does-domain-extension-affect-seo/431956/#close 2021, a year of changes and updateshttps://searchengineland.com/google-algorithm-updates-2021-in-review-core-updates-product-reviews-page-experience-and-beyond-378017  The Google Developers Style Guide, on headingshttps://developers.google.com/style/headings Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/webcology/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's almost the middle of the year! COVID is almost over in much of the developed world. A summer full of hope and opportunity is almost upon us and what does Google do? It hits us with a double whamy of a Core Update, the June/July 2021 Core Update.Thanks to Erika Varagouli (who has today's coolest ever SEO name) SEMRush for naming Webcology the #1 podcast in a strong field to learn from. After who the hell knows how long of doing this show it is good to know we're still relevant. Get ready for the insufferable to become inescapable. Crypto-ads are about to be allowed by Google https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-allow-cryptocurrency-ads-31529.html To be certified by Google, advertisers will need to:" • Be duly registered with • (a) FinCEN as a Money Services Business and with at least one state as a money transmitter; or • (b) a federal or state chartered bank entity. • Comply with relevant legal requirements, including any local legal requirements, whether at a state  or federal level.  https://www.semrush.com/blog/learn-seo/  • Ensure their ads and landing pages comply with all Google Ads policies Negative matching allowed in regex https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-regular-expressions-exclusions-31526.html Cumulative Metrics Shift – CLS Update (Cumulative Layout Shift) updates at Google Search Console https://www.seroundtable.com/cumulative-layout-shift-metric-google-search-console-31520.html https://www.seroundtable.com/google-page-experience-label-31516.html CWV icon? No talk at Google for a whileGoogle News Transparancy Policy Article Level Google News Factors/Signals Here are the article level specific Google News signals it uses behind its transparency policy. Google said these factors helps Google "consider information that helps users quickly gain context about articles or the journalists covering stories." • Article byline that link to a bio describing the author's credentials and expertise • Article's publishing date (finally!) • Labeling to indicate the article type, for example Opinion or News Site Level Google News Factors/Signals Here are the site wide level Google News signals it uses behind its transparency policy. Google said these factors "helps readers understand a site's purpose, its organizational structure, and the kinds of information they can expect from that site." • Mission statement • Editorial policies and standardsStaff information and bios for both editorial and business staff • Non-generic contact information • Other organizational-level information like owners and/or funding sources (for example, state-sponsorship, relationship to political parties or PACs). Google added: • Google considers different regional and country-level expectations and practices around transparency. This is particularly important in areas with less press freedom where practices like naming a journalist can carry significant risk. • Google looks at a number of inputs and consider a breadth of editorial practices. This helps ensure that distinctive editorial philosophies—for example, publishing pieces without bylines — don't affect the credibility of an otherwise authoritative source. • Google also considers information that is clearly available to users, so that larger, more technically sophisticated sites and smaller sites that use simple text to convey information are on equal footing.

It's almost the middle of the year! COVID is almost over in much of the developed world. A summer full of hope and opportunity is almost upon us and what does Google do? It hits us with a double whamy of a Core Update, the June/July 2021 Core Update.Thanks to Erika Varagouli (who has today's coolest ever SEO name) SEMRush for naming Webcology the #1 podcast in a strong field to learn from. After who the hell knows how long of doing this show it is good to know we're still relevant. Get ready for the insufferable to become inescapable. Crypto-ads are about to be allowed by Google https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-allow-cryptocurrency-ads-31529.html To be certified by Google, advertisers will need to:" • Be duly registered with • (a) FinCEN as a Money Services Business and with at least one state as a money transmitter; or • (b) a federal or state chartered bank entity. • Comply with relevant legal requirements, including any local legal requirements, whether at a state  or federal level.  https://www.semrush.com/blog/learn-seo/  • Ensure their ads and landing pages comply with all Google Ads policies Negative matching allowed in regex https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-regular-expressions-exclusions-31526.html Cumulative Metrics Shift – CLS Update (Cumulative Layout Shift) updates at Google Search Console https://www.seroundtable.com/cumulative-layout-shift-metric-google-search-console-31520.html https://www.seroundtable.com/google-page-experience-label-31516.html CWV icon? No talk at Google for a whileGoogle News Transparancy Policy Article Level Google News Factors/Signals Here are the article level specific Google News signals it uses behind its transparency policy. Google said these factors helps Google "consider information that helps users quickly gain context about articles or the journalists covering stories." • Article byline that link to a bio describing the author's credentials and expertise • Article's publishing date (finally!) • Labeling to indicate the article type, for example Opinion or News Site Level Google News Factors/Signals Here are the site wide level Google News signals it uses behind its transparency policy. Google said these factors "helps readers understand a site's purpose, its organizational structure, and the kinds of information they can expect from that site." • Mission statement • Editorial policies and standardsStaff information and bios for both editorial and business staff • Non-generic contact information • Other organizational-level information like owners and/or funding sources (for example, state-sponsorship, relationship to political parties or PACs). Google added: • Google considers different regional and country-level expectations and practices around transparency. This is particularly important in areas with less press freedom where practices like naming a journalist can carry significant risk. • Google looks at a number of inputs and consider a breadth of editorial practices. This helps ensure that distinctive editorial philosophies—for example, publishing pieces without bylines — don't affect the credibility of an otherwise authoritative source. • Google also considers information that is clearly available to users, so that larger, more technically sophisticated sites and smaller sites that use simple text to convey information are on equal footing.