EDGE of the Web - The Best SEO Podcast for Today's Digital Marketer

Latest Episodes:

549 | Semantic Search Evolution with Marie Haynes Nov 30, 2022

Show notes

Today on the EDGE, Erin sits down once again with Dr. Marie Haynes to discuss how semantic search has evolved and what the future may have in store for SEOs and webmasters.

Many Google algorithm updates are discussed from 10 years ago until today. They spend time discussing the impacts of Expertise, Authority, and Trust (E.A.T.), as well as the considerations associated with Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) and Google's Quality Raters Guidelines. The algorithm updates mentioned above all help Google understand the language better while defining online entities in its Knowledge Graph.

Dr. Marie Haynes has over ten years in the SEO trenches and frequently speaks at industry conferences. In addition, she contributes to many SEO publications. Marie is the founder and President of Marie Haynes Consulting.

Key Segments:

[00:03:31] Choppy Waves in the SEO Industry

[00:05:00] An Overview of the Quality Raters Guidelines

[00:09:05] Your Money or Your Life

[00:11:03] Algorithms and Machine Learning

[00:13:35] EDGE of the Web Sponsor: Site Strategics

[00:14:34] Feeding the Machine Learning Beast

[00:14:56] News, Disinformation and Political Subjects

[00:19:41] Entity Space of SEO – Understanding Language

[00:24:57] Structured Data and Unstructured Data

[00:28:28] EDGE of the Web Title Sponsor: edgeofthewebradio.com/wix

[00:30:02] Original Reporting, Information, Analysis and Content.

[00:31:22] Quality Raters Guidelines Book and Newsletter

[00:33:22] Final Thoughts

Follow our Guest:

https://twitter.com/Marie_Haynes

https://www.mariehaynes.com/seo-newsletter/

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/marie-haynes

https://www.mariehaynes.com/

Dr. Marie Haynes' SEO Podcast

https://www.mariehaynes.com/seo-newsletter/seo-podcast/

Dr. Marie Haynes' Google Quality Raters Guidelines book

https://www.mariehaynes.com/product/quality-raters-guidelines/

Thanks to our Sponsors!

Site Strategics https://www.sitestrategics.com

Wix https://edgeofthewebradio.com/wix

548 | News from the EDGE | Week of 11.21.2022 Nov 23, 2022

Show notes

Our Thanksgiving 2022 edition. Seriously, Jacob was using that gobble effect way too much! Mordy's is back with us with a packed show, full of articles! Articles from Techcrunch, Moz, and Google Search Central Blog were key discussion points, along with our belief that the web is on drugs….yeah, I think we're there, folks. With the Amazon layoffs, Elon Musk, and people trying to change the author of articles…..it's a mess.

News from the EDGE:

[00:05:34] Layoffs at Amazon, Ticketmaster debacle, Is there still anyone left at Twitter besides the CEO?

[00:10:57] The Impact of Local Business Reviews on Consumer Behavior

[00:14:27] EDGE of the Web Title Sponsor: Site Strategics

[00:14:47] Straight from Google: Guide to the Google Search ranking systems

[00:18:44] EDGE of the Web Sponsor: edgeofthewebradio.com/inlinks

Barry Blast from Search Engine Roundtable:

[00:19:29] Barry Blast 1: Google: E-A-T Applies To Every Single Query - Link

[00:22:18] Barry Blast 2: Google: Don't Randomly Change The Author Name, Use Author Annotations & Updated Content Use New Author - Link

[00:24:30] Barry Blast 3: Beware Of Fake Ownership Requests From Google Business Profiles - Link

[00:26:42] EDGE of the Web Sponsor: edgeofthewebradio.com/pageonepower

Thanks to our sponsors!

Site Strategics https://edgeofthewebradio.com/site

Inlinks https://edgeofthewebradio.com/inlinks

Page One Power https://edgeofthewebradio.com/pageonepower

Twitter: @ErinSparks

Twitter: @MordyOberstein

Twitter: @TheMann00

Twitter: @EDGEWebRadio

#StandwithUkraine edgeofthewebradio.com/ukraine

547 | Recovering from Algorithm Update Effects with Marie Haynes Nov 22, 2022

Show notes

Dr. Marie Haynes shares her thoughts and insights on the EDGE by looking at the plethora of Google algorithm updates this year. 2022 has seen its fair share of volatility in the SERPs. In addition, she explores ways to identify and track the impacts of algorithm updates on a website, while pointing out many of the culprits responsible for misleading false positives, which may be wrongfully associated with an update.

With over 10 years of SEO experience, she's a regular speaker at MozCon, Pubcon, SMX, and Brighton SEO, and a frequent contributor to many industry publications. She's the owner and President of Marie Haynes Consulting. Additionally, Dr. Marie Haynes hosts one of the top SEO podcasts, Search News You Can Use.

Time to dive into Google algorithm updates… on the EDGE!

Key Segments:

[00:02:15] Introducing Dr. Marie Haynes

[00:04:11] Highest Levels of Continued Rank Volatility

[00:05:00] Should We Be Focused On Traffic?

[00:06:41] Product Review and Core Updates

[00:09:11] The Compounding Impacts of Multiple Updates and Diagnoses

[00:12:39] EDGE of the Web Sponsor: Site Strategics

[00:13:42] Gross Traffic vs. Individual Page Traffic

[00:14:32] Transactional vs. Informative Content

[00:16:31] Old School SEO

[00:18:12] Intent and Relevancy

[00:21:41] The Helpful Content Update, Knowledge Graph and Snippets

[00:23:32] Not All Traffic Changes Are From Algorithm Updates

[00:27:35] MobileMoxie Tracks Historical SERP Snippets

[00:28:44] EDGE of the Web Title Sponsor: edgeofthewebradio.com/wix

[00:29:37] The Apocalypse!

[00:33:16] Questions, Questions and More Questions

[00:35:18] External Evidence

[00:37:20] AI Content Is Likely Algorithmically Identifiable

Follow our Guest:

https://twitter.com/Marie_Haynes

https://www.mariehaynes.com/seo-newsletter/

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/marie-haynes

https://www.mariehaynes.com/

Dr. Marie Haynes' SEO Podcast

https://www.mariehaynes.com/seo-newsletter/seo-podcast/

Thanks to our Sponsors!

Site Strategics https://www.sitestrategics.com

Wix https://edgeofthewebradio.com/wix

546 | News from the EDGE | Week of 11.14.2022 Nov 18, 2022

Show notes

Cindy Krum jumps into the news with Erin to tackle the slew of news this week! A little late, but still really important! Erin blames his kids…

Covering articles from Barry Schwartz, Mike Blumenthal, Roger Montti and Fili Wiese, we also jumped into a Twitter thread that revealed something very interesting! Is there going to be a larger focus on structured data from Google to the degree of triggering manual penalties? As Cindy says. "The news this week kind of reinforces the idea that you are in Google's results wherever you are at their leisure and at their discretion. And what they give, they can easily take away." Check your schema, all - it could be an issue.

News from the EDGE:

[00:03:16] Almost all industries have seen a large increase in Google Cost-Per-Leads

[00:08:56] EDGE of the Web Sponsor: edgeofthewebradio.com/inlinks

[00:09:41] Twitter removes 80% of its contractor employees without notice

[00:14:20] GBP updates might eliminate your reviews. Have backups!

[00:20:54] EDGE of the Web Title Sponsor: Site Strategics

[00:21:42] Marketers are jumping on the Mastodon bandwagon. Should you?

[00:25:11] Social Thread: Spammy Schema will get a Manual Penalty?

Barry Blast from Search Engine Roundtable:

[00:32:41] Barry Blast 1: Google Ads Paying Advertisers $100 To Enroll In Automatically Applies Recommendations

Thanks to our sponsors!

Site Strategics https://edgeofthewebradio.com/site

Inlinks https://edgeofthewebradio.com/inlinks

Twitter: @ErinSparks

Twitter: @Suzzicks

Twitter: @TheMann00

Twitter: @EDGEWebRadio

#StandwithUkraine edgeofthewebradio.com/ukraine

545 | Visual Search Optimization with Crystal Carter Nov 15, 2022

Show notes

Crystal Carter, Head of SEO Communications at Wix, joins the EDGE to discuss Visual Image Search Optimization. After discussing Visual Image Search on the last episode, she dives head-first into best practices in optimizing for Visual Image Search. Crystal answers this question: How do we ensure our brands and services are part of our customer's visual search?

Let's talk visual search optimization… today on the EDGE!

Key Segments:

[00:04:31] Throwback to Ep. 544

[00:06:35] Associated Intent

[00:08:45] Caterpillars, Butterflies, Hummingbirds, Oh My!

[00:09:26] EDGE of the Web Title Sponsor: edgeofthewebradio.com/pageonepower

[00:10:29] Stats, Stats, Give Me More Stats

[00:11:42] Ecommerce Implications

[00:13:14] More Rich Images on Your Website

[00:14:06] Optimizing for Visual Image Search

[00:17:47] LegoLand is Cool / User Generated Content

[00:20:32] AI-Powered Local Photos

[00:21:40] Let's Find A Burrito

[00:22:37] Bridging the Gaps

[00:24:37] EDGE of the Web Sponsor: edgeofthewebradio.com/wix

[00:25:09] Stock Photography

[00:27:17] Infographics

[00:28:13] International and Language-less

[00:29:41] All Things Logo

[00:36:09] Google Visual Search vs. Image Search

[00:37:06] MuM Knows Best

[00:39:29] Goggles or Googles?

[00:43:04] Users Want Google Lens

Follow our Guest:

https://twitter.com/CrystalontheWeb

https://www.instagram.com/crystalontheweb_/

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/crystal-carter-digital

https://www.crystalcarterseo.com/

Crystal's Harnessing Visual Search for Optimization Opportunities!

https://moz.com/blog/seo-opportunities-visual-search

Thanks to our Sponsors!

Page One Power https://edgeofthewebradio.com/pageonepower

Wix https://edgeofthewebradio.com/wix

544 | Visual Search with Crystal Carter Nov 10, 2022

Show notes

Crystal Carter joins the EDGE to school us on Visual Image Search. Fresh from the stage at the last MozCon, she brings her insights and expertise on visual search and AI. She delves into many of today's examples and the future outlook of visual search, all based on real-world experiments and work. You have that and some best practices and considerations all here in the podcast. We explore some of the most important things to ponder on this Crystal Carter episode.

Let's talk visual search… today on the EDGE!

Key Segments:

[00:03:45] A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

[00:04:37] An Evolution of Google's Mobile First

[00:05:14] Image Search vs. Visual Search

[00:06:45] A Rich Tapestry of Contextual Queues

[00:11:31] Lyft and PBR. . . Oh My!

[00:18:02] EDGE of the Web Sponsor: Site Strategics

[00:13:35] AI, Visual Queues and Text Queries

[00:15:02] Vision AI

[00:16:23] Current Gaps and Biases

[00:18:16] Pinterest Statistics and Bing

[00:19:59] Rapper Xzibit and Amazon

[00:20:33] EDGE of the Web Title Sponsor: edgeofthewebradio.com/wix

[00:21:07] Google Lens and Ocular Character Recognition

[00:22:46] Some Takeaways for Marketers

[00:24:24] It's the Brain of Understanding / The Hive Mind

[00:25:13] Images are Contextually Language-less

[00:28:15] Exploring Google Photos for Entities and Defining Gaps

[00:30:00] Real-World Applications to Consider

[00:34:06] Consistency is the Key

Follow our Guest:

https://twitter.com/CrystalontheWeb

https://www.instagram.com/crystalontheweb_/

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/crystal-carter-digital

https://www.crystalcarterseo.com/

Crystal's Harnessing Visual Search for Optimization Opportunities!

https://moz.com/blog/seo-opportunities-visual-search

Thanks to our Sponsors!

Wix https://edgeofthewebradio.com/wix

Site Strategics https://www.sitestrategics.com

543 | News from the EDGE | Week of 11.07.2022 Nov 09, 2022

Show notes

Abusing the host? Is that what Mordy has lowered himself to? We love the Fall decor on the SERP. It's NEWS!

Today we cover articles from Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land, TechCrunch and Search Engine Watch covering topics such as Google's new search labels for coupons, the depreciating value of the link in the future, Mastodon's rise amidst the chaos of Twitter, and Mordy Oberstein opines whether Google is moving to a more continuous "real time" algorithm. Oh, and we might talk about Robert Plant, ferns and rubber plants, too.

News from the EDGE:

[00:03:01] New labels to highlight coupons and promos in Google search results

[00:07:21] Perhaps the value of backlinks are changing as Google continues to evolve?

[00:11:47] EDGE of the Web Title Sponsor: Site Strategics

[00:12:41] Social Network Mastodon nearly doubles in users in just one week

[00:22:49] Our own Mordy looks at data to see if we're moving towards "real-time" algorithm updates.

[00:31:47] EDGE of the Web Sponsor: edgeofthewebradio.com/inlinks

Barry Blast from Search Engine Roundtable:

[00:32:55] Barry Blast 1: Links may be less important to the Google Search ranking algorithm in the future - Barry - Link

[00:33:57] Barry Blast 2: Google Tests Fall Decorations In Search Results - Link

[00:34:53] Barry Blast 3: Google: No, Your Website Doesn't Need 200,000 Words To Be Considered Authoritative - Link

How to leave Twitter and switch to Mastodon from Jon Henshaw

Thanks to our sponsors!

Site Strategics https://edgeofthewebradio.com/site

Inlinks https://edgeofthewebradio.com/inlinks

Twitter: @ErinSparks

Twitter: @MordyOberstein

Twitter: @TheMann00

Twitter: @EDGEWebRadio

#StandwithUkraine edgeofthewebradio.com/ukraine

542 | News from the EDGE | Week of 10.31.2022 Nov 02, 2022

Show notes

Our Halloween 2022 Episode (yeah, it's November, moving on) covers articles from MarTech, Android Police, Search Engine Land, and Semrush. We dug into a spooky article from Bruce Clay (much to Mordy's chagrin) and provided an expose' on the Semrush Zero-Click study from Marcus Tober. He had a fantastic analysis at the end, right Mordy (wink)? Seriously - a sizable study of 20,000 users click-stream on over 300,000 queries. There are some very striking data about what zero-click really means and how it differs from the 2018 report on zero-clicks. Make sure you check these links out!

News from the EDGE:

[00:03:23] New Features coming to GA4

[00:07:43] EDGE of the Web Title Sponsor: Site Strategics

[00:08:21] Are you using 2FA?

[0014:38] Bruce Clay gives us 10 SEO tactics to quit in 2023

[00:18:08] EDGE of the Web Sponsor: edgeofthewebradio.com/inlinks

[00:19:39] SEMRush presents a study about Zero-Clicks

Barry Blast from Search Engine Roundtable:

[00:31:26] Barry Blast 1: Keywords In Local Reviews Does Not Impact Google Local Rankings; Study Says - Link

[00:33:25] Barry Blast 2: Google Showing On-Time Delivery & Order Accuracy Estimates In Search Ads - Link

[00:35:42] Barry Blast 3: Google: Human Written Content Doesn't Necessarily Make The Content Useful Or Helpful - Link

Thanks to our sponsors!

Site Strategics https://edgeofthewebradio.com/site

Inlinks https://edgeofthewebradio.com/inlinks

Page One Power https://edgeofthewebradio.com/pageonepower

Twitter: @ErinSparks

Twitter: @MordyOberstein

Twitter: @TheMann00

Twitter: @EDGEWebRadio

#StandwithUkraine edgeofthewebradio.com/ukraine

541 | Dealing with Plagiarism and Imposter Syndrome w/ Olga Zarzeczna Nov 01, 2022

Show notes

Olga Zarzeczna shares her perspective on the recent situation she had to deal with - the theft of her own web content, which got published as someone else's work on Amazon. It's incredible to hear that it happened and the SEO community rallied behind Olga in extraordinary ways. Women in Tech SEO demonstrated their strength and support when this came to light. Key members in the SEO community also helped Olga navigate her own (unwarranted) imposter syndrome challenges.

Olga shares some important lessons from this experience and advises others who may be silently struggling with confidence. After listening to this account, please reach out if you have time to tell Olga how you feel about her contribution to the SEO industry!

[00:02:47] The Discovery

[00:04:30] The Timeline of Events

[00:06:24] The SEO Community Rallies

[00:07:37] How Could This Happen Today?

[00:09:37] Dealing with Imposter Syndrome

[00:12:34] EDGE of the Web Title Sponsor: edgeofthewebradio.com/pageonepower

[00:14:06] The Supportive SEO Community: Women in Tech SEO

[00:15:19] Lessons from SEO Theft

[00:19:37] Try Another Community, But Not SEO!

[00:21:05] Women in Tech SEO

Thanks to our Sponsor!

Page One Power https://edgeofthewebradio.com/pageonepower

Follow Guest

https://twitter.com/olgazarzeczna

https://www.linkedin.com/in/olgazarzeczna/

https://www.youtube.com/c/SEOSLY

Women in Tech SEO:

https://www.womenintechseo.com/

Olga's 99+ SEO Mistakes!

https://seosly.com/blog/seo-mistakes/

540 | News from the EDGE | Week of 10.24.2022 Oct 26, 2022

Show notes

The prodigal son returns to the show. Mordy Oberstein is back to cut up the news like a Halloween Jack-o'-Lantern! We cover articles from Search Engine Roundtable, Search Engine Land, and Social Media Today. Regarding the Google Spam Update….to quote Mordy: if you got hit by the update: Check your rankings, check your site, check your content, and then check your soul (ouch).

Side Note: Check out the Ted Cruz visit to a recent Yankees game!

Key Segments:

[00:05:02] Google Spam Update Done in Record Speed!

[00:10:55] EDGE of the Web Title Sponsor: Site Strategics

[00:12:32] Uber Ads are Coming, In Journey

[00:15:27] EDGE of the Web Sponsor: edgeofthewebradio.com/inlinks

[00:16:18] Facebook and TikTok Approving Ads with Political Misinformation days before the election

Barry Blasts

[00:22:13] Barry Blast 1: Google Trending Now For Shopping Results - Barry - Link

[00:24:53] Barry Blast 2: Report: Google Reviews Being Removed From Local Business Profiles - Barry - Link

[00:26:57] Barry Blast 3: Third-Party Appointment Services Hijacking Google Local Business Profile Panels - Barry - Link

[00:30:12] EDGE of the Web Sponsor: edgeofthewebradio.com/pageonepower