Is it time to leave algorithms behind?

Mordy Oberstein:

It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha, mahalo for joining the SERP's Up podcast. We've got some groovy to insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO brand here at Wix, and I'm joined by the very autonomous, do not tell me what I have to do, I will set my own future, the destiny is in my own hands, Head of SEO Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter.

Crystal Carter:

All my ladies independent. Throw your hands up with me. Yeah. Independently of yourself, even though I just told you what to do. No, I'm kidding. No. Yes. Yeah, I agree.

Mordy Oberstein:

Independence is-

Crystal Carter:

I do what I want.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, when I want to, except when I'm dealing with my kids and I end up doing most of what they want to.

Crystal Carter:

What they want.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yo.

Crystal Carter:

But ideally doing what they want, whilst I also have the option of going to the spa. Somebody was like, "How do I go on vacation with kids?" I'm like, "You go to a place that's a resort for families that also has a spa, that has a daycare and a spa." They have like, "Oh, we're doing activities. We're doing singalong. We're doing archery." They can do archery for an hour. You can go to the sauna.

Mordy Oberstein:

Either that or you can literally leave your kids in front of a screen for a week, go and come back, and they'll still be sitting there like zombies, as if nothing happened. They may have defecated themselves, or they may have gone to the bathroom. That depends on the child.

Crystal Carter:

Good thing this isn't a parenting podcast.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, no, but literally we went out last night. I have two older ones who can babysit the two younger ones, but the two younger ones are a handful. So here, you can watch a movie while we go out. One of them fell asleep. The other one was... We came back two hours later, three hours later, his eyes are red and he's just sitting there like a zombie. But we got out for sushi, so hey, that'll work.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah. This is how we are on a plane. We don't do a lot of screen time, but if we're on a plane and we're flying long haul, guess what?

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, watch all you want. Go ahead, watch whatever you want.

Crystal Carter:

Guess what, it is what it is. Do what you need to do, fam. There's nothing else to do.

Mordy Oberstein:

Funny story, the last time I was on a plane with my little kids, they were really young and they were watching Batman and Ninja Turtles and they got introduced the idea of a butler because Alfred's a butler, but they thought it was an insult because it's a butt-ler. So they were for a good year calling each other butlers as an insult.

Crystal Carter:

Have you introduced them to Beavis and Butthead yet?

Mordy Oberstein:

I would. My wife's like, "Maybe that's not the best idea." It really formed my childhood, which explains a few things, but we're trying something more wholesome with my kids.

Crystal Carter:

Right. Okay. I can see that. That makes sense.

Mordy Oberstein:

Less damage, more on the wholesome side. That's the game plan. The SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix Studio as we awkwardly transition, where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, search later over at wix.com/SEO/learn/newsletter, but where you can also have multiple tools to help you build up your email lists, including an inbuilt email marketing platform as well as a tie-in to MailChimp and apps from Constant Contact and others. This, as we cover making the great escape from the clutches of the algorithms and moving your marketing towards freedom. Why going beyond the algorithm has come into focus. Why going algorithm-free is the way to be, and how to get beyond the algorithms, and why it's more than just email lists.

To help us jump the algorithmic fence, CEO of Evergrow Marketing and co-host of the Agency Growth podcast, Jake Hundley is set to join us in just a jiffy. Plus we'll dive into the insane levels of rank volatility on the SERP and what it means for digital marketers of all kinds. And of course we have your snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So grab your metal spoons and start digging and get ready to swim because tonight we make our great escape from the Rock, known as Alcatraz, on the 111th episode of the SERP's Up podcast. The Rock.

Crystal Carter:

That is a classic, classic film.

Mordy Oberstein:

Classic film.

Crystal Carter:

There's probably bits of it that are not brilliant in terms of today's modern things, but at the time I definitely enjoyed it.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, it's a classic movie. And Sean Connery, we spoke about this. I don't remember where it was we spoke about it, but he's always the same. Sean Connery.

Crystal Carter:

Sean Connery.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, we spoke about it on another podcast. One Ping Only, if you remember. Again, this is the same dude, he's just Sean Connery.

Crystal Carter:

He's Sean Connery. There's no volatility in the delivery of the Sean Connery. He just shows up, he Sean Conneries, and he leaves. That's it. That that's all you need. Very consistent.

Mordy Oberstein:

That's kind of the issue. That's kind of the issue because like it or not, we're a bit beholden to algorithms, if you're in the SEO space you know this already, because all we talk about is the algorithm all the time, but it applies everywhere. If you're in the SEO space, there are other algorithms like social media. Each one of those platforms is a different algorithm. There's algorithms for paid ads by Greg Finn and all sorts of other algorithms and like a perfect storm, they've all become unstable all at once, amazingly.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, completely. And I mean, to be honest, I know that, I don't want to sound like I told you so, but I remember calling this when they started talking about mum and when they started talking about all of that stuff, I remember thinking we're going to see loads and loads more volatility because they've got all these different machine learning systems that they're trying to run at the same time. And basically they're all learning, they're all doing different things, and they need to test every single one of them. And basically it's like they need data so they have to run them and we just have to hope that we don't get caught in the crossfire on some occasions. And so that I think is what's happening on Google at the moment where we're seeing lots and lots of machine learning running in tangent and they tell us this.

They're like, "We're running the spam update at the same time as we're running the core update, as we're running the product update, as we're running all of these different things." They're running them all at the same time. If you're trying to talk to clients or you're trying to figure out what's going on between, it's very difficult to pick the things apart because it's not like this is an update, mark this date, and then afterwards it's changed. It's much more complex now.

Mordy Oberstein:

And first off, good call, first off because clearly you were correct. And then snap, snap, snap, snap, snap fingers, and then social, obviously, with the whole X thing. That became interesting. And then there was Threads and that was interesting. And then LinkedIn has been interesting. Facebook for a long time has been garbage. They said, "Yeah, we're killing organic," years ago.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, yeah, it's been-

Mordy Oberstein:

That's always been a problem. I don't know about TikTok because I don't do that, but all of the platforms have been just complicated. It's all been algorithmically complicated as of late, and it's created this conversation. I can't tell you how many people I've seen now versus, I don't know, six months ago even saying, "All right, everybody, get off the algorithm train and build up your email marketing list and do this and do that because don't be beholden to the algorithm." That chatter has been noticeable.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, yeah. I think on the other side, I've also seen people that are actively marketing themselves as algorithm marketing teams like that we will help you-

Mordy Oberstein:

Gurus? Algorithm gurus?

Crystal Carter:

Well, no, agencies. Agencies that actively say we do algorithm marketing, we'll help you to understand the algorithm marketing. And I think that what's interesting in terms of SEO is that SEO's algorithm or Google's algorithm has historically been more stable than some of the social media algorithms. I remember when we were able to get organic traffic on Facebook, I remember those times. I know I'm dating myself.

Mordy Oberstein:

It's been 84 years.

Crystal Carter:

Right? I know. So I remember those days and I remember when people would have thousands of followers and then they'd post something and they'd get some traction on the things. And nowadays if you don't boost the posts then you don't get any traction. And Google on the other hand was more stable as a platform. It was one of the reasons why I gravitated towards SEO. I was on a podcast recently and somebody said, "Why did you choose SEO over other marketing channels?" And the reason why I said was because the algorithm was more stable. You could do more things and see the activity over time.

But I think that that's shifting and I think that we are seeing those conversations where you have to think about your content in a different way. Not everything's going to make a big splash in terms of search. And some things are for customer value, some things are for keeping people in your platform. Sometimes you write a piece of content so that you don't have to link out to an external partner, but so that you can link to yourself and keep your customers within your ecosystem. And that might not necessarily get a lot of search traffic, but it will add value to your clients.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yes. We are getting to an era where it's just more strategic. I literally posted a day before recording this, it's a picture of me sticking my tongue out going thh and the image says, "My feelings on the idea that every campaign has to make a big splash." What I'm saying is like whomp, whomp, no, please stop. It's ridiculous. Especially now because of the algorithms. Let's dive into a little bit more on what's going on within the algorithms and why we should be making a switch is CEO of Evergrow Marketing and co-host of the Agency Growth podcast, Jake Hundley sat down to talk with us.

Welcome to the show, Jake. How's it going?

Jake Hundley:

Good, thanks Mordy. Thanks for having me on the show.

Mordy Oberstein:

Can I tell you a little fun fact?

Jake Hundley:

I would love to hear it.

Mordy Oberstein:

Okay. But I don't want to offend you at the same time, so I'm feeling a little apprehensive.

Jake Hundley:

You won't offend me.

Mordy Oberstein:

All right, so I'm going to offend myself, because I'm dating myself with this. Every time I see your name, Jake Hundley. There used to be a catcher for the Met in the early '90s named Todd Hundley. And my immediate association is his baseball card, every time I see your name pop up.

Jake Hundley:

I've seen.. Everybody Googles themselves, or maybe it's just me.

Mordy Oberstein:

Multiple times a day.

Jake Hundley:

Yeah, right. The only other Jake Hundleys that I see, I see other Jake Hundleys out there. And there was a baseball player literally named Jake Hundley also.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, really?

Jake Hundley:

Yeah, then I think there was a football player named Jake Hundley as well.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, that sucks. You'll never get that knowledge panel now.

Jake Hundley:

We'll see about that, right? Because the one thing that I am that they aren't is an SEO.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, and by the way, you search for Jake Hundley, you're everywhere. There is nobody else.

Jake Hundley:

That's good. That's what I've been trying for. Yeah.

Mordy Oberstein:

Poor baseball player didn't stand a damn chance.

Jake Hundley:

Not against this guy from Iowa.

Mordy Oberstein:

There we go. Okay, so ironically, we're looking at the SERP and talking about ranking at least for your name, which requires an algorithm. But today we're talking about getting beyond algorithms and it's become become a thing. I noticed it on LinkedIn and people are talking about it. We're talking about it here, people talking about it there. Get beyond the algorithms, let's orient the audience. How did we get here? Because we used to be all about algorithms.

Jake Hundley:

I think it just became an oversaturation of just people buying into the algorithm. So whether it's Google, whether it's Facebook or YouTube or anything like that, everything is fed off of some algorithm. But if everybody treats it like a checklist and it becomes easy to exploit, or not necessarily easy to exploit, but everybody tries to exploit it in some way, everyone's going to be doing it. Which means now the algorithms have to continually update and try to figure out what do people actually want to see? And that's always what they've been from the beginning of any kind of search algorithm or any kind of social media algorithm. And so I think the biggest thing that Google looks for is there's two main things. Is the page that a user is looking for answering their question or getting them what they want the fastest, because that's ultimately what they're in business for. And then two, is it authentic? And I think the more people hyper fix it on algorithms, the less authentic they become. And that's why you need to shift away from those overly analyzed algorithmic checklists.

Mordy Oberstein:

Which is interesting because as you're trying to do that, which is what you should be doing, focusing on your audience, the algorithm itself has been wonky. I think there's been a lot of criticism. I think a lot of it is legitimate, and a lot of it is the entire internet has changed and Google's got to figure it all out. So combining the fact that something is broken somewhere somehow in some kind of way, shape, or form, and the whole content world is changing, the algorithm is wonky. So you're trying to do that and now the algorithm is wonky and it feels like, well, this is not good.

Jake Hundley:

And everyone wants to blame algorithm updates for their site tanking. Really every time I see it, I mean tons of SEO groups on Facebook and every time I see it, it's like, "How do you recover from the recent helpful content update?" And I'm like, "Well, you could have provided helpful content in the first place."

Mordy Oberstein:

That's the fine line between this thing. So there are legitimate businesses who have been hit, and I know Google's having a creator summit. I don't when this episode is going live, it may have already happened by then, but Google had recently announced that maybe like a day or two before this recording, "We're going to sit down, Danny Sullivan and the engineers, we're all going to sit down, we're all going to talk about why your sites are not doing well because it seems like they should be." And Danny even said when he got interviewed by Barry Schwartz over at SE Roundtable, "Hey, we do recognize that some of these sites should see more improvements and we hope they'll see more improvements going forward."

My question is, if you know they should get improvements, why aren't they seeing improvements? But leaving that aside for a minute, there are legitimate reasons or legitimate complaints, but at the same time, a lot of the people who were complaining, I remember one person was complaining, "My site got hit, I got a niche site and blah blah blah," and I went to the website. I'm like, "There's ads everywhere." Everywhere.

Jake Hundley:

I do believe there's some validity in actual legitimate sites being hit that shouldn't have been. And this is all speculation, but I do think that perhaps the algorithm might've been a little bit more primitive in its update to where it really did go after the illegitimate websites that just didn't have a good user experience. But as a consequence, there were some, I guess if you're looking at the diagram, like mutual connections between those sites and maybe some of the better sites.

Mordy Oberstein:

I have this wild theory, I have no proof about this whatsoever, but I feel like from some of the things that Danny Sullivan said when he got interviewed by Barry, it seems like they have a certain direction they want to take the algorithm in and that contradicts rewarding some of these other sites at the same time and they have to somehow figure that out. But that's just me speculating.

I want to add another layer in on all this. The Google algorithm is one thing. At the same time as all of these issues around the algorithm, we can talk about AIO reviews, we can talk about Reddit on the SERP, we can talk about rank instability. I think we just saw some rush data Barry posted the longest set of rank volatility, high rank volatility ever recorded, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. Which obviously instability means it's just difficult and now what do you do? But at the same time, social algorithms have been a mess.

Jake Hundley:

Yeah.

Mordy Oberstein:

So it's been compounded.

Jake Hundley:

Part of me thinks that... I think the impetus of all this was like ChatGPT and generative AI. It just seems like when that came out, everything went crazy. And you can say that Google had flip-flopping statements on whether or not that they liked AI-generated content or whether they were okay with it as long as it was helpful. But the fact is that regardless of it's helpful or not, the amount of it that's getting pushed out is just absolutely insane. And that doesn't just affect Google, that also affects social networks. So I think everybody is trying to combat not the fact that it's AI content, but the fact that it's the quantity of content that's being pushed out and trying to decide what they want to show users.

Mordy Oberstein:

That's a really good point. And it's because it's been so weird and has, I feel like social kind of goes through waves. Twitter was a mess. Twitter I feel still is a mess. LinkedIn was great for a while and then LinkedIn became weird. Threads was great for a little bit, and then Threads became weird. When everybody's shifting around from platform to platform, and I think a lot of that's what's happening. I agree, there's so much content going on and they just don't know what to do with it. Or, I think also part of the LinkedIn thing is they knew people were leaving Twitter, they started rewarding you with insane levels of engagement and then once they got you, they tapered that off also. So that's also a conspiracy theory, I don't know if that's true or not.

Jake Hundley:

I can't remember who posted it, but someone said something about they posted this really long LinkedIn post and they're like, "If you are an AI commenter, comment something." And then it was just the post just filled up with spambots and it was like you could literally see in real time how many AI bots are on LinkedIn.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, it's amazing. It's unbelievable. So it's why I feel like, yes, you should be doing SEO. Yes, you should be on social media. You kind of have no choice, I got a little bit of a hot take. So people will be saying, "Okay, build up your email list. That'll get you off of the algorithmic drug. You can control your own narrative, you can control your own audience," and I'm all for that. But my issue with that is yes, but to do that you have to promote yourself when you're somehow most likely going to need an algorithm to do that, to build up that list.

Jake Hundley:

Yeah, I used to work very heavy in first party data with media companies and I think the reasoning would be that it's easier to get somebody on an email list because it's a low ask. So if you promote to get people on your email list versus promote to actually make a sale, then you can build up that audience that's bigger and then retarget that audience for either upsells or create lookalike audiences off of those. And so I think there's some validity to building your email list up and building your first-party data, especially in an age where not only are we dealing with all this generative AI content within the algorithm, but also the lack of third-party cookie tracking.

Mordy Oberstein:

Totally. No, I am all for building up your email list. I think it's a great strategy. I am very much like you should never have put all your eggs in one basket, which, let's say, SEO. Putting your eggs in the algorithm, where there's all the algorithms, is your eggs in one basket kind of thing. And you should definitely build up that direct consumer list, email marketings, whatever it is. But I feel like you need to go one step beyond that. You need to really start creating momentum for yourself. You have to build up that brand, you have to create relationships, you have to create momentum and cadence and potential opportunities and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And some of that will be doing things on social. I think a lot of generating that momentum that will bring in people to sign up for your email list, is partnering with other people, collaborating, going to events, creating those relationships builds momentum and that gets spread across the internet. And that's how you can bring in people to your email list and then have your own audience and do your thing and not worry about the algorithms as much. But I don't think you can just focus on, I will build up my email marketing list. That's an actual activity, that I think is more of a result, in my opinion.

Jake Hundley:

Yeah, 100%. It goes in line with a lot of what you've been saying on this podcast, which is just building up the brand. It does kind of feel like SERPs are rewarding brand queries now, but not just brand queries, brands with more branded queries. This is something that we tested with our podcast. It wasn't necessarily a test. So our agency is Evergrow Marketing, and we started our podcast called Everbros Agency Growth Podcast. I for one, actually hate that name. It just reminds me of the bropreneur kind of thing, but it's a play on word. And I actually decided to keep it on there because when I mentioned something about the podcast or whatever, I would say, "Yeah, it's on the Everbros Agency Growth podcast episode," whatever. And I wouldn't link to it. One, because everybody generally agrees that social media platforms don't like links, so I won't paste the link, I'll just force people to Google it.

And that Everbros part of it was like the brand anchor to the query that I actually wanted to rank, which was Agency Growth podcast. And then eventually it got to a point where I had so many branded queries that if you just drop the Everbros and just look up Agency Growth podcast, we're number one for that. There are multiple agency podcasts, but this is the methodology behind what I'm thinking, which is try to get a search where you can append the query you want with the brand name and then you attack it from both angles.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, and that's funny because now that the whole brand thing is coming to the SEO equation. It started really with the leaks talking about mentions and now, okay, now I need to get those branded searches. There's a whole patent about that also. So get people to search for me, mention my brand, and align with my product or align with the service and create that semantic connection, now Google will understand this, so now brand comes into focus. I'm like, that's been true forever. This is not new. It's been true for the longest time, like you thought what? It's only until recently Google was looking at Nike and seeing how many times people were searching the word Nike and I don't know, shoes.

Jake Hundley:

I think it just became a saturation issue. I think before Google or search engines in general gave... I think the philosophy behind it was giving the smaller brands power to outrank if they had "better content." But then it's like, well, when everybody has the same generative AI content, then you have to default to something else. So maybe speculation again, but maybe brand has always played a role, but now it's even more so important because generative AI can't produce a brand that everybody knows and loves.

Mordy Oberstein:

Well, that's true for sure in terms of, just... Forget the algorithm for a second. This is true in terms of human receptability and if you don't have a brand, then you're now there's so much content, it all sounds the same. It all looks the same, it all adds the same tone to it. Look at any SaaS platform, it all sounds the same, it all looks the same kind of thing. You need to differentiate brand just for your audience. And if it works for an algorithm, added bonus.

Jake Hundley:

Yeah, for sure. And we do the same thing with our websites. It's always like, people are always saying what are the... They're trying to look for the highest volume keywords that are relatively related to the service with low competition. And I never hear about people wanting to focus on the more impactful business keywords. Just because that one has a high volume and low competition, doesn't necessarily mean that's the one that you want to go after, because it might have low ROI and it might not be the intent where people want it to be. And I think that's true in a lot of cases, especially with having that brand, making sure that you're capitalizing on people knowing your brand and coming to your site.

Mordy Oberstein:

Where do you think this all ends off, a year or five years from now? Whatever it is. Because right now, again, there's so much chat about don't get stuck on the algorithm, especially the Google algorithm. It's a total mess right now. Find other ways to reach your audiences that are not based on an algorithm, which I completely agree with, but where do we end up? Do we end up in five years from now where SEO is our... We are really branching out and doing more brand activity, momentum building, more traditional marketing, or is this a blip on the radar, or a moment in time? And in a year from now, we're back on the algorithmic crack, so to speak?

Jake Hundley:

I've thought about this a little bit. I think it's cyclical. So I think what's going to happen, and I could be totally wrong, I could be the worst predictor in the world, but I think there's going to be fragmented search engines where they're more niche and there already are, right? There's Yelp and Houzz and Angie's and things like that. But I think the adoption of those from a user base is going to become more and more prevalent as Google just gets more muddied up and exploring AI overviews. And not that those are necessarily bad, but I just think it's going to get more and more complicated and saturated that people are going to start switching and moving over towards those kind of niche search engines.

Mordy Oberstein:

That's like one of the... Like before, if you would've asked me five years ago, are we seeing the death of Google, or are we seeing Google really... Because Google's so hyperbolic. Are we seeing Google really lose its luster? I would've said, nah, whatever. But now when you ask me that question, I take that question really seriously and I answer to that, I don't know, maybe. Maybe? Especially if the DOJ does what it wants to do.

Jake Hundley:

I think a lot of the studies that I see where it's like so many people are using AI search engines now, Perplexity and things, I can't help but feel like they're over-reported, just subjectively speaking of people in my own life. And I think that eventually, again, it'll be cyclical. So I do think that maybe these fragmented niche search engines will take off and have their peak, but I think ultimately it'll come back to just everybody going into a general search engine again.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, it'll be interesting. Honestly, my take is, I kind of feel like, I'm trying to think of a good example of this where something like catastrophic happens or you know what? You go to a restaurant, your favorite restaurant, you've been there a thousand times, you go one time and your stomach is completely demolished. You'll go back, because you've been there a thousand times, it was your favorite restaurant forever, but it's never going to be the same kind of thing. I feel like, and maybe I'm wrong, I feel like we'll go back to Google, but it's never going to be the same. And I think people will be less interested, or less reliant on focusing on algorithms and they're going to try to do things to keep that marketing autonomy for themselves, which they haven't done in the past because of this moment in time.

Jake Hundley:

I think there's a lot of-

Mordy Oberstein:

Which I could be wrong.

Jake Hundley:

I think there's a lot of things going on in the Google ecosphere. It's multilayered. You have a lot of advertisers, you have stuff with the DOJ where now that's coming out where it's like the auction really isn't an actual auction. And you have advertisers with rising CPCs and CPAs and they're out looking for alternative platforms, our agency included. And ultimately Google, they want to provide the best search experience for users, but they also need to make revenue, which they do off of ads. And there's been a bigger push on Google's end to, I think, cut agencies out of the picture, especially with Performance Max and Smart Bidding and even local service ads, even with their huge push to broad match keywords. And it just feels like they're trying to oversimplify it.

And then I just read a study, or I don't know if it was a study, but I think it was Search Engine Land or Search Engine Journal, talking about how Google's push to Performance Max and broad match keywords is really causing prices to increase even on branded terms. And so I feel like as Google wants to cut agencies out, more agencies are going to look for alternative search engines to put their money in. And I don't really know what that's going to do to Google's revenue market share unless they can really get a stakehold on the local business. But then you have platforms like Yelp who are actually going after agencies to get individual businesses back onto the platform.

Mordy Oberstein:

It's crazy what's going on. It's like everything is like, I wouldn't call it mess, not what we do on this podcast, but it is kind of a mess.

Jake Hundley:

Yeah, yeah, it's very messy out there in the search engine world right now.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, man. On that happy note, where can people find you?

Jake Hundley:

Well, you can find me... Well, apparently, if you Google me, you can find me everywhere.

Mordy Oberstein:

There you go. You won't get a baseball and/or a football player. So, that's saying a lot.

Jake Hundley:

Well, it depends on the algorithm though, the time of the day. You can find me on LinkedIn, just Jake Hundley, you can also find, I have all the links to all my socials at our podcast, at the Agency Growth podcast or Everbros Agency Growth podcast, however you want to call it. And yeah, I'm all over social.

Mordy Oberstein:

Amazing, Jake, thanks so much for coming on. Check out Jake's podcast and links to his profiles in the show notes. Thanks again for coming on and being part of the show.

Jake Hundley:

Thanks, Mordy, it was a good time.

Mordy Oberstein:

Make sure you follow Jake, make sure you follow his podcast. Again, a really interesting conversation about how the SEO algorithm, the Google algorithm in particular, rather, has been complicated. Why maybe it still makes, maybe it will make a comeback as being a stable thing. Maybe it won't. Again, I don't know. I feel like the Google algorithm is the seminal algorithm. It's like the algorithm and there've been a lot of issues lately, a lot of issues between marketers and algorithms. And the conversation's really gotten... It's really hit the mother of all algorithms lately, the Google algorithm, which again is perceived as the most complex algorithm out there. But there's been a lot of instability as we hinted at, as I've talked about a bit with Jake. But maybe let's explore that a little bit more in depth. Because I feel like an algorithm like the Google algorithm deserves a little bit more attention.

So let's explore that instability on a little segment we call Going... Going... Google. And it's Going... Going... Google, it's out of here. So a little summary of where we stand with the instability. There was a bunch of core updates that didn't do exactly what I think Google wanted them to do because they integrated the helpful content update into the core or they didn't integrate it into the core, they integrated helpfulness into the core and got rid of the helpful content update.

There's been a bunch of Reddit on the server. There's the AI overviews, and with the last update, the August 2024 update, there was just endless volatility. And what made that one interesting, I think we talked about it on the show before, there was tons of volatility beforehand. Then comes the August update, then they announced it's finished, and then there's still an insane level of volatility. According to Semrush, as covered by Barry Schwartz, it is the longest set of volatility their tools recorded ever, which is insane. But it also impacts... Usually, okay, fine, you have the sites that were impacted negatively, positively by the core update and once that's done, they're good. But they weren't, and they haven't been. So nothing's good. Nothing is good. Doom and gloom.

Crystal Carter:

I think to quote Tom Capper, who's somebody who studies these things as well, he was like, "When does volatility just become the norm?" If it is the case that it's always volatile, then you just have to expect that, expect the unexpected. And I think that as you're planning out your content, again, I think that it should be a question of thinking about content, not for the question of gaining clicks, but once you get the clicks, how can you retain those users? How can you retain those relationships? How can you continue to build on the relationship so that that's an opportunity to engage with users, yes, on search. So they might discover you on search. How can you maintain that cohort? And I think that that's interesting that with the GA4, you start seeing cohort data. So you can say everybody who... Let's say you launched a campaign. Let's say you launched, I don't know, hypothetically like an SEO course with 10 different courses with some fantastic incredible instructors like say on the Wix Studio Academy, for instance.

Mordy Oberstein:

With like Aleyda Solis and Andrew Optimsey and Debbie Chu and Judith Lewis and so forth?

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, just for instance.

Mordy Oberstein:

For instance.

Crystal Carter:

So let's say you launched a course like that, then you can track the people who came to your website from the day of the launch and you can see what part of the website they continued through, how many of them were new, how they're engaging with you. You can also think about email capture and stuff so that you can engage with these folks for a longer period of time and things like that. And I think that's really important that it's not just clicks, it's not just traffic.

So in the early days of SEO, we didn't have a lot of these funnel tools. So everybody didn't have mailing lists, didn't have social media in the same way. So a lot of times the conversations all have been clicks from the algorithm, clicks from Google, clicks from wherever. But we have so many more ways to engage with clients, with customers, with folks. That that absolutely has to be core to your SEO strategy of how the SEO is the hook for getting a connection with people and how you build on that connection because that makes you less beholden and less vulnerable to algorithm changes because you are using the traffic that you initially got to build on a relationship for the long term that is outside of the algorithm.

Mordy Oberstein:

And that's what I was talking about with Jake. There's so much that goes into doing that and you're almost forced to do that now. You're almost forced to think about audience and you're almost forced to think about, how do you build up that momentum, partnering with others, doing live events, like getting out there and being seen and getting shared because you're seen. It is something that you have to think about now. And if the SEO comes into it, and you get great, and if the social media works out, great, all that's great, but that's not where you start. And it's because, I hate to say it this way, there's nothing else to do. I mean, think about it for a second.

It used to feel like an SEO, you knew where the volatility was and you knew what was going to happen, what was going on. Lily Ray was talking about it. Glenn Gabe was talking about the same thing. Marie Haines was talking, and they all had a very unified theme. And I'm not saying that they don't anymore, they still do, I think. But now you have other voices coming and saying, "No, I'm seeing this and I'm seeing that and this is not what I'm seeing," and there's too much chirping and... Let me put this differently. There's a lot of chirping, not too much. There's a lot of chirping from a lot of different directions and it's hard to make sense of what's what and what's actually happening. So what are you supposed to do? And then on top of that, it's impossible to analyze any of the updates anymore because forget the volatility before and forget the volatility afterwards, like we saw with the August update.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah.

Mordy Oberstein:

Like you mentioned before, they're rolling out a spam update at the same time as they're rolling out this update. Then they do the same, they got that update, how are you supposed to pull that apart?

Crystal Carter:

Right. Too many variables.

Mordy Oberstein:

Too many variables.

Crystal Carter:

And also, we talk about the Google algorithm, but there's so many different algorithms within the algorithm. You've got a great article-

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, yeah, algorithming the algorithms.

Crystal Carter:

So you've got a great article on the Wix SEO Learning Hub, What is a Google Algorithm? And then you also have a separate one that's What's a Google Algorithm Update, and those documents-

Mordy Oberstein:

Well, no, I had an article that somebody who shall remain nameless split up very well into two articles, restructured for me, and almost helped me redo both of them so that they can be on the Hub. Her name rhymes with Bistle. Bistle Barter.

Crystal Carter:

Anyway, they're great pieces of content.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yes, they are.

Crystal Carter:

And-

Mordy Oberstein:

Thank you.

Crystal Carter:

They're great pieces of content. And one of the things that's important to think about is, for instance, people working in the local space, they are significantly impacted. They're not outside of the main algorithms, but they're significantly impacted by the local pack and the way that that algorithm works and that information there. People who are working with e-commerce, they're going to be more impacted by the reviews update and how that review system works in the spam and those sorts of elements as well. So while it is important to see general trends that you might hear from across the community, you also have to be really tapped into which parts of the algorithm affect you most and which are affecting you most consistently. And I think that when you look at some of the tools, like you mentioned the Semrush Sensor, Moz has a great tool, Algoranker, various different things. We also have another article that lists all of the tools that list what's going on. And when you look at those tools, they split them out by vertical, for instance. So news will be impacted and health will be impacted.

Mordy Oberstein:

Right, news is always incredibly volatile because everything's changing day by day. And that's been as normal-ish.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, exactly. So you need to tap in too and understand which ones work for you. Google has some good documentation about which algorithms and which ranking systems they have. It's worth spending time on that if you're finding that your rankings are going up and down a lot. And it's also we're thinking about where you can try to find some consistency amongst all of this.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah. And there's dueling algorithms like Glenn Gabe's talked a lot about that. I think that within the core algorithm itself, there's jostling for position or impact that happens. Which is why I think you have statements from Danny Sullivan saying, "Yeah, I'm really looking forward to these smaller websites, seeing some more improvement coming in the future," but why isn't it there now? Because there's competing things that are prioritizing, other things that are not prioritizing those websites at the moment. So it's complicated. It's complicated. You know what's also complicated? I find very complicated, not very straightforward, really a complicated person. Barry Schwartz. Layers, like an onion.

Crystal Carter:

I feel like Barry is one of the least complicated people I know.

Mordy Oberstein:

Sorry, that's what I meant.

Crystal Carter:

I'm sure that there's many, many layers, but in terms of what we get, what Barry shares with us, it's like SEO...

Mordy Oberstein:

No, I feel like there's two layers. It's what Barry says, and there's what he's actually thinking.

Crystal Carter:

He does the SEO and he does the news. That's what a Barry do. He also is all about efficiency.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, Barry is efficient. Very efficient. Very uncomplicated. There's no drama with Barry. I actually do really appreciate that. There's no drama.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, #uncomplicated.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, that's what I meant to say. Sorry, Barry. I meant uncomplicated, which means it's time to jump into the Snappy News.

Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News. It's here, the Google November 2024 core update is rolling out now. It should still be rolling out by the time you hear this. On November 11th, Google announced the November 2024 core update saying it'll take about two weeks to roll out, that being reported by Barry Schwartz over on Search Engine Land. So by the time you're listening to this, it should still be rolling out, but who knows what Google will do and can do and whatever. That said, Google's typical advice around this, and this is what they've said before, is around creating quality content, yada, yada, yada, yada.

I'll read to you what they've said according to Barry in a previous statement, "There's nothing new or special that creators need to do for this update as long as they've been making satisfying content meant for people. For those that might not be ranking well, we strongly encourage reading our Creating Helpful, Reliable People First Content help page," Google said previously, according to Barry Schwartz, so that's that.

Now it's a little bit of a weird-ish update because the weather tools like the Semrush Sensor, which are tracking the rank volatility, show less rank volatility now, which is strange because we're in the middle of a core update. So Barry Schwartz, again on Search Engine Round Table, a twofer from Barry, again, almost every week at this point, "Google November 2024, core update, movement slow, but for some massive." That's dramatic, Barry. So Barry is covering what people are saying, the chatter out there. Glenn Gabe was showing a bunch of websites on X showing that they've shown massive... I don't want to call it massive, but strong, ranking swings and increases and decreases and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But then you have people saying, "Hey, I don't see much going on right now." So there's a mixed bag of chatter. Barry was quoting some SEO saying, "No movement yet. Discover's also not moving at all. Had a strange two-day spike last week, but nothing either way after the update," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So some people are seeing movement, some people are not seeing movement, at least at the time of this recording. I can tell you that for some of the websites I'm working, one-on-one plan in particular, seeing massive movement, swings back and forth, back and forth, up and down, interesting to see where it'll end up. So I'm not sure how big or massive the update is. It's really hard to tell. I'll say this, it's getting really hard to tell just by looking at the weather tracking tools like the Semrush Sensor, Moz Cast and so forth.

I'm wondering, and this is just a theory that the reason why you might be seeing a decrease in the volatility on some of these tools is, Google might've been doing some other testing, some other whatever, whatever, whatever, not related or pre-related to this update. And now that stopped, and now just the update volatility is there and all of that other stuff that Google was doing in aggregate was enough volatility that if you only have the core update or if you take that away and only have the core update volatility, it actually looks like a downgrade in rank volatility. So it's really, in my opinion, really hard to tell how big the updates are just by looking at these weather tools. This update, the last update was very similar. It's getting more and more complicated. And with that, that's this week's Snappy News. And because it's so snappy, it's so uncomplicated, just like Barry. Thank you, Barry.

Crystal Carter:

Thanks, Barry.

Mordy Oberstein:

Unless I went particularly long on this one because I recorded that section of the podcast later, so it could be it went really long and this part now it makes no sense.

Crystal Carter:

Oh, no, was it volatile?

Mordy Oberstein:

Welcome to how we record our podcast. There was one time where I went really long, Barry covered his interview with Danny Sullivan, and Barry complained on X, like, "You went too long." I'm like, "You're complaining I went too long, covering your article, which is also too long?"

Crystal Carter:

Here's the thing, do you remember seeing the movie LA Story with Steve Martin?

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, man.

Crystal Carter:

He's in LA and it's everyday hot and sunny. And then at one point he tries to go on vacation, so he records the weather early and he goes, "Yeah, it's super sunny," and there's a deluge. And so I see what you're talking about.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, Mr. Sunshine, okay. Which another great person in the industry is our follow of the week, which is Glen Allsopp, also known as... Great Twitter handle, by the way, ViperChill. Glen writes at detail.com, and the reason why he's our follow of the week is because he writes some really detailed analysis of who's winning and what's happening on the SERP, quarter by quarter, like detail Q4, analyzing the SEO playbook of digital goliaths in depth, every quarter. And he'll just go through who's ranking, who's not ranking, what's happening on the SERP, and surveying what's been happening on Google so you can get an idea of, wait a second, now all of a sudden these types of sites haven't been dominating the landscape. That is so interesting. So check out Glen, check out detail.com, and check out those particular articles. They're really insightful. You'll see everybody from Aleyda Solis to whoever else. I'm sharing them on social media, so you should just read them yourself directly by going to detail.com and checking out @ViperChill.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, he's got some great stats in there. One of my favorite ones, we were talking about this on It's New the other day, I was looking at some of the content producers around the world and which companies show up in Google search results a lot like Hearst, for instance, being one of them. Ziff Davis, which are the parent company for Moz, for instance. Vox Media, loads of other folks as well. But that's a really fascinating graphic and that's something that they've kept up with for a while, and that's this. It's a great resource. So yeah, detail.com is super awesome. Thanks, Glen, for all the work you do.

Mordy Oberstein:

I just want to know, how do you get a viper to chill? Or is viper chill a type of chill? Like, it's so chill.

Crystal Carter:

I mean, they are cold-blooded-

Mordy Oberstein:

But it's not chill at the same time?

Crystal Carter:

... they're cold-blooded animals. Like Vipers are-

Mordy Oberstein:

Are they?

Crystal Carter:

... they're reptiles, they're cold-blooded.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, they're actually cold-blooded, not like, oh, they're cold-blooded.

Crystal Carter:

No. Well, I mean that too, but also, but yeah, they're cold-blooded, that's why they have to sit under a lamp. If you are somebody who keeps reptiles, you have to buy one of those lamps, which I think might run up your electric bill. But presumably you thought about that before you-

Mordy Oberstein:

Which is why you don't want to have a viper in your house. Mainly because of the electric bill. If it were me. Can I tell you, I spent most, I think I've mentioned on this podcast, I spent most of my day turning off the lights after my kids. I just follow them around, turning off lights.

Crystal Carter:

Totally a thing. You leave the house and you turn around and it looks like, it looks like fricking, I don't know, JFK airport.

Mordy Oberstein:

It's like Christmas. And I'm Jewish.

Crystal Carter:

You're like, why are we lighting up the whole house? Why does the dust need to be illuminated? I don't understand.

Mordy Oberstein:

And it's daytime. We get good sunlight, and I know I'm saving a penny, but I can't. It just bothers me.

Crystal Carter:

And also, that's a dad thing. That's such a dad thing. And the thermostat, and the all these sorts of things. It's very much a dad thing. My dad used to do the same thing.

Mordy Oberstein:

Thermostat's an issue. I'm not cheap. I like it cold, so I'm not cheap on the air conditioning. But I was at my sister and brother-in-law's over the summer. I'm like, it's so hot. I complained I'm like, "I don't want to complain, but." Just, yeah, I know, Sam, if you're listening to this. He wants to keep it, like you know, he wants to save a little bit. He keeps it way up. I always complain. Oh, you can't cheap out on the air conditioning. I'm sorry. There's certain things.

There's a limit.

Crystal Carter:

Especially not on the East Coast, because it's too humid to open the windows.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, and anyway, thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back next week with a new episode as we dive into what to know before diving into an SEO study. First, know how deep it is. Because if you don't, if you dive and it's too shallow, you can really hurt yourself. Anyway, look for it wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix Studio SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all of the great content and webinars over on the Wix Studio Learning Hub, SEO Learning Hub, at you guessed it, wix.com/SEO/learn. Don't forget to give us your review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace and love and SEO.