❌ Massive Ls: Sites That Failed to Fool Google

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→ Microsoft moved fast in adding ads to Bing; its new post, "Driving more traffic and value for publishers from the new Bing" explains the logic behind the move and what to expect

→ According to some polls in the SEO community, Bing Chat is currently the preference vs. Google Bard. These are early days, but the results at this point ain’t close: 69.3% vs. 30.7%...*

*important to note that this poll may not be an entirely accurate representation, especially as it could just represent one specific segment of the SEO community. Just like it’s too early to determine what will win out, it’s probably even too early to make sweeping claims about preferences in this war…

→ Speaking of, you shouldn’t pass on this perspective from Tom Capper @ Moz, who does his best to get to the bottom of the Big Bing / Bard Battle. The New Bing, as it’s being called, fares pretty well, and is praised for its different modes and use of citations (which ChatGPT still hasn’t quite figured out). This is a useful, interesting side-by-side from one of the most trusted SEO perspectives in the game, and it takes the tactic of asking questions of both rather than declaring a clear winner.

→ Meanwhile, major industry voices- including Elon Musk- have called for a pause in the AI race… something tells me it’s going to fall on deaf ears

Did you ever hear the story of Icarus? TLDR; sometimes over-confidence gets the best of us and we fly too close to the sun— and, when we do, we often end up taking an L. Many such cases, so sad but so true. In SEO, this obviously includes those of us who have tried to break the rules and outsmart Google. Not trying to scare you here, but this article does read a bit like a cautionary tale. The real ones at Ahrefs put out this piece a few weeks ago- 10 Websites That Tried to Fool Google (And Failed)- and I think it’s for sure worth a read.

Look, I find it hard to believe that any of you seasoned professionals out there have never been "guilty" at one time or another of at least one of the "mortal sins": Keyword stuffing, buying links, creating doorway passages, content automation, duplicating content, using hidden text and links, article spinning, link farms and networks— the list just goes on and on. Some of us have gotten caught, while others haven’t (yet).

Anyway, this article details a bunch of sites that ran any combination of these tactics and, well, did not fare so well. Pour one out.

Meanwhile, "Answers to All" was a low-tier PAA site that was full of lazy content, spam, and dubious links. The peak was brief and the whole thing rock-bottomed almost immediately. Pour one out. Bad links, bad content, Ahrefs guesses that this is obvious enough that it was manually penalized, but that's obviously impossible to determine. What I really like is how Haines determines whether a site is redeemable or fully doomed... "Answers to All'' of course, gets the Hard F (maybe F-) as he doesn't "see any way back for this site."

In general, there’s tons of good data and helpful advice given… It’s not that you shouldn’t try to trick Google, but at least learn from those who have failed before you.

→ Google is launching an "Ad Transparency Center" that lets users look into a brand’s past ads and certain data about them, such as where the ads were shown, the last time the brand ran that campaign, and so on. This will let people like, block, and report ads, as well as adjust preferences with greater precision. Definitely worth reading up on. FWIW, many articles analyzing this are kind of focused on the user-end, but as usual our friends @ Search Engine Journal come through with how this might impact marketers.

→ Google is under fire for destroying docs and giving false info in court in the multi-district antitrust Epic Games case… Hey, who amongst us can’t say we’ve been there?

→ @rustybrick dove deep into the recent Core update, one he says was "a pretty big update that touched down fast and hit hard"

→ TikTok: The NY Times takes a look at the app’s newest trend… defending its CEO from the international attacks being fired at the platform by governments around Europe and North America

→ Meta: new Reels Ad options include Click-to-Messenger Ads, WhatsApp Conversion Optimization; In-stream Reserve video ads removed, more

→ Twitter: with the days winding down until the golden checkmark is coming in @ $1K / month for businesses, this piece analyzes the types of people and projects who should pass on the investment (most) and the few that shouldn’t… obviously, worth a read; BTW, the "Twitter is dying" pieces from big publications? Still going strong— I mean, it might be, but some of these sites should read "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"; but you can also add "Source Code Getting Leaked" to the "Reasons Things Aren’t Going So Hot" category; beyond that, the plan to continue pushing the content of Blue Subscribers is facing tons of scrutiny, since about 50% of them have under 1K followers, and around 20% have under 100 followers… not exactly premium content?

Don’t forget…

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❌ Massive Ls: Sites That Failed to Fool Google

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