Great news everybody! We’re launching a new podcast, creatively titled “Ahrefs Podcast”.

Check out Season 1 with six amazing guests:

• Laura Roeder (Paperbell)

• Adam Singer (AdQuick)

• Rand Fishkin (SparkToro)

• Dom Wells (Onfolio)

• David Fallarme (Owner.com)

• Peep Laja (ConversionXL, Wynter)

📰 News & updates

There’s a new head of Google Search: Liz Reid is the new head of Google Search. Google also announced a few other changes. Pandu Nayak stepped down as the lead of search quality and ranking (he's now Chief Scientist, Search). Cathy Edwards stepped down as the lead Google Apps, Google News, Google Discover and other ecosystem efforts. And Cheenu Venkatachary stepped up to lead the quality and ranking teams. No idea what all of these means for the future of search though.

High-quality content is crawled more often: Google’s recent insights clarify that a fixed “crawl budget” is largely a myth. Instead, the search engine’s crawling decisions are dynamic and driven by content quality and search demand.

Google to replace perspectives filter with forums filter: Perspectives is not going away, though: “Other types of content like short videos and UGC, which was previously included in “Perspectives," will continue to be accessible for relevant queries as carousels, clusters and traditional web page listings on the search results page.”

March 2024 spam update done rolling out: Though, the March 2024 core update is still rolling out and will likely continue to roll out for the next couple of weeks.

🔝 SEO

There’s no such thing as ‘accurate’ search volume: SEOs want ‘accurate’ search volumes. The thing is: That doesn’t exist. The volumes in Google Keyword Planner aren’t accurate and neither are the “Impressions” in Google Search Console. The search volume metric itself shows you the past, not the future. As long as the metric is directionally accurate, it’s good enough.

[Video] I used ChatGPT to rank #1 in Google: Sam took on a challenge to see if he could capture featured snippets with ChatGPT. I shan’t spoil the results for you—watch the video to find out if he was successful!

How to avoid ruining SEO during a website redesign: Almost anything can go wrong during a website redesign. You should obviously keep a backup of the old site, but beyond that, there are five more rules to keep in mind, like running a site audit pre and post-launch.

[Twitter] What makes a good SEO?: Mike Blazer started a discussion on Twitter: Should SEOs have to rank their own sites to be considered good at SEO? What do you think?

[Twitter] Cyrus Shepard’s AMA: Yesterday was SEO Cyrus Shepard’s last day working as a Google Quality Rater. He ran an AMA to share what he learned so far. Some things he’s done differently since:

• Use of navigation/UX to "show off" expertise, e.g., "Mattress Research" > "Blog"
• Avoiding stock imagery
• Get readers to the answer faster

Excerpts from Google’s anti-trust trial debrief: With a coffee in hand, SEO Ethan Lazuk looked through the 123-page document and extracted the most interesting excerpts for us. (No idea how he did it with one cup; I would have needed at least three.) The most interesting takeaway: User interaction data has become less important for search quality given the capabilities of natural language processing and machine learning.

💻 Digital marketing

Three alternatives to the content marketing funnel: The marketing funnel is too linear and simplistic to address the complexities of customer journeys. The best solution is to have no funnel at all. Mateusz suggests three no-funnel models: 

• The business potential framework — Instead of sorting content by stages of a sales funnel, you rate it based on how closely it relates to your product.
• The content playground — The buyer’s journey reimagined as an open, interactive space, akin to a playground. It aims to cater to varied audience interests and learning styles by offering a mix of deep dives, strategic frameworks, and practical tips.
• The cluster-channel network — Focus on what matters to your audience and where they are willing to consume content.

Till next time ;)
Cheers,