Ahrefs’ Digest #199: Outsourcing SEO, disavowing ‘toxic’ backlinks, and more

Welcome to another edition of the Ahrefs’ Digest.

Here’s our meme of the week:

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Quick SEO news

• The August core update rollout is complete.

• Google quietly cancels Google Trends subscriptions.

• Google now supports AVIF.

• Google releases Gemini Gems, a new feature that lets you customize Gemini to create your own personal AI experts on any topic you want

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Best of the week

Here’s How You Can Outsource SEO Easily and Effectively (+ Best Practices): Outsourcing SEO takes different forms and depends on your business needs. A few why you might outsource SEO:

• If you need a project delivered within a short timeframe

• If you have a budget or need something more cost-effective

• If you need very specific SEO expertise, such as dental SEO

• If you want a hands-off approach to SEO

• If you want to focus on an area of SEO you’re good at rather than something you’re not

The Sites Dominating Google’s Top Stories SERP Feature in 2024: In an analysis of ~45 million keywords in which Google displayed their Top Stories SERP feature, the 1,000 most prominent domains accounted for 97.3% of all listings.

I Disavowed “Toxic Backlinks”: Here’s What Happened: On July 26th 2024, we exported all “toxic” and “potentially toxic” backlinks to three of our blog posts from a well-known SEO tool. It had little to no impact on rankings/visibility overall.

What are Twiddlers in Google’s Ranking Systems? And How Can We Use This Knowledge to Rank Better?: Twiddlers are C++ code objects used in Google’s ranking algorithms that help Google re-order search results. They are used in a Google system called Superroot which is Google’s ranking framework.

“Education” Isn’t Enough: How to Market When Information is Dirt Cheap: ​​The internet is a different place today. SEO is a tablestakes strategy, used by everyone from solopreneurs to multinational enterprises. How can you market when when creating content is so cheap? Ryan offers some suggestions.

The SEOFOMO State of SEO Consulting – Survey 2024 Results: Some insights from the survey:

• Most SEO consultants get their clients by clients or other companies referrals (77%) rather than other channels such as events (25%).

• Most SEOs provide consultancy through video conference calls, team messaging platforms and project management systems, with only 35% mentioning in-person meetings.  

• A high share of SEOs find it more difficult to sell SEO now vs a couple of years ago (43%) as well as harder to achieve SEO goals (58%).

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Latest on YouTube

Can I Rank #1 On Google With $50 & Zero Star Fiverr Freelancers?

Watch as Sam tries to rank #1 on Google with $50 and new Fiverr freelancers with 0-star gigs. 

See you next week,
Si Quan

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