Monopoly - The Game or Google?

Digital Surfer Wave Issue 206; Zero-Click Searches; Hijacking Back Buttons; B2B SEO; Entity SEO Isn't Special; Generational Marketing; Content Curation; and Much More!

Author

Yoyao
September 13, 2024 • Est. Learning Time: 16 minutes

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What’s the first thing you think of when I say “Monopoly”: The Game or Google?

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SEO

Valentina Izzo dives into the world of zero-click search and its impact on e-commerce. She explains that zero-click searches are where users find information directly on search engine results pages without clicking through to websites. While it presents challenges for traditional SEO strategies, she says it offers opportunities for businesses that can effectively provide value within search results. She explores how e-commerce sites can optimize for zero-click success through structured data, knowledge graphs, and strategic content creation.

Glenn Gabe sheds light on the practice of hijacking the back button, a tactic some publishers use to keep users on their sites longer. This technique involves presenting a feed of articles when users try to leave, potentially gaming Google's Navboost system that tracks user interactions. While it may boost pageviews and ad revenue, it risks frustrating users and could backfire during algorithm updates.

Dana Nicole shares that SEO is the most-used marketing tactic among B2B companies, with 66% of B2B buyers relying on search as their primary research method. Some of the interesting stats:

  • Average ROI of SEO for B2B SaaS is 702%

  • Allocate at least 15% of your marketing budget to SEO efforts

  • Focus on ranking in the top 5 search results to capture nearly 50% of clicks

  • Create high-quality blog content to engage 30% of B2B buyers

  • Invest in original research to improve rankings and attract backlinks

  • Consider keeping SEO activities in-house, as only 26% of B2B companies prefer to outsource

Fabrice Canel at Microsoft Bing shares insights on optimizing search engine visibility using IndexNow. He provides industry-specific guidance for shopping sites, video platforms, travel websites, and low-engagement sites on when and how to leverage IndexNow effectively. He basically says to use IndexNow for new content, updates, and removals to maintain relevance and competitiveness in search results.

What does Google say about their Indexing API? “The Indexing API can only be used to crawl pages with either JobPosting or BroadcastEvent embedded in a VideoObject.” Other sites and content? Could be seen as spam:

SEO Ripples

  • Lily Ray breaks down the major SEO developments of 2024 in her SMX Advanced presentation. She covers Google's AI Overviews, the Helpful Content Update, Reddit's rise, and Google's monopoly status. It’s a good 82 slides recapping everything, but nothing surprising if you’ve been following along Digital Surfer 😉 

  • Barry Schwartz reports that Google's stance on using Exif data for ranking has finally been clarified. Martin Splitt from Google recently stated at SMX Advanced that Exif data is not used for rankings, aligning with Gary Illyes' 2019 statement. This settles years of uncertainty since Matt Cutts' 2014 comment that Google could potentially use this data.

  • Roger Montti covers what John Mueller says about why Google sometimes indexes pages blocked by robots.txt. The key takeaway? Don't sweat it if you see these pages in site: searches - regular users won't. John advises using noindex tags without robots.txt disallow for better control. This lets Google crawl and apply the noindex directive properly. Remember, blocked pages have limited indexable content anyway. Focus on making your important pages crawlable and indexable, and don't stress about those pesky diagnostic reports for intentionally blocked pages.

AI

OpenAI has released their latest AI models - the OpenAI o1 series of reasoning models (the code-named “Strawberry” model). These models are designed to think more deeply before responding, tackling complex problems in science, coding, and math. How much thinking is involved? It correctly solves 83% of International Mathematics Olympiad qualifying exam problems compared to GPT-4's 13%. OpenAI is rolling out preview access with some limitations:

  • ChatGPT Plus and Team users can access o1 models with weekly rate limits of 30 messages for o1-preview and 50 for o1-mini.

  • API users with tier 5 access

  • API Input/Out Token Prices per 1M tokens: $15/$60 (gpt-4o is $5/$15 and gpt-4o-mini is $0.15/$0.60)

My Take: The extra “thinking and reasoning” is something I already try to do with Tree of Thought prompting and AI agents that talk to each other before giving me outputs. It’s great to have this type of reasoning model built-in, but the initial limits and prices aren’t that great. I re-subscribed to ChatGPT Plus (since Claude 3.5 has been better) just to try o1. For me, it’s been pretty good for coding problems with providing better answers than Claude or OpenAI, but responses take upwards of 60 seconds.

Fact-checked AI responses? 😲 Google released DataGemma, AI models that uses Google's Data Commons, a repository of over 240 billion data points from trusted sources. DataGemma grounds AI responses in real-world statistical data. The article also discusses two approaches: Retrieval-Interleaved Generation (RIG) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). Here’s an early version on Hugging Face if you know how to use it!

Scott Stein and Patrick Holland dive into Apple Intelligence coming this fall publicly. The AI will help with writing, image manipulation, and Siri interactions. It’s only available on iPhone 15 Pro models or later, and Macs and iPads with M-series chips - time for an upgrade? 💸 

MARKETING

Ramona Sukhraj looks at how different generations consume content, offering valuable insights for marketers to tailor their strategies. She explores the content preferences for each group. Some of the takeaways for each generation:

  • Gen Alpha: Heavily drawn to video content, particularly on YouTube, and digital gaming platforms like Roblox.

  • Gen Z: Primarily consumes content through social media, especially TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, and values influencer recommendations.

  • Millennials: Favors social media for product discovery and news, with a strong affinity for podcasts and subscription streaming services.

  • Gen X: Balances traditional media like television with social platforms, particularly Facebook and YouTube.

  • Baby Boomers: Prefers television for entertainment and news consumption, but also engages with Facebook and YouTube.

Sydney Go shares insights on creating a brand persona that resonates with your target audience. She explains that a brand persona is the personification of a brand's identity, values, and characteristics as if it were a human being. This humanization helps build deeper connections with customers.

My Take: Branding is a big part of SEO and vice versa. Always has been. SEO isn’t just about optimizing and publishing content. That’s why I added a number of branding lessons in Topical Maps Unlocked 2.0.

I don’t exactly agree with her definition of Brand Identity vs Brand Persona, because what I call ‘Brand Identity’ is what she calls a Persona. Many others also say Identity. It’s just semantics, so I wouldn’t stress or get caught up in terminology. Just focus on the brand elements and creating those.

Kevin Indig discusses the growing importance of branding in SEO, suggesting that Google may be giving even more weight to established brands in search results. He analyzes visibility shifts across various verticals like travel, fashion, and finance, noting that brands seem to be gaining ground in many areas. He also provides strategies for companies looking to build their brand presence and improve their SEO performance in this evolving landscape.

CONTENT

Louise Linehan shares thoughts on content curation as a powerful strategy for growth and audience building. She outlines several benefits of content curation, including saving time and money, driving traffic and engagement, boosting EEAT signals, and enhancing your personal brand. She also provides practical tips for curating interesting content, like mining niche sources, tracking trends, and leveraging your network. The key is to add your own insights when sharing curated content to provide unique value to your audience.

My Take: I’m very disappointed that she doesn’t mention Digital Surfer, the greatest curation newsletter in our space (ok, top 3 at least! 😁).

LINK BUILDING

Frank Olivo dives into the world of guest posting for SEO, sharing insights from a study on what gets indexed by Google. He reveals that only 65% of their carefully vetted guest posts were initially indexed, highlighting common pitfalls like poor keyword targeting and content quality issues. By implementing best practices in content marketing, they boosted indexing rates to 95%. He also includes a list of things they look at when auditing potential sites that you can also use as a guideline for looking at sites.

TOOLS AND RESOURCES

Roger Montti shares that WordPress is beefing up security for all plugins and themes. Two key changes are coming: mandatory two-factor authentication for developers starting October 1st, and a new SVN password system to separate commit access from main account credentials. These updates aim to prevent hacks like the ones that hit multiple plugins in June.

  • Roger Montti also warns of a critical vulnerability in the LiteSpeed Cache WordPress plugin affecting over 6 million sites. This unauthenticated privilege escalation flaw could lead to total site takeover. Updating to version 6.5.0.1+ isn't enough - users must also manually purge debug logs. Montti advises disabling debug mode in production and emphasizes the importance of thorough security measures beyond just plugin updates.

Patchstack is an easy way of staying on top of security vulnerabilities, especially with WordPress sites where we all use so many different plugins. Patchstack has a free version of their plugin too, but it’s not real-time. The lowest is $5/site per month.

Patchstack is different from other security plugins because they will automatically perform vPatches when a vulnerability is found. That’s before the plugin developers create an update with fixes and you get a chance to update the plugin.

They also have a continuously updated WordPress Vulnerability Database you should check out.

CASE STUDY

Greg Jarboe takes a look at the latest insights from IAB's 2024 Outlook study (need membership), revealing some trends in ad spending. The study highlights a shift towards established metrics and cross-funnel goals, while measurement challenges persist. Understanding evolving consumer habits is becoming a top priority for advertisers. Here's a list of some key statistics:

  • Overall 2024 ad spend projection increased from 9.5% to 11.8%

  • Retail media projected growth revised from 21.8% to 25.1% year-over-year

  • Connected TV (CTV) expected growth: 18.4%

  • Social media expected growth: 16.3%

  • Paid search expected growth: 13.1%

  • Podcasts expected growth: 12.6%

  • Digital video (excluding CTV) expected growth: 12.5%

EDUCATION

Si Quan Ong brings good news for SEO professionals feeling overwhelmed by the concept of "entity SEO." He argues that if you're already doing solid SEO work, you're likely covering entity optimization without even realizing it. he breaks down the basics of entities in search and explains why many so-called "entity SEO tactics" are really just fundamental SEO best practices. He encourages readers to focus on creating high-quality, relevant content rather than getting caught up in the latest SEO buzzwords.

My Take: Sh*t, the Topical Maps Unlocked 1.0 course mentions the word “entity” just one time! I do mention it more in TMU 2.0 because I talk about content creation too - 20 times. 😂 Google writes patents and uses terms like “entity,” but that doesn’t mean we have to use it too. In fact, if you’re able to take all that techno-babble and distill it down into effective techniques in plain English - oh wait, that’s TMU 😉 

But I do have to say, Kyle Roof is also one of the best out there at explaining things plainly. He’s put out a number of videos and been interviewed many times. Here’s a video of Kasra Dash interviewing Kyle just this week and you’ll see what I mean.

Jes Scholz breaks down how to handle URL parameters for better SEO in this detailed guide. She explains why parameters can cause issues like duplicate content and crawl inefficiency, then provides actionable solutions including limiting unnecessary parameters, using canonical tags, implementing noindex tags, and blocking via robots.txt. In case you’re not familiar with parameters, here are a few of the common ones she shares:

  • Tracking – For example ?utm_medium=social, ?sessionid=123 or ?affiliateid=abc

  • Reordering – For example ?sort=lowest-price, ?order=highest-rated or ?so=latest

  • Filtering – For example ?type=widget, colour=purple or ?price-range=20-50

  • Searching – For example, ?query=users-query, ?q=users-query or ?search=drop-down-option

  • Translating – For example, ?lang=fr or ?language=de

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