Danny Sullivan Retires – Digital Knowledge for the Intelligence Era
Air Date: June 29, 2017
Kristine Schachinger joins me to talk about the news of the week, including:
- Danny Sullivan announced his quasi-retirement earlier this week. Danny is widely regarded as the Godfather of the SEO industry. Danny is the founder of Search Engine Land and Marketing Land, and the SMX conference series. He also founded Search Engine Watch and the SEW conference series. After 21 years of running sites and covering search marketing he said it was time for a change. Danny will act as an adviser to Third Door Media, the company Danny founded with Chris Sherman and Sean Moriarty which publishes Search Engine Land, Digital Marketing Depot, Marketing Land, and MarTech Today, and produces the SMX and MarTech conferences.
- ALSO: The European Union slaps Google with a record €2.4 billion ($2.7 billion) antitrust fine. The European Commission found that the U.S. tech giant denied “consumers a genuine choice” by using its search engine to unfairly steer them to its own shopping platform. Regulators said that Google must change its behavior within 90 days or face additional penalties.
Interview with Duane Forrester VP of Industry Insights – Yext
Air Date: June 22, 2017
Duane Forrester, VP of Industry Insigts, Yext
Today on Webcology we were joined by Duane Forrester, VP of Industry Insights at Yext. Duane has had a storied career in SEO but he is still best known as the former technical spokesperson for Microsoft’s search engine Bing. Now Duane is working with agency tool set Yext as Vice President of Industry Insights. Duane is also author of two business books about digital marketing and conversion optimization, published by McGraw-Hill. He came on Webcology to talk about how the launch of the Yext App Directory makes it easeir for brands to structure digital knowledge for the Intelligent Era. A most interesting conversation with a seriously interesting guy.
Air date: April 6, 2017
The show covered a wide range of topics including:
- Personalized Assistant Devices and SEO
“The future is PASO (Personal Assistance Search Optimization) – John E. Lincoln. Digital marketers should know where PAs get their information. If you accept the premise that the future of SEO is all about PAs and personal assistant search optimization, then you should be asking yourself the following question: “Where do PAs get all their information?—
- Google’s Mobile first index is unlikely to launch before 2018 according to Google engineer Gary Illyes speaking at the Next10conf in Boston.
- Its time to update the SEO Periodic Table. Every 2 years Search Engine Land updates the table and it is asking SEOs to participate in this year’s survey.
Air date: March 30, 2017
Another wide ranging conversation this week with Jim and Dave discussing:
- how the Trump Administration and Republican Congress are allowing ISPs to monitor, manipulate, and sell your private information – from financial, medical, social security number, browsing history, mobile app usage, content of emails and online chats to third parties that place the highest big without your consent and with no opt-out feature and how Canada is taking a different approach in this matter.
- They then discuss Kelsey Jones leaving Search Engine Journal to focus on her own business, MoxieDot and StoryShout.
- They follow up with the now free Google Optimize 360 and the impact of A/B testing,
- and how Google Home is integrating new features like August, Wink, LIFX, TP-link, Rachio, and Vivint. Jim and Dave talk more on the new era of technology and how 2018 will be so different from the world we know today in 2017.
Sad but not unexpected news in the industry today as the granddaddy of major search marketing conferences, Search Engine Strategies died quietly with no public announcement. Founded in 1999, SES brought search engines and webmasters or site-owners together. For many older members of the SEO community, myself included, SES was the space where they caught their first breaks. The conference built itself into a major three ring circus touring the globe to crowded conference centers and vibrant tradeshow floors. When the roadshow rolled into NYC, four floors of conference center floorspace was needed to hold the hundreds of vendors and booths.
The conference was started by Danny Sullivan who was also founding editor of Search Engine Watch. Sullivan left SEW and SES in a contract dispute after the online magazine and conference series was sold to Incisive Media by MecklerMedia for 43million in 2005. Danny left to form ThirdDoor Media, Search Engine Land (and ancillary publications), and the extraordinary Search Marketing Expo series. For seven years, there was a healthy rivalry between the two operations with Incisive Media and ThirdDoor complimenting each other and providing two competing platforms in the online magazine and digital conference business.
The day I knew it was over was the day Mike Grehan resigned on the spot at the start of the New York show in 2014, about ten minutes before his opening speech. SES announced their pay-to-play strategy at that show aimed at enticing brands to take the stage without pesky practitioners speaking beside them. This was done in order to increase the perceived value of the conference series in advance of a sale to French conglomerate Blenheim Chalcot.
Things sort of went to hell from that point on. Search Engine Watch has been rudderless and the ClickZ shows reduced to fulfilling contractual obligations. The granddaddy of search conferences is dead and its media publication is likely not far behind.
The Four Daily Habits of Successful SEOs
Air Date: August 11, 2016
Dave Davies and I discuss our own SEO work habits following an article in Search Engine Land by John E. Lincoln titled . Here are John’s four essential habits, with some of our ideas added on.
- Study (the news like crazy). I generally spend the first hour or so every morning reading industry news over coffee. There are several publications in the SEO/SEM space. John mentions a number in his piece. He didn’t mention a few I’d recommend like , , and .
- Review what’s working with analytics and ranking tools. That’s generally good advice. Before working on anything, get a sense of where things stand now or if you suddenly need to reprioritize your day.
- Act, don’t just talk. That basically says it I guess. .
- Improve your skills and sites. Real SEOs get their hands dirty deep in code, css, and script. Knowing how to strip down and rebuild a site is critical to knowing how to make that site work better.
We also talked over a whollop of Google stuff but lead the second segment with the news that AOL and Arianna are parting ways:
- Arianna Huffington  from HuffPost. Huffington said the new health and wellness company she is launching, Thrive Global, demands her full-time attention. Thrive will start sometime in November.
- Links still Crucial, as  in Search Engine Land
- Google Brain team  in a massive AMA at Reddit (during our live air-time, Thursdays 2pmET)
- Google Ranking Factors 2016 edition
– Content & Links Are the Two Most Important Ranking Signals. RankBrain – Third Most Important Factor. - Click-Through Rate (CTR) is Not a Ranking Factor
- Google Confirms 301, 302, 3xx redirects Do Not Lose PageRank Value
- Google Updates Search Quality Guidelines
Google Giveth and Google Taketh Away?
Air date: August 4, 2016
It was a busy week in search, at least as related to Google. We had, in no particular order:
- Google’s possible  of last week’s algorithm update
- No loss of PageRank for anyÂ
- How Google Treats  in 2016
- Singular and plural words can be different inÂ
- Disavow file and manual action reinclusion requests have to be onÂ
- AMP in generalÂ
- AMP pages no longer need structured data to be valid inÂ
- ExplainingÂ
In other news, Instagram introduced a new  that copies Snapchat and might be extremely detrimental to Snapchat’s health.
Catch this Webcology episode on SoundcloudMachine Learning and Trying to Predict Google Rankings
Air date: July 21, 2016
Jim Hedger and Dave Davies speak with JR Oakes, Director of Strategy for , an agency that specializes in online marketing for law firms throughout the United States and internationally. JR wrote a piece in Search Engine Land on machine learning, “”.
Listen to Webcology on SoundcloudWME Training founder David Ogletree on AdWords, Pay per Click, and SEO
Air date: July 14, 2016
News round-up:
- Air BnB taking out of communities
- –  • WTF?
- Marketing boom for small businesses with lures or gyms
- Amazing for augmented reality applications.
- Will Penguin Ever Launch?
- Â at SE RoundTable
- Pop-ups as?
- Coining of a new word, Muellerbe (Maybe, as implied by John Mueller)
- Google’s new Showcase Shopping feature to in new and improved ways.
Interview:
David Ogletree, founder of
David Ogletree is a Google and Bing-certified Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising analyst, consultant, and trainer. With over 13 years of experience in the search engine marketing (SEM) industry, Dave brings an extensive knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO), PPC, and computer training to his unique online course offerings. In addition to teaching and developing course work and other programs, Dave continues to work as a high-level consultant for various businesses and organizations, small to large, throughout the United States and beyond. You can find out more about Dave’s consulting work and the various projects he takes on by going to our consulting page. (bio from WMEtraining.com)
Dave Davies and I spoke with David Ogletree about WME Training, the state of AdWords and PPC marketing, and his opinions on SEO in 2016. David has a long and respected history in the search marketing industry. His insights on paid search marketing are invaluable to PPC practitioners and advertisers.
Is SEO as Dirty as it’s Ever Been?
Air date: July 7, 2016
As a technical practice and marketing channel, Search Engine Optimization has built credibility over the years but spammers, poorly trained SEOs, and black-hat practitioners continue give it a bad name.
Jim Hedger and Dave Davies discuss a recent article by who wrote, “As much as the SEO industry wants to grow up and shed the shady reputation it had in the past, it seems many don’t want to change and still cast a shadow over the industry. For every company doing things right, it seems there are many more who have not updated their practices or still want to take shortcuts.”
It’s a good article and, for a week where little happened in search, a fun topic for the show.
Stox, who is an SEO Specialist for and an organizer for the , notes mistakes and outdated practices but he also writes about
- Shady sales tactics that misrepresent SEO or abilities
- Absurd contracts that lock clients into bad services
- Proprietary CMS systems that trap clients to a platform
- Withholding log-ins and passwords
- Building bad links
- private blog networks, paid links and spam
- link networks
- Removing links
- Noindex tags
- Multiple websites on different domains
- Bad canonicals
- Reusing or recycling content creates duplicate content
- Reviews
- Rollbacks
- Lawsuits
- No conversion tracking
- 301’ing a penalized site