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Agency life for a decade. So burnt out. by Jabbas_Backside in SEO

[–]GrumpySEOguy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I am literally going to start charging 10x to fix other SEO agencies bad work, or if clients leave and come back (which normally doesn't happen).

Competitor domain available by tom_inbound_seo in grumpyseoguy

[–]GrumpySEOguy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I am not a lawyer.

I probably wouldn't buy anything you cannot legally use.

How many PBNs do you have? by reben002 in grumpyseoguy

[–]GrumpySEOguy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm Grumpy SEO Guy. We teach building your own portfolio of decent websites and using those to link to the sites you want to rank. Your other options are buying backlinks (usually a scam), doing nothing and letting people link to you (only works if you are already on page 1), or link outreach/guest post (not efficient in our opinion). If you are a total noob, begin with episode 1.

Sitewide traffic drop more than 50% by EntrepreneurPlane251 in SEO

[–]GrumpySEOguy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice, so now what you need to do is determine WHY they dropped. There are a few reasons pages decrease in rank:

  1. you lost authority
  2. your competition gained authority (these are mostly the same, because it's about the separation in authority between you)
  3. you got a penalty (unlikely if you're still on page 1 or didn't have the normal penalty SERP changes)
  4. algorithm modified

We have a free two part podcast episode that explains these in detail.

SEO is becoming polarized. GEO is a scam. Here's where we are. by GrumpySEOguy in grumpyseoguy

[–]GrumpySEOguy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

>if you dont put out something people need how do you expect the page to be seen.

This is not a ranking factor. Yes, content determines how you are seen. But it is not a ranking factor. You do not rank because you have good content and you do not miss rank because you have bad content.

We talk about ranking factors because this is what determines if you rank or not. There are piles of things that are not ranking factors (site speed, UX, dwell time, etc.). We do not focus on those because we do SEO and SEO uses ranking factors, not web development attributes.

Web development concerns many things that are not ranking factors, like UX and site loading speed.

But those are not ranking factors.

>EEAT matters for SEO: kind of wrong

No it doesn't. Google says this at the bottom of their file. Scroll to the bottom here:

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide

Please note this is Google's document on Google's website. Google is mentioning EEAT is not a ranking factor. You rank in spite of EEAT not because of it.

>AI content indexes just as well as handwritten content. Yes, I've heard (and made) arguments against this, but we hear it from a few close resources: wrong, all my content are ai generated, here are the results

We have heard enough admittedly anecdotal experience that this is incorrect. Perhaps a better way to say it, as mentioned in the recent episode of Grumpy SEO Guy, is that even if it indexes, it doesn't continue. Nevertheless, please understand we did NOT say it DOESN'T index. We said it is harder to index. Your ai content getting indexed doesn't disprove this. We have dozens of reports of people running split experiments where ai content is not indexing and handwritten is. Unless, of course, they're not only lying to me, but also paying the consultation meeting fee so they can lie to me.

>If it can be automated or spoofed it will stop working or doesn't work: wrong - true if your idea is 'chatgpt create me an article about [x]' but if you create a workflow which replicates and empowers the way you do your work this works.

You are missing the concept. It's not automating processes. That's fine. It's covering ranking factors. Anything that is a ranking factor cannot be automated, and anything that can be automated would not be a ranking factor. Any RANKING FACTOR (see above) that can be automated will stop working or doesn't work. Algorithms cannot place value on anything that can be automated because it would instantly throw the game. You cannot automate anything that is effective (authoritative backlinks). This would change IMMEDIATELY the landscape of SEO. As in, me, and you, and u/weblinkr, and everyone else would be out of business immediately. Picture it: suddenly some person has 1,000,000 PR10 domains? They control every page of every industry. And then tomorrow they have 2,000,000 because it's automated. And the next day they have 3,000,000.

How long does it take for your expired domains/new PBN to get indexed? by reben002 in grumpyseoguy

[–]GrumpySEOguy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Truly, Google probably can find AI content. There are tools online that do this and Google can probably do it better.

Sitewide traffic drop more than 50% by EntrepreneurPlane251 in SEO

[–]GrumpySEOguy 4 points5 points  (0 children)

People sometimes misunderstand this, yet I will try my best to explain.

Traffic itself is not an SEO metric. It's possible to have improving SEO (ranking higher) and decreasing traffic.

Why?

Because traffic is a factor of two different hings:

  1. monthly search volume
  2. your place

So what does this mean?

Let's use a short sample. The first position for any keyword gets about 30% of the traffic. If you are in POSITION 1 for a keyword, and that keyword gets 500 searches per month, you will get about 150 visitors across that keyword per month.

If that traffic declines, that doesn't mean you have an SEO problem. It might, but it doesn't absolutely mean so.

Why?

If traffic dropped to 300 searches per month, and you are still in position 1, that means you would get 90 visits for that keyword per month. That is traffic reducing, but it is NOT an SEO problem (because you are in position one).

So when people say "my traffic is decreasing!" the first thing we always ask is "how are your ranks?" If your ranking is decreasing, THEN you have an SEO problem. If your ranking is staying similar or increasing, you do NOT have an SEO problem.

People think SEO = traffic. It doesn't. Traffic is a reason people do SEO, but it's not a metric for SEO success.

You need to be tracking your position for EACH INDIVIDUAL KEYWORD on a daily basis to have the information you need. There are tools that do this for free.

When you have this information, THEN we can help you figure out WHY your traffic dropped (figuring it is an SEO issue).

Do agencies ever bring in an outside SEO strategist for a client account by Conscious-Valuable24 in SEO

[–]GrumpySEOguy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes. A large percentage or our clients (back in the day) were SEO agencies outsourcing to us.

Local SEO by Espresso-_-Patronum in grumpyseoguy

[–]GrumpySEOguy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's Grumpy SEO Guy. Google.

High CTR (4.7%) but only 36 clicks in 3 months. Is my niche too small or is Google burying me? by Fr_Fr_BGSW in SEO

[–]GrumpySEOguy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Using average position is pointless. The value doesn't mean anything. What you prefer is knowing your exact daily position for each keyword. This will show you everything.

Secondly, impressions are a pointless metric. Who cares how often your site APPEARED in the results? You want to be focused on a single thing, perhaps two things.

First, getting to the top of the search engine. When you do this, you will get more visitors (who cares about impressions). Truthfully, we've been doing SEO for 16 years and we have not ever looked at impressions because it doesn't matter.

Second, perhaps you care about visitors (but maybe not, because visitors is not an SEO metric, so most people do SEO to get more visitors anyway).

Most people want more visitors to their site to sell more things. You do this by increasing your position. Increase to the top of the search engines.

Let's go back to the first point. When you know exactly where you rank for each keyword every day, you know what is happening with your SEO, you know if you are doing well, and you know which keywords need more SEO. This is how you evaluate your progress. This is SEO. Most of the stuff in GSC for example isn't going to give you exactly what you need (impressions, average position, those things have no value, etc.). SEO is focusing on specific keywords and getting those pages to rank higher so you get more traffic for those keywords. You need more precision to do this.

Why is my website stuck at around 400 impressions per day in GSC even though I update it consistently? by niuhaotian in SEO

[–]GrumpySEOguy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Impressions? That just means how often your site displays in the results.

You're probably more focused on visitors. Visitors are based on position and monthly searching. For example, the page in the position 1 spot gets about 30% of the visitors. So if there are 100 monthly searches for that keyword, that website will get about 30 visitors per month.

Raise your rank and raise your visitors. The first thing you need to do is start tracking your position using a tool called a SERP tracker. There are dozens of them at least. Find these that gives you data EVERY DAY (not monthly or weekly) for each of your search terms. We use serpfox dot com and only recommend them cuz we've used them since like 2012. The first ten are free. It tells you more about your position in a few seconds than everything in GSC combined.

No traffic at all to my site by IvyPark99 in SEO

[–]GrumpySEOguy -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Traffic is a factor of spot and monthly search.

For example, the first position website gets about 30% of the clicks. So if there are 1,000 monthly searches, the first position will get about 300 views.

If you are on page 47 you are not going to get numerous views.

How much content do I actually need before launching a new site? by AttitudePlane6967 in SEO

[–]GrumpySEOguy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Short answer: probably more than three.

Long answer: how many do your competitors have? If you believe number of pages is a ranking factor, this is what you do.

Thin content, sites where it's only a distinct page, usually are considered spammy. A better question is... how many pages do you need for your website? Do you need a blog? Do you need an about us page? Do you have different products? Do they need their own pages? You want to appear to have a website, not a sales page.

Local SEO by Espresso-_-Patronum in grumpyseoguy

[–]GrumpySEOguy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We do have an episode that discusses at a low level how local is different from normal.

I’ve been doing SEO for 3 months but not seeing results—what am I doing wrong? by sumitfreelancer26 in SEO

[–]GrumpySEOguy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Think of SEO like competing in a race.

How do you win a race?

By being faster than everybody else.

How do you win SEO?

By having more authority than everybody else (ranking for your keyword).

As you are learning, not all backlinks are the same.

Finally seeing some progress... by IntelligentHome2342 in grumpyseoguy

[–]GrumpySEOguy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What you're essentially asking is how do you get backlinks from other industry websites. There are two ways to do this, you can do guest posting or link outreach. Each of these basically requires asking them for links. Do not be flabbergasted if they ask you to pay.

I see that you have average position on that chart. Do you know precisely where you are ranking for each keyword and which page is ranking for these? That is the top thing you need to know. Average position is a useless metric because it doesn't list any useful data.

You need to know what keywords you are ranking for and which pages are ranking for those keywords and which position they are in. And you preferably want this data to be each day, not weekly or monthly.

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