Taylor Swift Is An SEO? + A Google Update Frenzy

MICHAEL:
Hi guys, Michael here. Do you want a second opinion on your SEO? Head to theseoshow.co and hit the link in the header. We'll take a look under the hood at your SEO, your competitors and your market and tell you how you can improve. All right, let's get into the show.

INTRO: It's time for the SEO show where a couple of nerds talk search engine optimization so you can learn to compete in Google and grow your business online. Now here's your hosts, Michael and Arthur.

MICHAEL: Hello and welcome to the SEO show. I am Michael Costin and I'm joined by Arthur Fabik. How are you going?

ARTHUR: I'm okay. I had a pretty traumatic weekend, but what happened? Well, I had one of my teeth removed surgically. One of the molars. Ouch. Yeah. Not fun. Three hours in the dentist chair. So my mouth is feeling a little bit swollen.

MICHAEL: Yeah. So after sort of talking with his mouth open, I would say a third of the distance that it normally is. So yeah, he might not be talking as much this episode. I'll do my best. The good news is it's not going to be that big of an episode. We just wanted to check in because it's been a little while. It's been a little bit of time since we last did an ep. And I want to say we're back with the Vengeance, but I feel like we've said that last three times that we went on hiatus. But look, I do think we're back with the Vengeance. We are definitely back with the Vengeance. We're going to be banging out episodes. And it's probably a good time to say we are heading to the Chiang Mai SEO conference next month. Woo! Woo-hoo! Do you have a button with applause? It is one of these. See, the buttons are just colors. I don't know what each of them do. So it could be a risk. I'm just going to hit green. Oh, that's not the right sound. Look, I hope the conference is better than that. I think it will be.

ARTHUR: No, it's good because it's the first time they're doing it since COVID-19, I think was the last time they ran it. So yeah, it should be good. A lot of SEOs, a lot of prominent SEOs, friends of the show. Yep.

MICHAEL: Friends of the show and friends to be of the show will be there. So we're actually going to be taking our trusty road Broadcaster pro and a couple of mics over maybe some cameras some cameras do some blogging. Yep. We'll document behind the scenes We're gonna chat to some people over there And we'll have some good content. So we're back with the Vengeance. There's going to be more episodes coming with some interesting guests. And if you happen to be in town, reach out. We might be able to connect and do an episode with you. So yeah, Chiang Mai, that will be there from the 4th to the 11th of November. So plenty of nerdy SEO chats to come from that. I can't wait. Hopefully your mouth is working a bit better by then.

ARTHUR: It should be. It's two and a half weeks away. So yeah, I'm hoping by the end of this week, I should be a hundred percent on touchwood.

MICHAEL: Well, you've, you've, you've survived having your tooth pulled out. Have you survived the Google update frenzy that's been going on? I have.

ARTHUR: Yeah. Oh, well I'm here. You've come out unscathed. I'm speaking.

MICHAEL: So you've dragged yourself off the dentist chair, off your hospital bed, out of the pain of the Google update frenzy. And I'm here to talk about it, to relive it with you guys. Yes. So when we say frenzy, right, there was an August core update in August. Funny that. There was a helpful content update. September. There was a link spam update, which was also September-ish. October. Yeah. September, October. Maybe. Yep. And then the October core update. That's a frenzy. It's a frenzy. They've gone absolutely nuts with updates.

ARTHUR: Which is funny because they often go, especially this time of the year, big gap. Yeah. I remember like a couple of years ago, it was like the May update and then nothing until Christmas.

MICHAEL: Yep. And then earlier this year we had like a lull and then they went wild. I believe that was this year. It might've been last year.

ARTHUR: No, I think you're right.

MICHAEL: Yeah. So, um, they've definitely gone wild of late and, um, a couple of them have really hammered sites. So the October core update technically I don't think has even finished rolling out. It launched early October, October 5th around then. Um, we're now, you know, not even two weeks after that. So there's every chance that things will change again after this, but the two big ones out of those four there were the helpful content update and the October core update. So helpful content was about mid-December, about a month ago. September. Mid-September, about a month ago. And that one we saw afterwards that sites like Reddit, Quora and LinkedIn were just immediately pushed to the top of the search results. So things like affiliate site and niche website owners, people that make their money writing articles about best hamster wheels, you know, and have articles on hamsters, hamster buying guide, hamster wheel guides. They previously would get traffic when someone went to Google and searched for, you know, what's the best hamster wheel for my kid. I don't know if that's the thing, but we're going to have to roll with it now. Hamsters. Now, if you type that in, the sites that rank at the top are pretty much universally Reddit, you know, discussions about hamster wheels or sometimes Quora. And then even random articles published to LinkedIn are ranking well. So it's like LinkedIn is a, you can use parasite SEO tactics to rank on LinkedIn now. So Google just seemed to favor these really strong domains. that have a lot of user generated content on them, question and answers rather than niche sites, authority sites or affiliate sites.

ARTHUR: So it's just them targeting those sites that have been built basically to generate traffic and revenue for people.

MICHAEL: Yeah. And I think it's also because… It's very spiteful of Google. Well, they would see like, I don't know about you, but do you often search and put Reddit on the end when you're trying to… Always.

ARTHUR: So like for, I guess, to keep it relevant with my tooth, I did a lot of searching and it'd be like, how long, how long does the tooth extraction take Reddit? Because I go to Reddit to get people's real experiences on things. Yep. I didn't like going to like affiliate sites or like blogs and stuff like that.

MICHAEL: Yeah. And you land on a website if it's a normal site, it's like, what is a tooth extraction?

ARTHUR: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Tooth extraction near me. And you're trying to find an answer and it's just trash. Junk. Yeah. It's not helpful content. Very true. So they really went hard into, they would see that people are searching that way. Like normally Google want to return the best result for a query the first time around, if you believe them, which I don't believe most things they say, but you would think they want to give a good experience to their users. Yeah. Having to type Reddit in. Is that what you do though, when you search for? Often. Pretty much always. Yeah, me too. Any sort of product. I'll look at it on YouTube, but then if I'm searching Google, always put Reddit on the end of anything. Particularly when I know what affiliate sites are. So. Well, yeah, we know what they are. If I land on an affiliate site, I'll back out and go looking for Reddit.

ARTHUR: Because we know the content is generally going to be pretty shit. Can I say that? Yeah. I already did.

MICHAEL: Yeah. And not just that, but it's biased. They're trying to make money out of it. They'll push a better, a product that has a better affiliate offer rather than the better product.

ARTHUR: Yeah. Good example would be when I was, again, looking at like tattoo aftercare and there was sites pushing like specific creams and stuff. So it'd be like, I get paranoid and be like, how should my tattoo look four days or five days after? Like getting the tattoo. And then you'd go to the side and be like, this is what it should look like. Here's the product, here's the cream that you can be using to improve aftercare. So they're just always trying to push or promote something. Yep. If you go on Reddit, you get real people's experiences and you know, that's what people are searching for. Exactly. I basically just said what you said.

MICHAEL: No, it's basically this whole helpful content update has demoted websites that they don't have real world experience. Good riddance. They just go and rehash stuff that they find on Reddit, you know, but they're not a go-to source. They don't have.

ARTHUR: How do you feel about that being somewhat of an affiliate marketer?

MICHAEL: Um, as an affiliate marketer, I know that, uh, success is fleeting really. Like if you're really hard into affiliate, you are at the mercy of Google. It's like when startups build like members Zynga, the mobile games company, and it was worth billions and billions and billions, or even Buzzfeed, but they're not, their whole company was built on the back of Facebook. Facebook changes one thing and then their whole business model stuff. Being an affiliate marketer, it's a business. Yes. You make good money from it, but you are totally at the whims of Google. And often they'll make big changes that are, you know, out to get affiliate marketers and wipe you out. So as part of the game is the way I sort of look at it as an affiliate marketer. And that's why when my affiliate sites in the past have been doing really well, I would never just quit all other forms of employment and be like, well, job done, you know, because it can stop at any minute. So if you, you almost expect it, right?

ARTHUR: Like there's an expiry date on pretty much the success that you have with the affiliate sites.

MICHAEL: Correct. Unless you get to the point that you are a huge, huge authority site, which can, you know, that's the way to play it in that space. But we've been seeing with these October core update and helpful content update that even really strong, authoritative, nice, good, doing everything right sites have been hit, you know, so. It can be tough, but, um, yeah, so as an affiliate, that's how I look at things. And as a user of Google, I prefer search results to be better. I don't know that necessarily having three or four results straight away from Reddit is that much of a better experience, Reddit or Quora. A really good authority site can be nice to use as well. So they seem to, the pendulum always seems to swing too far each way when they make these big changes. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see how it all washes out over the coming months. Um, the other one, there was a spam update that around the same time as October core trying to tell what's what kind of hard, but the October core, it looks like it's been absolutely. Massive massive massive update so that we're seeing sites that have been obliterated out of the search results and you know 50% declines overnight 70% declines in traffic and conversions and if you go on like search engine land Barry Schwartz, friend of the show. Friend of the show. His, uh, he sums up like some of the commentary that's going on in forums with people's businesses, the chatter from the SEO community, people's businesses have been obliterated with this update. Um, we're seeing sites that have unique content published on them. that are being outranked by scraper sites that have stolen their content. And the reason they're being outranked is because with this October core update, there's been like a site wide filter put on a website. So if Google decides your site's no good, you won't rank and these scraper sites outrank you, even though you're the original publisher. So. Messy. And it comes back to links at the end of the day, the sites that are doing well are like domains with a ton of links.

ARTHUR: But why does it, like, how does it determine a shit site to a good site? I don't know. Cause that's what I'm trying to figure out. Like, you know, these core updates, we don't know what they're really looking at a lot of the time. Yep. So who's Google to say that this site has a, this site is penalized. It's got the site wide filter on it. Just makes no sense.

MICHAEL: Yes. Well, this is for me core updates. putting my conspiracy hat on, are designed to keep the SERPs in a state of turmoil and not allow too much success. And we've seen like there's these antitrust cases against Google at the moment where revelation after revelation are coming out about their practices on Google ads and how they essentially will set bids higher to make more money if they want to make more money in a quarter. And like how unscrupulous they are there, which is all stuff that we've spoken about on this show as thinking goes on. It's now being confirmed in these antitrust hearings in the US, internal documents being released that show it all. So it's not outlandish to think that they would do these October core updates.

ARTHUR: No, no, a hundred percent. Like just from experience, looking at sites, we've seen sites get hit by an update. the traffic will go down, next update will go back up. It's just like, you know, up and down, up and down, up and down. The site might not change at all in terms of links, content, anything.

MICHAEL: I have programmatic affiliate sites that literally just huge spike, disappear, huge spike, disappear. And the spike might be for four or five, six months. Nothing changes on the site. I do not change a thing. And they've sat there for now, best part of a decade. I just don't change a thing. And they ride the wave. Yeah. I don't think it's a conspiracy. It makes sense. Hmm. It does. So anyway, that most recent one is only fresh. Maybe it, uh, the conference once we're out there networking, chatting to a few people, we'll get some really good Intel and, um, be able to dive into these updates a bit more, but, um, yeah, for now Google's gone a little mad with the updates. Hopefully it means that there won't be any next month or December around the December update, don't they? They do love one right before Christmas.

ARTHUR: Yep. Maybe this year. Everyone's on holiday, having fun. Google decides to roll out a core update.

MICHAEL: Normally when we're on our break, our team Christmas party, it's happened a couple of times. That's Google for you. All right. Well, this is a quick, quick episode. There's one thing I wanted to cover off. It is a little thing that I found online. It can be considered another edition of Stolen. Stolen from social. Yes, I have found something that I'm going to totally steal from social and chat about. It is something we've spoken about on the show before in another context, which is famous people using strategic SEO play to bury bad press or news about themselves. And it just appeals to my nerdy side. This one's far-fetched. You reckon? Yep. I don't think it is. Um, well, it depends what you think far-fetched is. What about it is far-fetched?

ARTHUR: I just don't think, well, maybe we should think she's done it. No, I just don't think someone would go to that extreme to do this just to hide the fact or hide whatever they're trying to hide. To me, it just doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

MICHAEL: Okay. Let's, let's speak about what we're speaking about. So there is a rumor, a conspiracy in the SEO world, that Taylor Swift, she's dating Travis Kelsey from My Kansas City Chiefs. Your Kansas City Chiefs. My Chiefs. Do you like him? Love him. Good player? Great player. Fantastic. Best tight end in the game. Possibly of all time. How do you feel about him dating Taylor? I'm indifferent to her. I'll tell you, it's annoying because- She's at every game? At every game. And all they do is keep cutting to her and talking about the fact Taylor's there. There's Taylor. And like, cool, let's move on. But they're obsessed with it. Anyway, the conspiracy theory is that their chiefs played the Jets and all these articles came out about how Taylor was attending the game. And they were written in a way that it mentioned her name and it mentioned the Jets, even though he's a guy who plays for the Chiefs.

ARTHUR: That's something that I read as well, that normally people wouldn't write like that, right?

MICHAEL: Well, there's evidence. So basically it mentioned the Chiefs, sorry, the Jets and Taylor Swift in the title. And the conspiracy is this was done by her PR team. Like they capitalized on the fact that she was going to this so that it would bury all of the bad press she gets about being the biggest polluter of, you know, biggest user of private jets out of all of the rich elite types. Which is a bad look, you know, in this climate change sort of environment that people care about that stuff. Yeah. She doesn't want to be seen to be that. So she's been able to capitalize, not saying that she started dating Kelsey just to squash this, but they've capitalized on the fact that she was going to the Chiefs game because, well, she went to a couple of games. This might've been the third one she went to. And then the first couple articles just said Taylor Swift attends Chiefs game, Chiefs game. But then when it became Jets, it was talking about how she's attending the Jets games. Yes. So people online are saying that her PR team have like uses to as a reputation management play, SEO play.

ARTHUR: So for people that would be searching, you know, like about the jet story about her being the most Taylor Swift, like using the most jets out of all the famous people, it would come up with the NFL story.

MICHAEL: So now if I search Taylor Swift jet, the articles, uh, Taylor Swift private jet is spotted leaving Kansas City.

ARTHUR: You know, saying that. Potentially, you know, the PR team might've jumped on it. I don't think that she's dating the Kansas city chiefs, like NFL player, just to cover up, just to cover up the fact that she uses a lot of private jets. She's capitalized on that. Okay.

MICHAEL: That's, that's, that's plausible. Yeah. And it's like, we spoke about Boris Johnson in the past, how he would say really weird things in press conferences to bury stories about like unflattering stories about himself. I haven't heard that. So when he had the party during COVID or something, and he spoke about, he gave some lines about he sits at home and eats cheese because he did some rot with cheese. I can't even remember. Or the bus. He spoke about catching a bus and it was to squash news about the Brexit bus. Or I can't remember the finer details. It's been a while since we spoke about it, but like there's been a pattern of multiple times where he has tried to manipulate Press or like, you know, like Google results about himself. I can believe that. Pretty cool that Taylor Swift is an SEO.

ARTHUR: Yeah. Pretty cool. She's the Kansas city chiefs tight end.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

ARTHUR: One of the best tight ends in the world, apparently.

MICHAEL: Well, the Titans are a team, so you can't call him that. I said tight ends.

ARTHUR: Oh, Titan. He is a Titan, isn't he? Yeah, I thought you were saying Titan. That's because I can't open my mouth.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Look, I think, let's wrap things up. Cause it's hard to do a podcast when your mouth is half shut. Appreciate you plowing through. I think it was a good one. We're going to have to do an update actually. I got pinged by someone on Twitter asking when we're going to do an update about our live case study. So we'll have to do one. Let's make a commitment right here, right now.

ARTHUR: We've done this already, but I've got, I've got a, I've got a short update.

MICHAEL: Oh yeah. Okay.

ARTHUR: We're working on it. Okay. We're going to host it on Kinstar, which we, we spoke about which hosts we'll be using. Obviously we're going to build the site on WordPress. We found a theme. Can't remember what it is off the top of my head, but we'll, we'll do a full episode just updating everyone exactly what the plan is, what we've done so far. And yeah, we'll go from there.

MICHAEL: Let's make the commitment that we will release that before we head to Chiang Mai.

ARTHUR: Oh, definitely. We can do it next week. Okay, cool. The wheels are in motion. Don't worry about that. We will have a competition site up soon enough.

MICHAEL: The wheels of SEO turn slowly, but. Fairly. Well, not really even fairly. All right. Let's take Google updates. Let's wrap it up.

ARTHUR: All right.

INTRO: Thanks for listening to The SEO Show. If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. It will really help the show. We'll see you in the next episode.