John Mueller Makes It Clear How Google Feels About Negative SEO and Inappropriate Link Disavowal

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If you’re still unclear on how Google thinks about marketing agencies that offer negative SEO linkbuilding services or link disavowal services, the latest comments from John Mueller should help clarify the company’s stance. 

In a conversation that popped up on Twitter between Mueller and several marketing experts, Mueller clearly and definitively slammed companies offering these types of services by saying that they are “just making stuff up and cashing in from those who don’t know better.”

This is particularly notable as some have accused Google of being unclear on their handling of link disavowal using their tools

The post that started it all came from Twitter user @RyanJones who said, “I’m still shocked at how many seos regularly disavow links. Why? Unless you spammed them or have a manual action you’re probably doing more harm than good.”

In response, one user began talking about negative SEO which caught the attention of Mueller. The user mentioned that “agencies know what kind of links hurt the website because they have been doing this for a long time. It’s only hard to down for very trusted sites. Even some agencies provide a money back guarantee as well. They will provide you examples as well with proper insights.”

In response, Mueller gave what is possibly his clearest statement on this type of “service” yet:

“That’s all made up & irrelevant. These agencies (both those creating, and those disavowing) are just making stuff up, and cashing in from those who don’t know better.”

Instead of spending time and effort on any of this, Mueller instead recommended something simple:

“Don’t waste your time on it; do things that build up your site instead.”

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Google Says To Use Multiple Signals To Get Dates Right In Search Results

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Google is encouraging brands to ensure content is properly dated in search engines by using multiple date indicators on each page. 

The recommendation came in the wake of an issue with Google News where the wrong dates were being shown.

In the response, Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, emphasized that while many factors may have contributed in this specific situation, the lack of proper date signals made it difficult to show correct info in the search results. 

“That page is a particular challenge since the main story lacks a visible date (it only has a time), and the page contains multiple stories which do contain full dates. Our guidance warns about this.”

To prevent situations like this from arising, Sullivan says it is important to use several signals to clarify the date content is published:

“Understand that ideally, the meta data alone would seem to some to be enough, and we’ll keep working to improve. But there are good reasons why we like multiple date signals present.”

Why Does This Matter?

It may not seem like a big deal for the wrong date to occasionally get shown with content in the search results. However, these can undermine your authority, lead to confusion, and create a poor user experience. All of these can lead to decreased page performance and even demotions in Google’s search results.

On the other hand, situations like this also highlight the need for Google to deliver more consistent ways to signal a page’s publishing date. 

For now, the best recommendation Google has is to use a scattershot approach for the best chance of having your page correctly dated:

“Google doesn’t depend on a single date factor because all factors can be prone to issues. That’s why our systems look at several factors to determine our best estimate of when a page was published or significantly updated.”

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Google’s Danny Sullivan Addresses Using AI-Generated Content To Rank

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Google continues to be relatively tight-lipped about its stance on AI-generated content, but a new statement from Google’s Danny Sullivan suggests the search engine may not be a fan.

Artificial Intelligence has become a hot-button issue over the past year, as AI tools have become more complex and widely available. In particular, the use of AI to generate everything from highly-detailed paintings to articles posted online has raised questions about the viability of AI content.

In the world of SEO, the biggest question about AI-generated content has been how Google would react to content written by AI systems.

Now, we have a bit of insight into how the search engine’s stance on AI-created content – as well as any content created solely for the purpose of ranking in search results.

In a Twitter thread, Google Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, addressed AI-generated content, saying:

“Content created primarily for search engines, however it is done, is against our guidance. If content is helpful & created for people first, that’s not an issue.”

“Our spam policies also address spammy automatically-generated content, where we will take action if content is “generated through automated processes without regard for quality or user experience.”

Lastly, Sullivan says:

“For anyone who uses *any method* to generate a lot of content primarily for search rankings, our core systems look at many signals to reward content clea/rly demonstrating E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness).”

In other words, while it is possible to use AI to create your content and get Google’s stamp of approval, you are walking a very thin line. In most cases, having content produced by experts with experience providing useful information to those who want it will continue to be the best option for content marketing – no matter how smart the AI tool is.

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Google Says It Can Take Quite a While to Recover From Algorithmic Search Penalties

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If your site gets hit with an algorithmic penalty from Google, you’ll likely be eager to fix the issue and improve your rankings again. However, Google’s top experts say it can take quite some time to recover if they believe your site is spammy.

In a recent Google SEO Office Hours session, representatives were asked how long it can take to recover from an algorithm penalty related to content quality problems. 

While many details about the question remain unclear – such as how significant the penalty is – the search engine’s spokespeople encouraged site owners to be proactive. Otherwise, it may be months before they regain ground in the search results.

Specifically, the question posed in the video is:

“If a website gets algorithmically penalized for thin content, how much of the website’s content do you have to update before the penalty is lifted?”

There are a few ways the question could be read, so in this case, the experts kept it simple and straight to the point:

“Well, it’s generally a good idea to clean up low-quality content or spammy content that you may have created in the past.

For algorithmic actions, it can take us months to reevaluate your site again to determine that it’s no longer spammy.”

In other words, it is always better to share high-quality original content than to risk being labeled as spam. Once that happens, you’ll likely be in the doghouse for at least a few months.

To hear the answer, check out the video below beginning at 24:24.

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Google Launches New Dashboard Dedicated To Search Engine Status

Google has officially launched a new dashboard page dedicated to notifying users about any issues occurring with Google Search.

The dashboard, available at status.search.google.com, will highlight any outages occurring to Google’s search engine, along with problems crawling, indexing, or serving pages to Search.

As the company said: 

“As we head into 2023, we want to introduce another tool for the public to understand the most current status of systems which impact Search – crawling, indexing, and serving.”

Of course, Google’s search engine is one of the most reliable online services around, though outages do occur and other issues do pop up from time to time. 

The announcement goes into further detail:

“This dashboard reports widespread issues occurring in the last 7 days, with some details and the current status of the incident. A widespread issue means there’s a systemic problem with a Search system affecting a large number of sites or Search users. Typically these kinds of issues are very visible externally, and internally the SREs’ monitoring and alerting mechanisms are working behind the scenes to flag the issues.”

“Once we confirm with SREs that there’s an ongoing, widespread issue in Search, we aim to post an incident on the dashboard within an hour, and consecutive updates to the incident within 12 hours. Unlike with a traditional automated dashboard, our global staff reports these updates. The start time of the incident is generally when we managed to confirm the issue.”

Most importantly, you will now be able to immediately identify if sudden drops in traffic or other problems are related to your site or Google’s systems. In the past, the only way to confirm any ongoing problems with Google’s search engines was to contact the company directly.

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The Top Search Trends In Tulsa and The US In 2022

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It’s time for Google’s annual report of the top search trends of the past year and this year’s list is a little different.

Along with the usual list of top queries from the U.S. and around the world, the latest search trends report lets you refine the search to see what the most popular search trends were in your local area.

By entering a US city or zip code, Google will filter the results to show the top search trends from that area. You can also view these details by clicking on a specific city on the map.

These local search trends include the top 10 search queries along with notes on anything unique in the city’s search behavior. 

First, let’s go over the biggest search trends from across the country, then we will get to Tulsa’s top search trends further down below:

Google’s Year in Search 2022

Top US Searches of 2022

  1. Wordle
  2. Election results
  3. Betty White
  4. Queen Elizabeth
  5. Bob Saget
  6. Ukraine
  7. Mega Millions
  8. Powerball numbers
  9. Anne Heche
  10. Jeffrey Dahmer

Top Near Me US Searches of 2022

  1. Gas prices near me
  2. At home COVID test near me
  3. Voting near me
  4. Early voting near me
  5. PCR test near me

Top “How to help” US Searches of 2022

  1. How to help Ukraine?
  2. How to help Ukrainian refugees?
  3. How to help abortion rights?
  4. How to help Ukraine army?
  5. How to help Uvalde?

Top Near Me Searches in Tulsa, OK in 2022

  1. Gas prices near me
  2. Cheap gas near me
  3. At home covid test near me
  4. Temp agencies near me
  5. Primary care physician near me
  6. Loan companies near me
  7. Gyros near me
  8. E85 gas near me
  9. Car shows near me
  10. Concerts near me

Interesting Facts about Tulsa’s Online Searches in 2022

  • Tulsa, OK was one of only 2 places that had gyros as a top trending “near me” search, with the other being Lincoln, NE.
  • Tulsa, OK was the only place in the US that had husky-corgi mixes as the top trending animal
  • The top trending recipe search for the Tulsa area was for making quick pancakes.
  • Tulsa searched for country music more than any other genre.

For more, explore Google’s Global Year in Search and Local Year In Search.

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Google Switches To Continuous Scrolling Desktop Search Results

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Google has confirmed it is finally bringing near-endless scrolling to its desktop search results. Not only will this make the desktop search experience more similar to the mobile search experience, it will also make users more likely to see and engage with more search results. 

The new continuous search experience is currently rolling out for desktop search results in the United States and is likely to be expanded to other markets in the coming months.

As the search engine confirmed in a statement to Search Engine Journal, this is not quite endless scrolling. Instead after approximately six pages worth of URLs before showing users a prompt allowing them to see “more results.”

“… we’re bringing continuous scrolling to desktop so you can continue to see more helpful search results with fewer clicks. It’s now even easier to get inspired with more information at your fingertips.

“Now, when you scroll down you’ll continue to find relevant results so that you can discover new ideas. When you reach the bottom of a search results page, up to six pages of results will be automatically shown until you see a “More results” button if you wish to continue further.”

While users may like this because it brings a more seamless experience and gives them more options without interruption, this also gives Google more space to include snippets, ads, rich media, and other features without completely crowding out organic search listings.

Brands languishing past the first page of search results will likely see a slight boost in traffic as their visibility increases.

On the technical side of things, very little will be changing. There’s no need to change optimization strategies and this update will not affect reporting in Google Search Console because this tool tracks ranking positions, not what page you appear on. 

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Google Explains Its Many Search Ranking Systems: Past and Present

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Keeping up with all of Google’s ranking algorithms and systems can be a lot. It seems like every time you turn around, the search engine has pushed out some new ranking system that brands need to be aware of if they want to reach users on the largest search engine around. 

Making matters even more complicated, Google also occasionally retires older systems as they become obsolete or redundant over the years.

Thankfully, Google has released a comprehensive guide to its many different ranking systems so you can be sure you are optimized for the most important ranking signals without investing resources into systems that are out of use. 

Ranking Systems Vs. Ranking Updates

Along with information about each ranking system and how it influences your standings on Google Search, the guide clarifies the language between ranking updates and ranking systems.

These terms have been used somewhat interchangeably but Google is finally drawing a clear line between the two.

According to the guide, a ranking system is something that is constantly operating behind the scenes – such as RankBrain or the helpful content system.

On the other hand, a ranking update is a one-time change to the ranking systems. For example, Google regularly rolls out updates to its spam detection systems.

Active Google Ranking Systems

Here are Google’s currently active ranking systems in alphabetical order:

  • BERT: BERT (or Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) is an AI system that allows Google to understand how combinations of words may change meanings and intent
  • Crisis Information Systems: This is a system Google has in place to handle important information during times of crisis – both personal and public. For example, the system helps intervene when users search for content related to potentially dangerous personal crises, such as suicide, sexual assault, or poison ingestion.
  • Deduplication Systems: This is used to help Google avoid delivering search results with duplicate or nearly identical content.
  • Exact Match Domain System: A system is used to balance the importance of ranking brands highly for searches containing their exact business name without giving too much credit to sites with domain names that exactly match broader queries.
  • Freshness Systems: Google’s freshness systems work to show newer content more prominently for queries where it would be expected.
  • Helpful Content System: The relatively new Helpful Content System guarantees that users see original content written with their needs in mind, rather than content crafted specifically to rank well.
  • Link Analysis Systems and PageRank: These systems determine what content is about and what pages may be most helpful for specific queries based on how pages across the web are linked together.
  • Local News Systems: Google uses this to highlight information from local news sources when they will be the best resource for a query.
  • Neural Matching: This lets Google understand representations of concepts in queries and match them with the most relevant pages.
  • Original Content Systems: Google’s Original Content Systems help identify the original source of content and highlight them above those who simply cite it.
  • Removal-Based Demotion Systems: The system responsible for demoting or removing content with a high volume of content removal requests.
  • Page Experience System: The Page Experience System is designed to assess which sites will provide the best user experience.
  • Passage Ranking System: Passage ranking is an AI system used to identify specific sections of content which may be most relevant for search.
  • Product Reviews System: As part of Google’s shopping tools in search, Google uses the Product Reviews System to reward highly reviewed products and to showcase reviews that contain the most insightful or relevant information.
  • RankBrain: RankBrain is an AI system crucial to the search engine’s ability to understand how words and concepts are related and return more relevant content – even when all the exact words in a search may not be present.
  • Reliable Information Systems: These are a number of systems that ensure Google’s search results prioritize information from reliable sources.
  • Site Diversity System: The Site Diversity System prevents Google from showing more than two specific pages from the same domain in the top results for a query.
  • Spam Detection Systems: The Spam Detection Systems identify content and behaviors which violate Google’s spam policies and deal with them appropriately by demoting or delisting them.

Retired Google Ranking Systems

  • Hummingbird: Originally rolled out in 2013, Hummingbird was a broad overhaul to Google’s ranking systems. Since then, Google’s recent systems have evolved past the need for this system.
  • Mobile-Friendly Ranking System: This system rewarded sites that were optimized to render well on mobile devices. Since then, it has been absorbed into the Page Experience System.
  • Page Speed System: Initially a standalone system that highlighted sites that loaded quickly on mobile devices, this system has since been incorporated into the Page Experience System.
  • The Panda System: Panda was released in 2011 with the purpose of surfacing high-quality, original content. Since 2015, it has been part of Google’s core ranking systems.
  • The Penguin System: The “cousin” to Panda, Penguin demoted websites that used spammy linkbuilding strategies to rank abnormally well. It has been part of the core ranking systems since 2016.
  • Secure Sites System: Originally, it gave a small boost to sites that adopted HTTPS security protocols when it was less commonly used across the web. Though HTTPS sites are much more common these days, the system is still in use as part of Google’s Page Experience System.
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Google Reveals New AR And Multisearch Features For Search

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Google is rolling out several new updates and features for Google Search aimed at making it easier for users to find the content they are looking for.

Among the announcements, the search engine revealed new ways to use augmented reality (AR) and Google Lens to shop for products and find information like how to get a dish you’ve been craving from a nearby restaurant. 

Below, we will go over the announcements one by one to break down the details and when you can start using these tools to help users find your products and services.

Introducing Multisearch For Food

Google is working to unite its search tools including Google Lens and Maps so that users can seamlessly combine types of searches into one powerful search.

For example, using multisearch, you can now take a picture of a meal in Google Lens and add a text modifier such as “near me” to discover what restaurants serve that meal.

“This new way of searching will help me find local businesses in my community, so I can more easily support neighborhood shops during the holidays,” said Cindy Huynh, Product Manager of Google Lens.

This feature is rolling out for all English-language U.S. users today.

Search For Specific Dishes

Along with the announcement above, Google revealed that users can also simply search for specific dishes by name to find information including who serves this dish, pricing, ingredients, and more

As Google’s Sophia Lin says:

“I often crave comfort food this time of year — like truffle mac and cheese — but I don’t always know where to find it. Lucky for foodies, starting today, you can now search for the exact dish you’re craving and see all the places near you that serve it.”

AR Shopping Tools for Shoes and Makeup

Seeing how new products will look once you leave the store has always been difficult for consumers, but Google is using augmented reality to visualize potential product purchases before you buy.

The first way Google is doing this is by allowing you to see potential show purchases in your living space. 

Starting today, shoppers can not only see high-quality 3D models of shoes. They can spin them around, zoom in on details, and even see the shoes as they would look in your typical surroundings.

Importantly, this is available for any brand with 3D assets of their shoes or home goods.

Additionally, Google has upgraded its AR shopping tools for makeup to include a broader range of skin tones and models with a more diverse set of features. 

The search engine has added over 150 new models with a diverse spectrum of skin tones, ages, genders, face shapes, ethnicities, and skin tones to test cosmetics on.

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Google Introduces Frequency Targeting For Youtube Ads

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Google is officially rolling out frequency targeting controls for video ads on YouTube according to a new blog post from the company.

With this move, advertisers can now take control and set limits for how often individuals see their ads.

In the past, the only way to do this was through connected TV campaigns in Google Display & Video 360 – more advanced advertising tools and features.

What Is Frequency Targeting For Ads?

Frequency targeting lets advertisers set a target number of times their ad will be shown to specific users.

This helps make the most of ad budgets by preventing ads from being repeatedly displayed to unreceptive audiences.

As the announcement for the feature explains:

“This will help advertisers optimize towards more precise reach and frequency, while ensuring that we continue to provide a suitable advertising experience for viewers. Target frequency allows advertisers to select a frequency goal of up to four per week and our systems will optimize towards a maximum unique reach at that desired frequency.”

Why Set a Frequency Target For Your Ads

Though there may be times when repeatedly seeing the same ad may be beneficial to motivate potential customers, there is a limit. Most studies indicate that repeatedly seeing ads is much more likely to contribute to diminishing returns and bad will with consumers.

For example, one Google-commissioned study found that TV advertisers see a decrease in ROI of 41% when the frequency of their ads was more than 6 views per week. Based on the data, more than 46% of ad impressions were above this threshold, making nearly half of ad impressions wasted.

The study says:

“Almost half of the linear TV impressions in our study were considered waste but the same study from Nielsen shows that brands can increase their average weekly frequency from one to three on YouTube with a consistent ROI.

“This is a huge opportunity for marketers to maximize their impact across the same set of people they are already reaching today.”

Final Details

Frequency targeting is now rolling out to all Google Ads users around the globe. 

Google claims that over 95% of all campaigns using frequency targeting hit their goal using the tool in testing.

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