Summary of SEO 101 Episode 357
Episode 357 is John Carcutt’s 10th anniversary since joining the SEO 101 Podcast with Ross Dunn. In this special longer episode, the gents discuss the early news on Google’s June Core Update and John Mueller’s thoughts on Negative SEO.
The rest of the episode focuses on answering 11 excellent questions from the active SEO 101 Group on Facebook.
Important Links from SEO 101 Episode 357
Google June 2019 Core Update. Big and still rolling out.
On June 3, Google started rolling out their new algorithm update. The June 2019 Core Update resulted in some websites seeing big gains while others suffered big losses. For example, The Daily Mail in the UK apparently lost 50% of organic traffic in 24 hours and 90% of Google Discovery traffic.
“This is a core update, so this is definitely going to be noticeable. There are changes, fairly significant one.” – Google’s Danny Sullivan
Google Lets Restaurants & Customers Add/Edit Popular Dishes – Search Engine Roundtable
Google has rolled out a new feature on Google Maps that will make it easier for users to find the most popular restaurant dishes in a local area. Google said restaurant business owners and customers alike can now add and edit names of dishes in the Business Profiles on Google Maps.
This new popular dishes feature of Google Maps can be used on Android devices and will be rolled out for iOs devices in the coming months.
The Mueller Files
The Mueller FilesOur weekly section of commentary from Google’s John Mueller.
- Google’s John Mueller Answers Question About Negative SEO Attack – Search Engine Journal
What to do when your website gets hundreds of potentially spammy links? Do you need to keep disavowing those links?
According to John, Google’s algorithm “works fairly well” in ignoring these links. He said there’s no need to worry about them too much, and that the disavow tool can be used for “really extreme cases.”
Questions from SEO 101 Listeners
Ross and John also welcome some SEO-related concerns from the SEO 101 Facebook group. Please listen to the show to find out their detailed answers to these questions.
1.) “How can I tell if my website’s hosting is the issue with page speed? How do I know if it’s a big enough affect that it needs to be changed?” – Ian C.
John suggests using https://www.bitcatcha.com/ to test hosting speed, while Ross suggests testing the site with gtmetrix.org.
“If your site is important to your business or you are making money out of your website, think about getting a dedicated server.” – John
2.) “I know Ross mentioned on keeping an eye out for SEO apps on a Lifetime deal and there is currently one at Pitchground called SEO Tester Online.” – Peter K.
“All these automated tools… they are only just as good as the program who wrote them. It’s just data.” – John
3.) “The best hosting package for speed? What do you think?” – Zena S.
“BlueHost seems to be the one who’s at the top.” – John
“It’s all about budgets, what you think you can handle.” – Ross
4.) “One area I always struggle with is location based search terms E.G. “dentist in XXX”. What sorts of techniques do you guys feel work best with location based search terms, is it creating as much content with the location mentioned in it? specific location based links?
All other search terms are not doing too badly it’s just location based and I am scratching my head a bit!” – Dale O.
“Having location-based landing pages. As long as they’re done really well and don’t look spammy, they can work… The pages can talk about the services they offer…plus provide reviews specifically for clients in those areas.” – Ross
5.) “I have an SEO client who I have been working with for a couple of years. Out of the blue they have told me they are having a complete redesign of their website and switching hosting providers (I wasn’t the original hosting provider I just did SEO).
I am meeting them at the end of the week to discuss SEO moving forward. I was wondering, what are some of the questions you would ask/information you would want to gather regarding a website that is changing to ensure a smooth SEO process?
For example, I know their domain is going to stay the same but it will be a complete redesign, restructure and their CMS is going to change to a custom CMS build, similar to Expression Engine.
What key questions would you guys ask and what information would you want to pull from them?” – Dale
“One main question you have to ask, ‘Are your URLs changing?’” – John
“First off, don’t do it all at once. I would move host before the new site goes up.” – Ross
6.) “I’ve been doing SEO for 12 years now but still have times when I get stuck!! Have 35 clients at the moment and 3 just aren’t moving. I have had this before and either they have moved after a aha moment or sadly, me and the client have decided it just isn’t working out (I don’t like wasting clients’ time or money).
Honest question 1) What’s your tips to not take this personally and concentrate (self esteem wise that over 90% are flying) and not concentrate on the 10%.. 2) When you are stuck, what priorities do you concentrate to get the site moving again?
Not after my ego comforting, just tips to being able to move out of a funk and move to action.” – Neil M.
“Sometimes it requires getting another opinion. If you have another SEO you respect… it’s good to have another set of opinions.” – Ross
7.) My web developer has told me he doesn’t have any experience in correcting Google Search Console issues. How do I find such a person? (Perhaps I should have mentioned earlier that my site is on Joomla!) – Geoff A.
“I would suggest finding another person.” – Ross
“There’s lots of different types of Google Search Console issues.. Some of them are simple.” “You need a better developer. If he doesn’t have the skill to do this stuff, you might need a better one.” – John
8.) “I’ve got a client in the civil engineering industry. His company just acquired another civil engineering firm. He wants to slowly decommission the company’s site he acquired. Both sites are very basic with a home, about us and services page.
Question: What’s the best practice for redirecting the acquired company sites domain? 
301 redirect all pages to the home page?
301 redirect to the corresponding page (Home to Home, Services to Service, etc..)
301 redirect to a new page with information about the acquisition?” – Jacob F.
“I would generally send them to the homepage.” – Ross
“I would look at the backlink analysis of the newly acquired site.” – John
9) “I am the web designer/mixologist for a brewpub. I create videos on making better cocktails at home and do interviews with other local businesses. We are going to create a blog on the website for these videos, transcribe them and even add more written content about creating the best burger, etc.
I have a personal website where I want to put content about all the stuff I do, cocktails, videos, web design, etc. Basically, a website resume.
What should I do when I want to add the videos from the brewpub and make them into blogs on my website?” – Carl B.
“Don’t create a blog. Create a section on that site about videos. The problem with the blog is what I’d call transitional navigation.” – John
“I would prefer doing snippets.” – Ross
10.) “How do you compete with these local SEO’s who use PBN’s and don’t get caught?” – Ian Cunningham
“I would report them.” – John
“You need to level the playing field.” – Ross
11.) “My boss wants to make small text edits to our newer blog posts (we’re using Divi on WordPress). I suggested that it would be higher value to use our limited resources to make big improvements to our older blog posts so they have all the great SEO features of our newer posts. Our older blog posts (before I came on board) are very rudimentary with no thought for SEO. Our newer posts have lots of SEO friendly touches and features.
In terms of SEO and value to the visitor, is it better to spend our limited resources updating the newer or older posts? The older posts get a new publication date after they’re improved.
A related question is: What are the SEO implications of a recent blog post (within 1 year) getting small text edits and an updated publication date? Remember that all our recent blog posts have lots of SEO friendly features.
Our blog posts get good traffic and seem to really help our site rank well. Thanks! Love the podcast!” – Advait C.
“….Be cautious about changing the post date… Blog posts are typically meant to be date-oriented. Resource sections are more evergreen.” – Ross
End of Show Notes
If you have any questions you would like to share with Ross and John, please feel free to post them on the SEO 101 Facebook Group. And, if you enjoy SEO 101 on WebmasterRadio.FM please consider supporting the hosts with feedback on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favourite podcast stream.