Olga & Barry
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[00:00:00] Hi everyone. It's Olga Zarr from SEOSLY. Welcome to the SEO Podcast by #SEOSLY. Today I have a very, very special guest. This is Barry Schwartz.
[00:00:13] Barry, how are you doing? I'm good. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah, I think Barry is probably the only person in the SEO world, who doesn't really need an in introduction. I think. I dunno about that, but you can always Google me and you can find the different Barry Schwartz, uh, more famous Barry Schwartz named Barry Schwartz, who's actually professor at, uh, some university who sold a lot of books, gave a lot of Google talks, um, and I cannot outrank him.
[00:00:41] So if you SEOs are listening, oh, throw a bunch of links to my Barry Schwartz page and hopefully I'll outran him. Okay? Okay, cool. So Barry, can you tell me what are you up to now? Like, what do you do? Like if somehow someone doesn't know everything, So the SEO world knows me in terms of writing a lot about what's going on with Google and search and search marketing.
[00:01:05] I specifically like to cover a lot of the Google algorithm updates, both confirmed and not confirmed. I cover a lot of issues that come up across Google search, Google Ads. Uh, covering a lot of this stuff around the new AI stuff around Bing Chat, um, Google's new search, generative experience. So pretty much anything that has changed or is changing with search, which is always a constant goo a search is always changing.
[00:01:29] So, you know, I've been doing that for the past almost 20 years now. I think this December will be, uh, 20 years of me writing about, uh, search, uh, over the, over the past, you know, many years. And I've probably written, I don't know, probably close to 50, maybe 40 to 50,000 different. Uh, posts ar, I don't wanna call 'em articles, but definitely posts on, on, uh, on search.
[00:01:51] Couple paragraphs. Usually not like a tweet, but, uh, post. Yeah. So I've written a lot and I apologize for all the, uh, content, spam and, uh, lots of content. But I like to write about what's going on in search. Yeah. That's awesome. And, you have Rusty Brick, right? Yeah. So Rusty Brick is my software development company.
[00:02:11] We build, uh, mostly soft. We spend, we make most of our money building software for third party companies. Anything from, uh, I don't know, taxi cab software to hospital administration, software to, I don't know, software to make businesses more efficient or to help, uh, charities raise more money. Um, we look at ways to make companies more efficient, and that's my other passion is how can I make things as efficient as possible for.
[00:02:34] You or me or for a company or for whatever, which is why I'm able to actually write so fast and quickly. People think I don't sleep. People think I, um, on some steroids or something or some type of medicine to make myself work so fast. But no, it's just being really, really efficient. Um, and a lot of that comes from, you know, our, my passion around making other people and other companies efficient, um, through software.
[00:02:57] So I do a lot of that for third party companies, and that's where I make the bulk of my income to support my family and so forth. Yeah, that's cool. I actually have this question on my list where I wanted to ask you some productivity efficiency tips, so it's definitely coming. Okay. So let's move back in time those 20 years ago.
[00:03:16] So how did. That all happened. Like why did you start writing about seo? Why did you like start search engine Roundtable? Like how it all came into being? Yeah. Um, so the story is basically, I think a lot of, like a lot of people who started in the early days, we were building software websites, you know, applications in the early days, like the late nineties.
[00:03:41] Um, and most of that was building out websites that. You had to build from hand. There was, were no like CMS packages back then. Um, and we built a lot of different, like websites back then. Um, and I think a client of a client, Asked that person's like, how do you rank well in Alta Vista or whatever, searches were out at those days and they said, oh, speak to Barry.
[00:04:06] So they reached out to me. I'm like, you know what? I'm not exactly sure. I think it was like late nineties, let do some research. And I just became like just obsessed with. How search works and going to the forums and the SEO community back then, people tracking the various, um, Google updates, people tracking the various ranking changes at the different search engines.
[00:04:27] And I took a lot of notes. I read a lot of books actually. Oh, actually two books primarily I think Sherry Tho Rose's book and also Mike Grey Hand's book. Uh, one was more technical, was more abstract. Um, and it was, Pretty simple. I'm like, oh, they Google search engines, crawl, index, and rank based off of content on the page and how, what people are saying about those pages, like links and so forth.
[00:04:54] And those fundamentals really haven't changed much. But, so I basically, you know, did that. Then I got more into the weaves in the forums, did a presentation for that client, and just kept up up with it ever since. Um, so yeah, I mean, that's pretty much what I did in terms of why I started searching the round table was because.
[00:05:11] The forums were just full of so much knowledge, um, especially deep in the forums. So you, people would do posts in threads that were, you know, 200, 300 posts long and nobody would see them outside of those who were, or other people who were actually in the forums. And those people in the forums also didn't really see them because they didn't really read every single post.
[00:05:30] I thought, you know what, let me highlight the posts that I thought were the most. Um, you know, most useful for me at least, and share them on a blog. And that's why I call the search engine round table because I want it to be like a round table of ideas from the SEO community, uh, where I would highlight those ideas.
[00:05:46] And that changed over the years. Obviously, forums are less popular days these days. You have the, you know, the webmaster world forums, you have the local search forums, but a lot of the conversation now is on Twitter and social media. So I still try to find some of the, you know, best posts and best stuff in on Twitter and social media and forms.
[00:06:04] And kind of high that highlight that a lot of that is from like Googlers themselves these days. Cause back in the early days, Google wasn't really around. I think Google guy came on board back in like 2002 or so, 2003. So we did have somebody from Google, but it was unnamed until later when we found out it was Matt Cuts.
[00:06:20] Um, so yeah, it was just basically the reason of being obsessed with it and then giving a place for me to put my notes and to share that, those notes with people. Okay, cool. And how did search engine roundtable evolve over time? Did you change the design a lot? I think it has been like similar for many years.
[00:06:38] Am I correct? Yes, it's, yeah, so I've changed the design. Actually. I was first starting on a movable type platform, which was like one of the first, like it was before WordPress. And WordPress came out. I did not switch to WordPress. I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna build the cms, the, the content manager system by myself.
[00:06:55] So we built our own custom made cms. Um, with that I launched in design and then I think I did one or two redesigns on that CMS since then. Uh, but I do have a new design that I actually approved internally. Maybe like four years ago, which I still haven't programmed into the new site. So I, I think that new redesign that has not been implemented has to do another redesign and hopefully I'll get it implemented.
[00:07:20] But you know, what they say about, you know, shoemakers, you know, we're constantly doing stuff for clients. It's hard for me to like, pull off my team to like work on my own website, although it's probably the most visited website out of all my clients. Um, Because again, this is what, it's a public website.
[00:07:34] Uh, but yeah, I think, um, I do need a redesign. I just have to implement it. And, cause it's a custom cms, it's not just like taking a theme or mm-hmm. Customized theme and sticking on a WordPress, it's, it's a lot of work to, to get it working. Um, although I do love my CMS that I built, you know, 15 years ago, works very, very well and does exactly what I need.
[00:07:51] Um, but I do need a redesign. So, yeah, it's been a while. So you built the CMS yourself, so you are also a programmer, right? My team built it. I'm pretty technical. I didn't program myself. One of my, I worked with one of my, I think one or two of my developers. I have a team about like 15 developers at Rusty Burke.
[00:08:09] Mm-hmm. Um, okay. Some of are more focused on mobile, some of more focused on, you know, web, some were focused on database. Um, APIs, whatever it might be. Um, we built some Google Glass apps. I'm looking forward to building the New Vision Pro a, uh, software. Ah, but we, we, we built what we built stuff, and it's really hard for me to pull some of my team members off to like work on my own personal projects sometimes.
[00:08:30] Yeah, I totally get it. Okay. So regarding, search Engine Roundtable, can you tell me like, some stats, like how the traffic was like evolving, like. When was the peak? Is it, at its peak right now? Like how was it? weathering Google updates. , I remember that after one update, you, you lost some traffic, if I'm correct.
[00:08:52] . Yeah. Um. Yeah, I don't know if I'm on my peak or not. Uh, that's a question. So yeah, I've definitely been hit by a couple updates. I think a pen's updated in the path and some other updates. Um, Google said I should do a poll to see what my readers think.
[00:09:05] The readers were biased and they like the site. Um, generally, I mean the site ranks pretty well generally. I mean, it doesn't rank as well search language. I also write act. Doesn't make it some, some other sites, but Search Lands a much bigger site. I draw, I'm the only one who really writes that searching round table.
[00:09:20] It's just me. There are some like one or two posts every year by somebody else. Um, like Glen, Gabe sometimes posts randomly and so forth. But generally it's like 99.9% of the stuff is just me. Search Lands a much bigger site with a lot more writers and those sites tend to get more traffic because it's just a lot more content, more diverse and there's editing processes and stuff.
[00:09:42] Um, search round table. Does get a tremendous amount of traffic. Um, it does, it did grow over the years. There are times where it dipped. Um, there are Google updates that impact it here and there, but overall I think it's doing pretty well. Ranking wise, I don't really look at the tools or I do look at the analytics.
[00:10:01] I look at it daily, usually the realtime analytics to see what stories are spiking. Um, just because I wanna make sure the stories that are getting read by a lot of people don't have too many typos. So I will go back. Usually I write it. Hit publish. Don't look back. Um, oh, I never like edit those posts on searches, Roundtable.
[00:10:18] But if somebody's getting a lot of traffic, I might go back to it and make sure, actually it reads right, because sometimes I'll be on a phone call while I'm typing and some of my phone call conversation gets into my post. Uh, which is not a good way of writing stuff for people. But yeah, it takes time and I think, um, Yeah, I think this, the, this, the site has grown over the years, um, is a growing year to year, it depends, like some years it'll grow five, 10%.
[00:10:42] Some years it'll go down cause of a Google update. Some years it'll go back up five, 10%. So I think it's pretty much pla I guess it plateaued at this point. Uhhuh, yeah. Um, have you been doing anything in response to for example, drops after Google car updates? No, I just write what I think people wanna read, what I wanna write.
[00:11:03] Uh, I do change because I personally like to change. I personally love change, so I like, for example, mid journey and AI images. I'm really loving to Yeah, notice Yeah, a AI images because you can't get like a, a story of a robot. Indexing a page, like maybe holding a notebook and flipping through a notebook without, there's no like stock images for that.
[00:11:21] So you can make anything using, um, mid journey. And I've been having fun with it. I don't think it impacts my rankings at all. I just think it makes some people smile when they're reading the story maybe. Um, but I don't think it has impacted any click through rates from any stories, anything with Discover.
[00:11:36] I don't think it has impacted my clicks from Twitter or Facebook. It's just an image and I just personally like doing it. So, um, yeah. Yeah, I don't really look, I don't focus too much on rankings or traffic, although I really should. But I, I just, it's, it's a hobby. This, this, the writing stuff is more of a hobby, um, than it is a business.
[00:11:55] So honestly, if I had no advertisers or having advertising now, but if I had no advertisers, I'd still do it. I've done it for years without advertisers, so. So do you have a lot of, for example, traffic from Google Discover? Is this like an important source for you? Um, I could check.
[00:12:12] Um, just curious Research console. Google Discover sends about right now and turn this date range, the overview page shows me 30, 36% of my performance data. Yeah, that's So I guess it significant. And regarding seo, have you been ever SEOing Search Engine Roundtable or just writing? That's a good question.
[00:12:35] I mean, I cover SEO for so long the way I think. Is to write in a way that people would search for it. So in the early days, ok, people would use these abstract titles, like not put words into a, a header tag or a title tag of what the person's actually gonna read. It was like more abstract titles of like an artsy stuff.
[00:12:56] I'm like, why would you do that? Write what people want to, you know, write in the title what people are gonna read. Yeah. Um, some people use like clickbait stuff like the Google added These three new things that are gonna change your life. I never write like that. Cause I'm like, I would, I would write Google Ad X, you know, whatever they're write whatever they added.
[00:13:13] I would put it in the title, Google added this, this and this, as opposed to writing three new things, um, which generate less clicks. But I don't wanna have people have to click if they don't have to. Again, it's all this about this efficiency stuff. Why require somebody to to click if they get everything they need from a tweet or when they get everything they need from the headline.
[00:13:30] So, although you can't always get everything perfect in a headline, some people call me out for being click when I didn't need to be. Um, but I don't think so. Um, I, I've been called out for lots of things over the years. It's, it's ok. Um, but yeah, so when you write, you know, 40,000 plus articles, sometimes you don't, you're not perfect every single time.
[00:13:48] That's okay. But yeah, I mean, I don't think, um, I think by nature I write an SEO friendly way just cause I understand how it works. And also, yeah, I've used all the markups over on history. You know, I have some old authorship art markup on there. I have some old legacy stuff that Google has. Beta Google plus years authorship.
[00:14:07] Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. But even older stuff, like well before that, there was some like really weird before it was called sch, more structured data. Really weird stuff. So if you look at the code, you might see some really weird stuff there. Which is all part of the redesign and cleaning all that stuff up one day.
[00:14:22] Um, but there's P of Legacy stuff on that site that needs to be cleaned up. And most of the reason I've done those things is cause Google announces something. I wanna test it, be the first to try it out. Um, so moving, I was like the first one to move from HTP to HTB s just to see how Google will handle the indexing.
[00:14:37] You can see the spike of the Google Search Console profile, the indexed. Less on the HTP and at the same time the new profile on HTPs. So you'd, I'd love to like be the first to try things cause people are afraid to try it on their own website. Because it makes them money. So I'm like, I'll try it. Um, so I'm, I, I'm one of the first people to use speakable markup back when Google Assistant was big.
[00:14:59] Um, so I do like to try stuff because I love the change. I love trying things and so forth. Yeah. Cool. And regarding accessibility, do you like, keep all those 40000th articles indexed? Are they indexed, or do you like remove them? Because they're so old. I've only removed one article using a robot.
[00:15:18] Oh, not txt file ever. Um, so no, I don't remove any old articles. Uhhuh. And just out of curiosity, those like 15 year old articles, are they still bringing you traffic? Probably not, but at some point I just, I've had, I sometimes go back to stuff. Like Yahoo is supposedly coming back with their own search engine.
[00:15:40] I'm not gonna go and, and remove all those Yahoo stories. I mean, for, for years. For five past five years, Yahoo was dead. Uhhuh. But they might come back. So now it'd be great to go back, like just recently in Pub Cent, Microsoft, um, seems to be revitalizing there. Something called pub Center, which is originally called Microsoft.
[00:15:56] Content ads, which was basically a version of AdSense from Microsoft, which originally was actually from Yahoo Publisher Network. Um, so I have all those old stories from like 2007, 2005, whatever, that I now link back to because Pub Center is something that's coming back. Yeah. Um, so getting rid of that history, I think although it's not useful today, it might be useful in 2, 3, 10 years from now.
[00:16:19] Okay, so let's, talk about writing articles. So how many, posts, articles per day do you write and how long does it take you to write one or all of them? Yeah, so I probably write about anywhere from like six, seven articles, oh, to 10, 12 articles, like somewhere like the sixth to 12 article range per day.
[00:16:41] Um, usually an article takes me about. Less than 10 minutes, uh, to write. Oh, so you are, and these are not like your, you write long articles. I write, you know, 2, 3, 4 paragraph articles. Nothing big uhhuh. Yeah. This is what changed. This is what happened. You know, no real opinion, just this is what, what you should be on to look at it for.
[00:17:01] Um, sometimes I'll write a really long piece, like if I think it's important, but generally, um, I write fast and short. Yeah. But I still think you're probably faster than, if someone was to write this with chat, G p T and the Yeah. Talking about chat, g p t or, or similar tools, do you plan on using them to enhance your writing or to maybe speed it up even further?
[00:17:26] Or you simply write everything like with your own hands. I write everything in my hands. I did try it a bunch of times and I still try it. It just doesn't sound the way I write, so I just put it back. I don't, I don't like the way it comes out. I, people like can read my stuff without having my name on it and they know I wrote it.
[00:17:44] Um, and I want people to know it's my tone. It's the way I write. I seem like catchy tope kind of fluff stuff up and some words that are not necessary. Um, and again, I really like to write short. I like to not use unnecessary words because. People are, have, their time is valuable, and I think, I don't wanna take up more time, um, from their, you know, whatever slot, eight hour day or 12 hour day, whatever, however, they work just by adding fluffy words just to make it, you know, rank better or sound better.
[00:18:13] So, no, my articles chat CCPT tends to fluff stuff up and add unnecessary words, and I don't like that, so I don't use it. Yeah, sure. And, uh, can you share how you monetize SEO Round, round table, a search engine right round table? Yeah. So, uh, the vast majority of the advertising is handled by a company called Third Door Media, which owns Search Engine Land and XM X.
[00:18:37] So I said, here you go. You could go ahead and monetize it. I don't wanna be involved in who you pick for advertisers and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. Um, so I try to not have any, any people who are. Paying money to the website have any influence on what I write. Um, in fact, I've had some advertisers that I think I've written negatively about before in the past.
[00:18:58] Like, if something comes up in SEO community that's bad. I, no, just because they pay me, pay me money, I'm not gonna go ahead and, um, you know, have that influence how I write. So yeah, I mean, there's that. I also have some YouTube, I do some YouTube stuff, which I think you watch. Yeah, I do those, I, I handled those ads myself.
[00:19:15] So I think like WICK and SE ranking and, um, Bruce Clay. Bruce, yeah. Yeah. Doda. Yeah, so, so the next thing I, I just wanted to ask about YouTube. So how long does it take you to create such an, such a video? I've been trying to do those weekly news, but it's taking me so much time and I keep trying and I never stick to this weekly kind of schedule.
[00:19:45] How do you do that? it's basically just a summary of what I've written for the week, so it's not so bad. Um, it takes me about anywhere from. Nine to 12 minutes usually to record it. Uhhuh setup is just putting up a light, so maybe two minutes to set up, 10 minutes of back proximity of recording. And then the editing takes me about, I don't know, 10 to 20 minutes usually.
[00:20:10] Do you edit that yourself? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I edit myself. Um, it usually is pretty quick. It's just me watching stuff and maybe if I cough, I'll cut it out. Um, I'm usually a one take type of person, so it's usually not much editing and I. Really do it fast though. I could have a video, uh, recorded and uploaded and live usually within 30 to 40 minutes, although YouTube sometimes takes a while to process it.
[00:20:34] Yeah, to make it HD quality. Um, but usually I'll post it before it's HD quality anyway. Wow. That's nice. Yeah, very fast. Okay, so talking about being fast and efficiency, can you like share maybe some of your techniques, some of your, some of the things you do, you did, uh, so that you, you became so efficient how other SEOs can become at least.
[00:20:59] A bit efficient as you, because for me, this is a problem. Like for me, it is like the entire day to write the newsletter and record the video for the newsletter, and for you, it'll be probably an hour, right? Right. But I also write daily, so it's different. It's, I remember, so it's, it's like I'm just taking stuff.
[00:21:19] I've written it before. Yeah. So usually my writing is about, I don't know, I spend maybe an hour or so writing a day. Usually I do that, I don't know, between six and 7:00 AM. Mm-hmm. Um, the rest are just usually, mostly scheduled stuff. So it's a routine. I think the, the most important thing is to have a consistent routine when you do something.
[00:21:37] Don't like say, I'll do it another day. Don't say you'll do it another time. Put on your calendar whatever you need to do to say, I'm doing this routine either daily or weekly. And don't miss that routine if you have a routine. I think becoming more efficient over time with that routine will make it easier.
[00:21:53] Um, there are ways to speed stuff up with that routine and a lot of that has to do with looking at your workflow. So I dunno what the listener's workflows are, but if you had a certain workflow and you know, you can make it a little bit more efficient by. Maybe removing email subscriptions and signing up to their RSS feed alternative.
[00:22:10] Or maybe, um, you have set up some type of alerts. So using Google alerts to notify you if something happens or maybe some type of triggers using some, I don't know, CMS tools or um, CRM tools to make things a little bit more efficient. It depends on what your workflow is right now and what you're using, but there's definitely ways to look at what you're doing and saying, how can I save time?
[00:22:31] Uh, with sub-tasks or whatever it might be. It's hard to say in abstract or what, what, how, what to do specifically. But I don't, I have very few email subscriptions. I use a feed leaf for almost everything. Um, a big RSS person. Um, I do lot of scheduled tweets. Um, I have a lot of columns and tweet decks for tracking certain types of people.
[00:22:53] I have a lot of actually bookmarks that I have. Automatically checked using tools to see if the, the pages have changed over the, over the day or year, mm-hmm. Or months or whatever, however, frequency, I check it. So there's a lot of different tools that I use to kind of make it a little bit faster. But I think the number one thing is the consistency every single day or every single week, do the same thing in a certain way, and you'll find ways to tweak out a little bit of a performance boost out of those types of processes.
[00:23:20] Okay. And have you ever taken like a break, like for a week or for five days? For two weeks? During those 20 years? I don't, I'm um, So I do take off for Jewish holidays. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Which means I'm completely offline. Some days that sometimes that could take three days. So sometimes it's like a three date and that drives me insane cause I don't know what's going on for three days, but when I go on vacation or family vacations or whatever, it means if, as long as I don't like religiously have to be offline cause I don't wanna be struck by lightning, um, uh, then I usually just continue the routine.
[00:23:57] My routine is early in the morning, so the kids are sleeping and the wife's sleeping. Um, I'm doing my routine early in the morning, and then when I wake up, I'm ready. Pretty much done with the routine. Then I don't have my phone. I can just keep track of stuff. So I do check RSS feeds and I go, I do check email.
[00:24:11] I do do listen, you know, and in addition to my other work, I'm constantly doing this, that as well. So I feel like falling behind is one of the. Worst things for me because then it just piles on. There's nothing like getting back online after a Jewish holiday and having 4,000 emails and 10,000 RSS feeds that are unread it.
[00:24:29] I spend literally after Jewish holiday maybe like. Four or five hours just trying to catch up at night. Oh, yeah. And the reading, that's not, yeah. Yeah. and how much of this time every day, uh, can you say it is reading, reading, like following what's happening now on a normal day? Uh, that's a good question.
[00:24:50] So maybe. So maybe an hour of writing and maybe an hour or two of reading. I read fast, so I dunno if it's, I don't really track my reading, but I know how long it takes for me to write a post, so it's usually somewhere five, 10 minutes to write Post reading is probably faster. I don't know, maybe an hour Uhhuh.
[00:25:09] Sure. Okay. And, in addition to Search Engine Roundtable, do you have other websites? Because I, I remember you started some websites, uh, I think last year it was about, cars, if I remember. Yes. Correctly. Yeah. Do you have like other similar projects, which you may be s e O. So as search, search engine land is, I'm like the main, I've been there mm-hmm.
[00:25:32] There since it started. So Search Land is, um, with mc, Danny Sullivan started it. I was actually with him at Search Engine, engine watch before that S SES and XM X. So yeah, that's another thing that I do. And I write about, I write there at least a couple times a day. Um, and then, yeah, that other site, the car site, I don't no longer do because the community was just, it was just a stock.
[00:25:52] I, I, I wanted to cover the car cause I thought the car was really, really cool. But then there's a whole stock community behind it, like the investment community behind it, Uhhuh, and they're like cutthroat. If I write anything positive, neutral, or negative about. An issue with a car, like a car owner had an issue with the car, maybe it stalled or something.
[00:26:10] I thought it was cool. Or the car caught on fire because it fell off a truck. Um, or covered that. Cause I think it's cool, but then the stock community would be like, oh, you're trying to kill the stock and trying to like make pump the stock. You're trying to do this with the stock. I'm like, Forget it. I'm done.
[00:26:22] I just had enough of it. Um, uh, so I, I moved away from that. Uh, I'll stick up, put my efforts towards the search community instead. Um, but yeah, search Angel Land and search round table. Then of course my company, rusty Brick. And, uh, can you share more, uh, about what you specifically do at Ra? Rusty Brick. So like more details than, than you said in the beginning.
[00:26:46] Yeah, so my personal job is to obviously get new, is to get more business, um, to deal with clients high level. We, I make sure the projects are, it's a higher level thing. So I, I'm, I'm the owner of the company, so I make sure the programmers are doing what they need to do. Um, I make sure that we're meeting our deadlines.
[00:27:01] Um, I help handle the billing, um, make sure clients are happy, um, and get new business. So all that type of stuff. Client meetings, every, you know, multiple calls a day with clients and with cus when with our employees to make sure everything is going well. Um, handle all the payroll stuff, the HR stuff. It's like any small business owner who has a, you know, 10, 15 person, uh, employees that what they have to do with mm-hmm.
[00:27:27] You know, legal issues, potential, you know, payroll issues, tax issues. Um, not issues, but like the day-to-day stuff around that type of stuff. Mm-hmm. So just, you know, taking out the trash and co in the office. So we have a, I'm actually working from home today, but usually I'm in my office, which is why it does look like my video today.
[00:27:44] Yeah, yeah. Background. I wanted to ask you about your office. Uh, I wanted to ask about the story behind those boxes, uh, from I think Apple stuff, right? So do you like collect them? Can you share more about this? Yeah. Know, so I like new stuff constantly. So I, I'm usually the latest person, the first person to get the new iPhone or uhhuh, hopefully the new vision, apple Vision Pro stuff, whatever, they're, so I like getting this stuff.
[00:28:09] I buy them and then I keep the box behind me. Um, so yeah, the boxes behind me are just stuff I purchased over the years or maybe purchased for employees over the past years. And I kept a box because, You know, boxes or, or Mac cuts in the early days where Google would be like, it's not just about how you write your content, but think about it in terms of how Apple packages their pack, their, their products, uhhuh.
[00:28:31] It's not just about the product itself, but it's how it's packaged. So it's true. Those boxes are pretty cool. Um, so bunch of Google boxes, apple boxes, and other geek geeky stuff. Some of the stuff I use, some of the stuff I stopped using. Um, and that's the story behind those boxes. Yeah. So, and then I had my office, which I usually go, I go to every single day.
[00:28:49] But today I not able to get there today. Actually internet was out this morning there, so I stayed home and then it went back on. Um, so that office is, Fits about, I don't know, 30 people and I'm like the only one who shows up there anymore. Everybody works remotely still since Covid. Ok. Um, and the lease is up in about a year from now, so I'm looking forward to getting rid of that office and getting a smaller space.
[00:29:09] Uhhuh at some point. Uhhuh. Okay. And can you estimate how many hours per week do you, do you work? Good question. Um, it's usually from, usually around 5:30 AM till about, I dunno, Some breaks in the day. Um, I come home, I eat dinner and stuff with the kids, see the kids, um, probably at least, I don't know, over 12 hours a day.
[00:29:38] Oh, okay. And that's, every day. Except for Saturday? Yes. Saturdays, Sundays slower, so not so much on Sundays, so, okay. Not including weekends. So Saturdays usually about, uh, an hour or two on Saturdays, and then Sundays, maybe four hours. Uh, okay. Yeah. But's still, that's, that's a lot. And I don't consider this, the search stuff is not really work.
[00:30:04] It's like a hobby. So whatever somebody might do on the weekend, somebody likes going hiking, somebody likes going fishing. I like writing about search. So, Yeah. Cool, cool. So let's talk maybe a bit about, SGE. Like what are your thoughts, based on what you have already seen in the us you have access to it already.
[00:30:24] I don't, I have to use A V P N, but what, what do you think about it as of now? So, as of now, when I first launched, I was pleasantly surprised. I thought, you know, oh, it's not so bad in terms of the links. They have these big cards there, but as I use them more and more, a lot of the content probably sh like the content that it generates should be linked.
[00:30:45] Like if it's talking about a specific type of company, like it's talking about, I don't know, um, apple. Mm-hmm. Maybe a list, like one of the big cell phone manufacturers, apple, Samsung, Google, whatever, link to Apple, link to Google. I. Otherwise you have to do a cert to find it. And all it, all it does is actually link to, um, like review websites that then maybe or may not link to those companies.
[00:31:08] So it's kinda like dumb in that way. Mm-hmm. So I think they should probably increase the amount of links they have in the genitor of answers. Um, and I don't know, I don't see people using it that much for search. I mean, maybe they wanna have conversations with it, but, but that's more of a Bard or Chat, G P t or Bing Chat interface.
[00:31:26] Unless I'm a search in Google, I don't, I don't know. I'm maybe, I'm all fashioned. I just don't see people. Using it that much to get answers for their search queries. Yeah. But I guess it's gonna change a lot. It's so super early. I hate like people, like this is the ultimate guide for Google search generative experience.
[00:31:44] Yeah. It's really changing every like hour. Like somebody like, oh, I didn't get an AI answer for this query, or I did get an, the same exact query is change in terms of if answers are provided, how those answers look. Is it a blue background, is it a pink background? Um, so all these things are constantly changing, which is great, but I don't know if we should say, you know, this is good or bad until.
[00:32:03] Actual search consumers have access to it until it goes on to google.com, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I'm also like, I, I, I don't really know what, what to think about this, but I, I, I don't think it is there where, where we want it to be in terms of like being helpful, usable, and, uh, Google Bar, uh, b Chat and Chat, G P T, which of these do you like the most?
[00:32:30] Um, I think Bing Chat is so far Uhhuh the most, like, I think it's the most useful right now, the links and citations, how, how it's updated, like how free, how fast it gets updated in terms of answers. I find that to be the most useful out of all of them. Um, in terms of for how I use it, I know a lot of people love Chat, G P T, uh, but I think Bing Chat is doing a really good job.
[00:32:52] The interface could be better. Uh, but I think Bing Chat is so far right now, like light years ahead of everything else. Uh huh Uhhuh. Yeah. And, so AI what's happening now is kind of , a revolution. Some, something like that. So, uh, can you tell me what were other, uh, equally significant changes you have seen over the course of 20 years, which you can say were as important, as big as what's happening now?
[00:33:21] Yeah. Um, I don't think. Anything was as, as, as big as this, except for the introduction of search in general. But that was prior to that was like Google, 1990 Uhhuh 7 98. Oh. Um, so the biggest thing since this maybe, but not even as close to the big, is probably the launch of Universal Search and Google, which I think was in like 2006 or so.
[00:33:41] Yeah. Uh, where Google just having 10 blue links. It was just basically 10 blue links. In the old days, they would actually include videos, images, local pack. Um, other vertical searches in the actual search results. So if you do a search for, I don't know, uh, pizza shops in the old days, it would just be hyperlinks to websites.
[00:34:00] Yeah. About pizza shops. Now they have a local bag, uh, maybe they have recipe results, so everything's much more universally blended, um, in the search results. I think that was probably the biggest user interface changed since the Google Search channel experience. And then obviously since then we've had other changes to search, like feature snippets, which SEOs went nuts about.
[00:34:20] Um, and so I think those are probably like the two big user interface changes since in the past 20 years. Universal search and feature snippets, I think off the top of my head, probably missing something. So, yeah. And, and now we have, three featured snippets. I read that on your, I think on your blog today, on your website.
[00:34:41] And we have those kind of featured snippets in, in, in Sge. So this is like, , I would say transformational. I don't know, how to even describe that. , another, another question I have for you. So we are talking about ai. What are your thoughts about the future of SEO once?
[00:35:02] Good question. See what's happening? What, what do you predict in five years from now? So the question is like, will AI. Well, there's two questions. You know, in terms of content development, how will Google see that and write down in the future if it's written by ai? And the second question is, will SEO's jobs change cause of ai?
[00:35:23] Um, I think the second question's easier to answer. Meaning I think SEO's jobs will change. I think a lot of the kind of stuff that could be automated or a lot of the stuff that might be. Um, I don't know, gimme ideas around title tags or keywords. Yeah. For this type of stuff can be very, very easily done by ai.
[00:35:45] Um, a lot of programming tasks could be supplemented and, and helped through ai. Um, so I think SEO's jobs will 1000% change. Um, I think SEOs will still be there because you need, just like every, like teachers jobs will change and lawyers and accountants, everything's changing with ai. So that's definitely coming.
[00:36:06] Um, how much time do we have? I don't know. I dunno, videos out. It might be your job might be gone. I'm just joking. I don't know. It's hard to, it's hard to say Uhhuh. And in terms of how Google sees content within by ai, I was absolutely shocked. That Google's like, Hey, you know, AI content, we're fine with AI content as long as it meets our, you know, criteria of being helpful and good for users and so forth.
[00:36:29] If AI can write great content, we're happy with it. I'm like, okay, fine. That makes sense. Um, and AI is just gonna get better and better at writing content. And I think ultimately, I don't know, it's gonna be so much content for Google to rank, how's it gonna pick out which content it wants to rank if all the content's on the same level.
[00:36:46] Quality or whatever you wanna call it. Um, so we have this little e e a T stuff, you know, are those cha are gonna change? Are you gonna want something that has, are you gonna have to go ahead and document? This is written by a ai ai, um, so Google's like, no, you don't really have to document it. It's good to know who it is.
[00:37:01] So maybe make a note that this by ai, but there's no specific guideline for that right now. Um, in addition, um, I know the EU came out saying they want to require people to document if they. Wrote something using ad or used AI to write something. And I know Google's coming out or has come out with meta um, data around documenting if an image was created by ai.
[00:37:25] And I think the issue with images created with AI is more about like, this is image fake. Um, did Biden really hug Trump? Or stuff like that can make stuff images that's pretty concerning or video. Um, and I think that's the concerning part in terms of AI content and our SEO is gonna have to change their game about how they write content.
[00:37:44] Yeah, I think they should probably look at how, um, AI can make their content better, um, and more relevant to the user. Uh, but at the same time, they really need to add that human factor to their content. Yeah. Um, or else might not rank as well. But again, the whole Google announcement kind of, uh, shocked me a little bit.
[00:38:01] Yeah. Yeah. Because like before they even had this in their guidelines that automatically generated content is not okay. And then. It turns out it is okay, but we have to have this human E E A T kind of element on it. Right. And I guess that makes sense that they said it's okay because they're doing their own AI generated content right, in the search results.
[00:38:24] Yeah. So like, because soon everything will be ai, AI generated, so they would have to like punish almost every website so that that would probably be difficult to do as well. Okay. So, um, one of the final questions, uh, what do you think is the biggest myth misconception that, about SEO that you would like to debunk to debunk today?
[00:38:55] Um, yeah, I'm not gonna go with the typical ones, I guess, like typical content or that I think the biggest issue I have, With SEO these days is just using a checklist and saying, Google said this, I need to do it this way, cuz Google said that. Um, one of the things around syndicated content and canonicals and it was like, there's so many examples of this stuff.
[00:39:16] Like you need to think beyond those simple best practices and beyond, um, the checklist and say, why is this, why is Google saying this? So why is Google saying you don't need to use a canonical anymore for syndicating content? Oh, does that mean I could go ahead and go ahead and take content from here and just put it over here and not worry about it?
[00:39:36] Am I gonna rank well, no. Google's gonna rank one of those pieces of content cause Google only wants one of those pieces of content in their, in their search index. They don't wanna have two of the same exact pieces of content. So just because Google doesn't require even use tab for sending a content anymore, it doesn't mean it's gonna go ahead and rank well.
[00:39:50] And I think SEOs are just too bogged down and like looking at specific. Checkpoints and saying, okay, this is not something that I need to do, or this is something that I do need to do, and saying everything's gonna be okay if I don't do something that I shouldn't be doing or that I shouldn't do something that I am doing.
[00:40:06] It doesn't work that way. And I think it's really more about how can I really, it's it's, Google's been saying this forever and everybody rolls their eyes. How can I make the best website, the best content that satisfies my users, that people wanna come back to? I always tell people, um, You should make a website or a piece of content that Google would be embarrassed not to rank Well, yeah.
[00:40:26] In their search results. And then somebody at Google will tell an engineer and say, you know what? Why is this content not ranking? It should, and they'll, they'll adjust their algorithms and, and fix things on their end. But ultimately, I think SEOs get way too bogged down by checklists and specific, you know, you know, check, check, check this off, and I'm good.
[00:40:45] It doesn't work that way, especially these days. Without, like applying some critical mindset to, to what they're reading. Great. , okay. So, can you tell me who do you think we should be following in seo? Of course. in addition to you. Yeah, Olga. Um, thanks. Um, I don't, I mean, I hate to point out specific people.
[00:41:10] I mean, there's so many, so many people doing such amazing stuff. And what I do try to do in my, my Daily Newsletter, the Searching Round People newsletter, is highlight all the content and all the best tweets and all the best articles written by tons of search marketers across ERs. So I, I literally probably put in about, I don't know, anywhere from like 20 to 60 links per day.
[00:41:33] And if you wanna know to follow. I guess Go newsletter. You don't have to even, you don't even have to subscribe. Just go searching a round table. I publish in there too. Um, and just look at the links there and then maybe subscribe to those people's sites or those people on Twitter. Uh, cause I really tried to highlight, I'm sure I missed 90% of the stuff out there, but I try to conclude as whatever I do find, um, and include there.
[00:41:52] So, um, I'm not gonna call anybody and specifically Yeah. But definitely look at what I'm sharing and I do share a lot of what the community is saying. Yeah. Yeah. And thanks for, for sharing my stuff as well. I've noticed you, you do that, so that's cool. Hopefully I, I'm sure I missed a bunch. I apologize, but I try to share, and I always share your stuff because like, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be able to write, uh, decent.
[00:42:17] Episode of my newsletter without like, reference referencing your, your, your website. So that's kinda, I appreciate that. Thank you. That's kind of basic for me and I guess for everyone. And, maybe , the last thing ,What tips would you share? for someone who is just starting in SEO and what should they do?
[00:42:37] They start right now, ai, everything is like, the revolution is, is right here. What would you recommend for such a person? Don't do it. I'm sorry. Um, I dunno, it's changing so fast. Um, like everybody felt like white collar jobs are safe, you know, lawyers, content writers, stuff like that. And now it's like the safe jobs are more the blue collar work.
[00:42:58] You have to be a plumber electrician. Yeah. Um, the best, the best, most important thing is don't get into it for the money. Don't get into it because you need a job. Do it because whatever you're doing, do it. Cause you have a passion. The real ones that will succeed. Beyond the AI revolution and taking people's jobs are those that are better than the average person and the only person that have been on the average person are those that really absolutely love what they do.
[00:43:23] You know, create newsletters, create podcasts. You're doing this because it's not just a job, you love it. You're not having an interview with me because you know, you just wanna make a buck on this interview. You're doing it cause you love the topic. Totally. And I think that's the only way to approach something like this.
[00:43:38] Especially now with this AI stuff, and if AI could replace you, which they can replace a lot of stuff, the only way to stand above and beyond is to be, um, one step ahead of that. And the only way to do that is to have a passion, I think, to be passionate about what you do. Yeah, totally, totally. I couldn't, couldn't agree more.
[00:43:55] Okay. Barry, so what's the place, the best place to kind of follow you? Of course Search Engine Roundtable. , are you also active on Twitter, LinkedIn? What's the best place? Yeah, I'm super active on LinkedIn. I'm sorry, I'm on Twitter at Rusty Brick, the head of Below. I'm also active on LinkedIn. Um, but I, I more, I, I correspond more on Twitter.
[00:44:15] I find Twitter to be much. I don't, I love Twitter seo, Twitter, I know there's a lot of politics and stuff like that, but I don't see Twitter. I'm just like focused in on the SEO world on Twitter. So I don't really see much outside of that. So I say Twitter, um, I post off on LinkedIn, Facebook, um, ma, blue guy, oh, you name it, about everything.
[00:44:35] But I'm much more engaged on Twitter. Yeah. Yeah, me too. Okay. Okay, Barry. So thanks a lot for, for, for spending this time with me and agreeing to come to my podcast. This is like a huge milestone for me to have you. That's awful. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate you do great work. Keep it up. And I love watching this stuff, so keep up the, the good work and writing those newsletters.
[00:44:58] Thank you. I'm doing my best. Okay. So thank you Barry, and thanks everyone. Bye-Bye. Bye.