Things Google believes SEOs should not focus on
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[00:00:00] Hi, it's Olga Zarr from SEOSLY. In this video, I want to add my own comments and insights on the recent, changes Google introduced to its started SEO guide. So the changes weren't like very substantial. some things were removed, some things were compressed, and there is this section, which is.
[00:00:23] called Things We Believe You Shouldn't Focus On, which is, which lists the things Google thinks SEOs shouldn't be really paying attention to. And I just wanted to briefly go through that list and offer my own insights and my own experience on how those things really Work for me. I'm not saying Google is lying or that the things they share are not true I just want to offer my own unique perspective on that.
[00:00:54] So here is the guide let me let me maybe make it a little bit bigger and So here are the practices Google thinks you shouldn't be really doing. Meta keywords. So meta keywords . They used to work back in, I don't know, 20, 50 years ago, a very long time ago. And using them doesn't really change anything.
[00:01:23] So I totally agree with that. I don't see meta keywords working in any way, even though there are search engines that take them into account. However, I can possibly see an application for them. for example, if you do like the fundamental good SEO. In which you have, a keyword mapped to every page of your site and you have this spreadsheet with all the URLs and all the keywords mapped.
[00:01:57] One possible application would be to add those target keywords into meta keywords tag for the purposes of maybe making it easier for you or for your, VAs to learn and to know what topics are mapped to a specific page. If you're using WordPress. You can do that with SEO plugins like RankMath and it will even show you different scores of how well optimized you are for that keyword.
[00:02:32] So, I don't really see that any, like, good application of meta keywords, so I totally agree with that. , keyword stuffing. So, yes, but a lot of tests, including my own tests and tests of guys from SEO Fight Club show that keyword density really matters and uh, if you have more keywords on your page, you will most likely rank better.
[00:03:09] Maybe if you stuff keywords like there is the entire page that has nothing but those keywords, probably it may not really rank. And even if it does, the user experience won't be there. But I've seen tons of examples of sites which, pages which are stuffed to death with keywords and they rank. Google, I think even recently during those, trials.
[00:03:36] Uh, don't quote me on that said that they're not really reading the page that they don't really understand the page so with that We can expect that having a higher number of keywords on your page may help you rank Of course that tons of other things at play I'm, not saying this is like keyword stuffing is the thing that works in seo, but keyword density Especially done in a wise, correct way usually matters and, uh.
[00:04:12] Using tools like Quora helps you kind of see how you're doing in terms of keyword density and how much you can optimize for that to get the lead. And very often what you need to do could be considered as keyword stuffing, but it works. So I am kind of not sure about that. I wouldn't discount it totally.
[00:04:42] I would more lean towards keyword stuffing and keyword density and like making sure that Google is 1000 percent sure what you want to rank for, because if it isn't, then you won't rank. And if it is, You will, if you take care of other factors as well. Keywords in the domain name and URL path. So I don't have like good data on that.
[00:05:10] I have just anecdotal data on that. But I see that having those keywords in the URL really helps you. And this is just based on my own kind of websites, my own tests, and also the websites, of my clients. I also have one anecdotal thing to, to share. Where one client had this very Very, I would say, complex URL structure, where they had folders, subfolders, they wanted to create those cool clusters, and, um, as a result, they had like this one main keyword, and, , Under that keyword, there were like subtopics, uh, they also wanted to rank for, so they had like a 10 articles about that keyword and subtopics, and all of those articles in the URL had that keyword and subtopic, and there was such a huge cannibalization going on.
[00:06:09] All those articles were kind of ranking for this, but this one wasn't, and there was like, Really a huge mess and when we cleaned this up, we didn't change content a lot, we just changed those URLs, did some redirects, but the URL structure we made sure is like very clean, there is just the phrase you want to rank for.
[00:06:34] Uh, this really improved and the cannibalization was, was gone basically. So I'm just saying I haven't done any scientific tests that can prove that. other SEOs may, may have more, real data on that, but I, if possible, I would still make sure the keywords are in the URL and in domain if, if it is possible to still get the domain with the keyword you want.
[00:07:04] minimum and maximum content length. If we look at it from this like higher perspective, yes, probably we cannot say that you need 2, 000 words to rank on Google, because obviously this is not true. This is usually, I think, the average. But If we look at it from a more kind of, closer lens, it matters because you, you cannot really be an outlier here.
[00:07:34] So let's say you want to rank for that phrase. And, the first thing you should do is to type that phrase into Google, see what's ranking and what pages are ranking and how long or how short they are. Sometimes there will be a mix of different pages with a short to the point answer, with a video, and maybe with a detailed guide.
[00:07:57] And this is your human SEO sense that has to, like, decide on what's best for you. But, I wouldn't totally Like disregard that and just think about, okay, user experience, answering the question, blah, blah, blah, because, you have to be within that frame that Google is valuing for that specific keyword.
[00:08:22] If you are like a huge outlier, you may rank. But you may not really, especially if a long form content is ranking and you try to get that with, I don't know, 500 word article. I'm not saying this is not possible, but generally the tools, a lot of SEO tools, show you the average number of words. There is, on the first page of Google for a given, for a given, keyword.
[00:08:53] And, there is some sense to knowing that and to, and to applying that. But of course, the average can be also easily skewed. For example, you can have nine pages, uh, that have 100 words, and you can have one that has 100, 000 words. And then the average will be like way off. So that's why you need to, the tools are one thing.
[00:09:22] The other thing is like the eyeball test where you actually, , type the phrase into Google, see what's ranking and draw your own conclusions. the next one, subdomains versus subdirectory. So there are, again, different schools of thoughts. Google is saying it doesn't really matter if you have a subdomain or a subdirectory.
[00:09:51] I would say Google treats subdomains differently, even though they're part of a bigger domain, and, I wouldn't necessarily say that, there is, like, no, no difference. Absolutely no, no difference. It really depends on your goals, but subdirectories are treated like the same domain.
[00:10:18] And subdomains, not necessarily, they may be treated like a separate domain, which has its own signals, authority, EAT, and stuff like that. So, agreed, but not necessarily. The biggest thing is to simply focus on what's actually best for you. In some cases, a subdomain may be a better solution.
[00:10:45] In others, subdirectory will definitely be a better solution. There is a lot of discussion always around that if you are, for example, building an e-commerce site, whether you want to have blog in the subdomain or in subdirectory, and so on and so on. Page rank. So while PageRank uses links and is one of the fundamental algorithms at Google, there is much more to Google than just links.
[00:11:15] So PageRank sculpting and all those other tactics where you have to, like, have the ideal link geometry and Maybe you don't have to go to that length, but still, I would consider, I would still keep at the back of my mind the concept of PageRank and when I am doing internal links for my site. I would still probably want to know that there is this page rank and probably it will be better if I have one high quality text link to a specific page instead of having like, I don't know, 100 multiple links to that article and more of them being, for example, most of them being like, read more those types of things.
[00:12:10] I don't have like, data on that, my own data, but I believe it's still, there is some value to knowing how it works and doing that, at least a little bit. strategically without obsessing because like it is easy to get into the analysis paralysis stage when you start like calculating those, those things.
[00:12:36] Just know the fundamentals and you'll be fine and don't obsess about it but don't disregard it totally. Duplicate content penalty so There were times a couple of years ago, I think, when it was you could hear a lot of people say there is a duplicate content penalty and that's true, there isn't. Google doesn't punish you for having duplicate content.
[00:13:05] Google simply chooses one version as canonical and ranks it. And Google doesn't always choose the right canonical page, but that's a different story. You can use different things, different tactics to tell Google which one is the canonical one by using canonical tag, but this is just a hint. So links, internal, external links can also be a good hint and so on and so on.
[00:13:38] So I agree with that. But, but you have to know how to convince Google which one is the right version. And if Google thinks a different site, the site, for example, which copied you is the canonical and this site simply has better authority, there isn't always a lot you can do. So. No duplicate content penalty, but it can be tricky.
[00:14:12] Number and order of headings. So this one is a little bit painful to me because I have always been very heavy on headings. I always, when I do an audit, when I see the site that has headings all over the place, I kind of become very angry. Because based on my experience, having headings in order and using your target keyword, it's variation in, in headings really helps you in terms of SEO.
[00:14:43] But of course there is this other accessibility, , aspect, which is also very important. So I think I'm not going to stop obsessing about headings from now on after reading that this is, that the number and order of headings doesn't really matter. I still believe this is one of the best on page SEO factors that are truly in your control, so I always want to make sure, and I will want to make sure they are like perfect, because this one I can control, right?
[00:15:17] And thinking EAT is a ranking factor, yeah, it's not a ranking factor, but, This is a very tricky thing, right? Because we don't really know what constitutes EAT. We try to quantify it, like, for example, adding, add bios, have your content medically reviewed by someone. But Google wants us to think that this is like a set of things you can do to be more trustworthy, to show experience, to show expertise, authority, trust, and so on and so on.
[00:15:53] I have recently created kind of a template of an audit that would only focus on those factors. I went through the entire Google documentation and tried to quantify, list them. Of course, this is not foolproof. A lot of people will question that because this is a checklist and we know that checklists do not always work, are not always the best, but I believe this checklist gives you at least more concrete kind of guidance on what else you can do to show EEAT.
[00:16:31] So EAT is not a ranking factor, but if you don't have EEAT, then quality raters may mark you as, not helpful, like not satisfying user intent, which will teach, algorithms, that, if the site doesn't have this or has this, then it is not really showing EEAT. So this is a complex thing, just like helpful content update and how to quantify it.
[00:17:02] So, I think it deserves a separate video, which maybe I will create. But this is, this is more or less what I wanted to, to talk about. So Google documentation has like tons of awesome things you can learn about SEO, especially the advanced documentation that also has those technical SEO things with explanations, examples.
[00:17:26] Perfect. But you also, in addition to that, you need your own SEO human critical mind that kind of, um, compares what you see in Google documentation with what you see in real life examples and that Very often what you see is true, but sometimes this is not really true. And one of the turning points in my SEO career were when I did tested SEO training with Lee Witcher.
[00:17:58] And this tested SEO training heavily relies on Quora, the SEO tool, which is for those more critical SEOs. And going through that training and doing some of those things that Google probably wouldn't approve of, proved to me that there are some things we can still do that can work and which are not necessarily to be found in Google, SEO documentation and which are not really spoken about that much.
[00:18:35] That's why I'm also talking a lot now about Quora, creating the entire video series about it to show you this other side of things. So I hope this video was helpful. Let me know what you think about those things that Google want us not to focus on. What are your experiences? And if you like this video, please give it a like, thumbs up, share it with others.
[00:19:01] And, uh, and that's it. And see you in the next video. Bye bye.