Speaker 1: 0:52

Hi, ed Dawson here, and, as I'm a bit busy at the moment and need a break, welcome to another one of my best of SEO is not that hard podcasts. These are the episodes from the back catalog that I think have the greatest hits and ones that are still relevant and provide great value for you. So, without further ado, let's get into the episode. Hello and welcome to. Seo is not that hard. I'm your host, ed Dawson, the founder of KeywordsPeopleUsecom, the place to find and organize the questions people ask online. I'm an SEO developer, affiliate marketer and entrepreneur. I've been building and monetizing websites for over 20 years and I've bought and sold a few along the way. I'm here to share with you the SEO knowledge, hints and tips I've built up over the years. Hi, this is episode 84 of SEO is not that hard, and today I'm going to be talking about, well, asking the question really, why doesn't Google just tell us what it wants? Now we're in the middle of the March 2024 core update. As I'm recording this, and obviously at times like this particularly, you're seeing lots of site owners who've got their sites being hit and are tanking in rank in their ranking, seeing traffic disappearing and obviously very, very frustrated, and anyone who's listened to me enough times will know that I've had this happen to me in the past. We got really badly hit in penguin and panda with the site broadbandcouk that I used to own. Um, and yeah, it's. It's despair inducing at the time when you can see something you spent all this time working on all of a sudden just sliding away from you, especially if you're relying on it for your income and even more especially if you've got people working for you so you rely on it to pay people's wages as well. So I totally understand people's frustrations and the emotional impact it has on people, and at times like this we quite often get people saying why can't Google just tell us what it wants from a website? I've followed all the guidelines as I thought they were given and yet here I am with my site diving down the rankings. Now I understand why people would want to know that.

Speaker 1: 3:08

It sounds like the answer to all your questions if there was a way of just being able to go to, say, google Search Console, if there was a way of just being able to go to say, google search console, verify your url and then have a score from google that tells you exactly where you're doing well and exactly where you're doing badly, and telling you things that you should be doing better, giving you specific tips on things specifically to fix to make your site rank better in search engines. That sounds great, but you have to kind of take a step back from that and look at what the impact on the web would be if we could just do that. So if we take one step back and look at it, you know, in google's organic rankings there is only one first position. There is only one first page. You know there is a zero sum game. Only one site can be ranked at the top and every other position down from that. So it means that if google gave a tool where you could just score yourself and then be told exactly what to do, then the only sites that would get to the top of the rankings would be the ones who are getting this information off Google. That's obviously a massive disadvantage to the vast majority of the sites online where there isn't anybody looking at SEO, because we kind of forget that we're in an SEO bubble. Sometimes there's lots of people creating websites out there that don't pay any attention to SEO whatsoever. Um, so while many do, the vast majority won't, and I don't think Google wants a world of websites that are just the over SEO'd ones.

Speaker 1: 4:57

Now I know some people believe in an over-optimization penalty or filter that can be put on your site. I don't particularly buy into that. I think if you've over-optimized penalties, those are ones where you've actually tend to have gone over the line in terms of doing things that are against Google's terms of service. I think within Google's terms of service there's nothing that's really an over-optimization penalty, but people can argue that point. But if we had this situation where everyone who knew about Google Search Console could go there and be told exactly what to do with exact specific recommendations for their site, then, yeah, we're going to be in a situation where those sites would all then do everything they could, and then how does then google be able to differentiate between all the different sites? If every site has, you know, has optimized itself to the max that google has suggested, then google then has no way of differentiating between those sites. It would then have to find another metric that it then wouldn't want to tell you about.

Speaker 1: 6:03

So while it sounds great in theory, to have this just be told what to do in practice would end up probably making the search results actually worse, because it would be a sort of spammers um gold, mine if they knew that they could just test, test, test, test and be told by google what is and isn't working. Where they hadn't, hadn't gone over the line, then they're just going to push, push, push and push and it's just going to mean that the vast majority of sites which aren't, and it's just going to mean that the vast majority of sites which aren't dealt with by SEOs and aren't created by SEOs are never going to get a look in. So I think that's the reason why Google is never going to tell us exactly what it wants. And you know reluctantly, I have to agree with them that I think if I was Google and that's what you've always got to do you've always got to put yourself in Google's shoes and say well, I don't have to just think about what's good for me. Google has to think what's good for them and what's good for their users and while it might not be good for us as site owners and, as I said, I have definitely been on the negative side of this. So I'm not trying to be an apologist for Google. I know how difficult it is.

Speaker 1: 7:21

I think there are risks, obviously as well. If they were to be very specific and offer this ability to be told exactly what to do, I think it would stifle creativity. If there was just there's only one way to do it, then all of a sudden all sites would start to become very, very similar and, yeah, it would kill online creativity and it also would be a massive competitive disadvantage to anybody who was actually trying to um rank a site, the the. The reason to study seo and to experiment and to um, you know, try new things is to find that edge that will push you above your competitors in a way that's legitimate and without having that that unknown. Then there's nowhere for you to go when you're in a competition with every other site that's trying to rank for the same keywords that you are. So while when the chips are down, it sounds like a great, great idea, but in the longer run and if you're trying to, you know, dominate your subject area and build longevity and topical authority into your site, then to have the ability for people to catch you without really having to think or learn anything for themselves then becomes a negative for you. So I think that the more likely you are to call for this.

Speaker 1: 8:55

The this is at times when, when times are hard is when you're going to call for it, but when times are good, you don't want your competitors knowing what to do just to catch you up, just like that. I mean, take the example of link building. If Google was very explicit in what was a good and not so good link and you could just check which of your links were good and which were definitely bad, then obviously people who were link sellers would be able to just test which of the links were good and which were bad, and we'll be able to basically shortcut the system by knowing how to spoof links, how to make links that flew under the radar, and then that's going to put anyone who's trying to do legitimate link building and build links organically at massive disadvantage, and that's not what google wants. Google doesn't want people who are doing it organically and legitimately to to be easily overtaken by people who are breaking the terms of service. And again, I don't knock people that break terms of service. It's a choice they make, um, but why should their life be made easier? By the same token, I don't think anyone's life should necessarily be made easier.

Speaker 1: 10:08

I do agree google should give good guidelines and and good examples, and I think they are. They are improving on the amount of information they're given. For example, this core update. In the spam update, they've given a lot of information, um, about what's actually going on compared to how they used to. Could they do more? Probably, yes, um, it would maybe be nice for them to give a few more specific examples, but I don't think we're ever going to be the situation where there's going to be a cut and dry checklist.

Speaker 1: 10:41

Do this, this, this, this and this, and you will rank top of the serps, because that's an impossibility. As I said, it's a zero-sum game. Only one site can be at the top. So there has to be some ambiguity there for people to work within so that google can find which one to put in the top without it just being a, a race of. I said in a tweet, replied to somebody in the city it would be like having a, a sprint race, where all the athletes run exactly the same speed. You know how do you tell who's won? It would be impossible if we all could just have an exact checklist. So so I think unfortunately for many people I don't think we're going to see a situation ever where google just tell us exactly what to do.

Speaker 1: 11:25

Before I go, I just wanted to let you know that if you'd like a personal demo of our tools at Keywords People Use that you can book a free, no obligation one-on-one video call with me where I show you how we can help you level up your content by finding and answering the questions your audience actually have. You can also ask me any SEO questions you have. You just need to go to keywordspeoplesusecom slash slash demo where you can pick a time and date that suits you for us to catch up once again. That's keywordspeopleusecom slash demo and you can also find that link in the show notes of today's episode. Hope to chat with you soon. Thanks for being a listener. I really appreciate it. Please subscribe and share. It really helps.

Speaker 1: 12:03

Seo is not that hard. It's brought to you by keywordspeople usecom, the place to find and organize the questions people ask online. See why thousands of people use us every day. Try it today for free at keywords people usecom to get an instant hit of more seo tips. Then find the link to download a free copy of my 101 quick seo tips in the show notes of today's episode if you want to get in touch, have any questions. I'd love to hear from you. I'm at Channel 5 on Twitter. You can email me at podcast at keywordspeoplescom. Bye for now and see you in the next episode of SEO. Is not that hard.