Google Algorithm Updates - 2024 Ongoing Discussion

[bernard]

These last two updates seem a lot less sophisticated to me.

It's almost back to keyword penalties and deindexing, Panda and Penguin.

I've told you how I rank for "keyword 2024" but not "keyword". These are signs that a crude keyword filter has been put on the offending content. Likewise, a small, but very pr. visitor profitable site (seasonal), keeps only having a handful of pages ranking, as one goes in, so another goes out.

Still seems as if Google is punishing spent crawl budget. Google wants to see a return on crawl budget. What happens to my small site is Google saying that I should have one page only with two keywords and products. I've seen the same happen for my lab site. Google wants me to merge posts even if they're simply not the same product.

What we have here then is Google punishing:

1. Similar content
2. Non-unique content
3. Overoptimized content (such as Featured Snippets)
4. Non-topical content

All this does make sense, if you put it together, it goes hard at the Mediavine model or the low hanging fruit or whatever you want to call the model of many posts with slight variations.

I'm not entirely sure how to respond to this, but the main takeaway has to be: Do not make google crawl redundant or non-unique content. Up the uniqueness, merge pages, get some strong links (bigger crawl budget).

 

[chubes]

Roast this idea: why don't I just convert the sites to ecom and have a separate blog, then wait 3-6 months for the classifier to run again? This would not be particularly hard or expensive to do.

Try it and see what happens. I'd bet you my whole 2 cents that it has zero effect but I'd love to be proven wrong. I don't think anybody has hit the nail on the head about what Google wants in at least 6 months.

I think we're seeing anecdotal evidence that supports certain ideas but are easily disproven by someone else's anecdotal evidence.

Sure there are patterns that can be recognized, but have we seen anybody recover yet? I personally have not found one concrete example of a site that has recovered their organic search traffic to pre September levels.

Unless people who did recover are keeping their mouth shut, but there are plenty of sleuths around here who are likely to have found an example during this time.

I would love to see one.

 

[BakerStreet]

I literally think what they've done (or part of what they've done) with this update and maybe the September HCU is run an LLM trained to recognise "blogs" and then applied a penalty to them. Using factors such as:

• No address
• No phone number
• No product/service offer
• Looking at link anchor text, if they have the computing power (no BBB/GMB listings)

But more likely just looking at the overall structure of the site, since you obviously can't fool the classifier with an address or phone number.

• What does the homepage look like?
• Do you have product pages?
• Is the blog the site or is it separate at /blog/? If separate, what are the other pages about?

I have seen sites that have their affiliate offers set up more like a shop suffer no losses. Maybe because they're not built on WP this helps avoid being associated with the types of sites they want to kill.

Roast this idea: why don't I just convert the sites to ecom and have a separate blog, then wait 3-6 months for the classifier to run again? This would not be particularly hard or expensive to do.

In my niche, everyone got 50% to 75% drops in traffic. Bloggers as well as e-comm sites. We're seeing gov sites that are not optimized for the query, rank for the query. The LLM's quite smart.

For example, let's say the query is "What documents do I need to get a driver's license in UK?" The top result is the gov website's FAQ section, that is not optimized for the query at all. "UK Drivers License Document Requirements" on DrivingSchool.co.uk is nowhere to be seen now. DrivingMikeDrivingeBook.com, a blog that sells an ebook about driving, feel into oblivion.

My rankings are table but traffic went down. I hope its not the beginning of something bad and am pretending that its just random flux in seasonal traffic. Let's see. Still going to chug away as usual. Still putting in two rentals for capital. Such a bad time to start a SEO based business!

 

[MrMedia]

@MrMedia congrats on the gains!

Just trying to dig into this a bit...

Are you saying your articles were previously de-optimized, so you went in and over-optimized them? Or, were they already over-optimized and you went in and de-optimized them?

Also, you mentioned...

Do you mean:

1. The "Advanced Analytics" tab in a page run where you can see whether you have over-optimized exact match, keyword variation, and LSI?

2. Setting the "Approach" to "Aggressive" or "Hyper-aggressive" on the "Custom Strategy" tab of a page run?

3. Or something else entirely?

I de-optimized.

On the content brief screen switch on the tab that says "consider over optimization"

Work on improving the revised score it spits out.

I am aiming not for perfect but around +20 points on the original number it gives.

Doing top 50 pages in position 4-10 and then will review and circle back.

 

[Strike]

These last two updates seem a lot less sophisticated to me.

It's almost back to keyword penalties and deindexing, Panda and Penguin.

I've told you how I rank for "keyword 2024" but not "keyword". These are signs that a crude keyword filter has been put on the offending content. Likewise, a small, but very pr. visitor profitable site (seasonal), keeps only having a handful of pages ranking, as one goes in, so another goes out.

Still seems as if Google is punishing spent crawl budget. Google wants to see a return on crawl budget. What happens to my small site is Google saying that I should have one page only with two keywords and products. I've seen the same happen for my lab site. Google wants me to merge posts even if they're simply not the same product.

What we have here then is Google punishing:

1. Similar content
2. Non-unique content
3. Overoptimized content (such as Featured Snippets)
4. Non-topical content

All this does make sense, if you put it together, it goes hard at the Mediavine model or the low hanging fruit or whatever you want to call the model of many posts with slight variations.

I'm not entirely sure how to respond to this, but the main takeaway has to be: Do not make google crawl redundant or non-unique content. Up the uniqueness, merge pages, get some strong links (bigger crawl budget).

This is interesting because I think some of our projects are similar but I don't think it's them fishing for a better return on crawl budget.

I have sites with like 20 pages that have been clocked. Not doing any of the Mediavine low hanging fruit stuff, not making posts with lots of variations of similar things. Others with a few thousand pages that are not blogs are unaffected, even with lots of similar pages.

I see over-optimised genuinely useless content (like "offers" pages with no added value) ranking on sites with a bit of authority but not like 60+. Again not structured as blogs.

I agree they could be messing around with how specific of a result they want to show, with some sort of crude keyword filter as you describe. But I think there's a broader domain penalty being dished out.

In my niche, everyone got 50% to 75% drops in traffic. Bloggers as well as e-comm sites. We're seeing gov sites that are not optimized for the query, rank for the query. The LLM's quite smart.

For example, let's say the query is "What documents do I need to get a driver's license in UK?" The top result is the gov website's FAQ section, that is not optimized for the query at all. "UK Drivers License Document Requirements" on DrivingSchool.co.uk is nowhere to be seen now. DrivingMikeDrivingeBook.com, a blog that sells an ebook about driving, feel into oblivion.

My rankings are table but traffic went down. I hope its not the beginning of something bad and am pretending that its just random flux in seasonal traffic. Let's see. Still going to chug away as usual. Still putting in two rentals for capital. Such a bad time to start a SEO based business!

I haven't seen any ecom sites get hit more than like 20%, which I think is core updates/whatever other messing around they're doing. Do you mean traffic dropping off a cliff in line with either of the last two HCUs?

 

[Smith]

switch on the tab that says "consider over optimization"

Thanks, I'm going to give this a try

Doing top 50 pages in position 4-10 and then will review and circle back.

Please do.

I'll test this out on a few pages initially and will then run a similar batch.

 

[MrMedia]

Thanks, I'm going to give this a try


Please do.

I'll test this out on a few pages initially and will then run a similar batch.

Just woke up and seen some MAJOR movements on pages I worked on last night.

This seems to be the key somehow - no idea why its working or if it will continue to work but in my example its seriously moving the needle with two days worth of de-optimizing.

 

[BakerStreet]

I haven't seen any ecom sites get hit more than like 20%, which I think is core updates/whatever other messing around they're doing. Do you mean traffic dropping off a cliff in line with either of the last two HCUs?

These are all eComm sites. Some are e-comm w/ content marketing. Dark blue is pure e-comm with product-lead SEO template pages.

For dark blue, the released 1,000+ template pages in December, which lead to the rise. 25% drop in Feb. If it is due to over-optimization, they're fucked. They used surfer to optimize shit.

For orange, they gained 1 million hits/month in October due to new update. Then just lost it again in Feb.

For Yellow, that company got a 12 million Series B in October and was on the up-and-up but their site has canibalization issues and they're going down hill. I doubt their team can recover.

For green, that is a blackhat owned site and, if the drop is due to over-optimization, green is fucked. They used surfer to optimize their pages to the T.

None of these sites are affiliate sites.

 

[BakerStreet]

Ah fuck. My traffic went down by 10% and rankings are the same but, last week, my sales were at $0 after accounting for refunds. Not good.

 

[Smith]

Just woke up and seen some MAJOR movements on pages I worked on last night.

I'm sure you've talked about this elsewhere, but...

Are you running an ad-based, product/service-based, or affiliate site? And are you in a YMYL or something less controversial? And can you ballpark how many articles you have in total?

I'm asking because I have a product-based site in a YMYL niche with almost 1,500 articles. I'm in the process of prioritizing a few test articles now and I'm going to have my lead editor follow the approach you outlined in POP.

It will be interesting to compare results... that said, I know I have a few other shortcomings in terms of EEAT, though it's 90% of the way there.

Also, are you tracking these improvements through GA, GSC, or something else?

 

[Trump]

Just woke up and seen some MAJOR movements on pages I worked on last night.

This seems to be the key somehow - no idea why its working or if it will continue to work but in my example its seriously moving the needle with two days worth of de-optimizing.

Give it some time.

I have a well-established website that was in the top of all important industry keywords. For years. Then the first HCU came and most of them went down to 4th and 5th position - but around 15-20% of my keywords disappeared from the SERP completely.

When going through numbers and analyzing everything, I ended up "de-optimizing" a bunch of those lost keywords/articles. Within a day or two, 90% of them came back to top 5 in the SERP.

Between 1-3 weeks later, most of them disappeared once again. The exact same articles.

I assume there is some sort of customer behaviour that indicates to Google that the articles are wrong/low quality. But I have no idea what. Because they have the same numbers as the keywords/articles that are still in the top.

I thought I had found the golden key to the castle. But it only lasted for a week or two, then, poof, gone again.

This was around January, so not after the March update.

 

[Smith]

@Trump great insights - thank you for sharing.

A quick follow-up to...

I assume there is some sort of customer behaviour that indicates to Google that the articles are wrong/low quality. But I have no idea what. Because they have the same numbers as the keywords/articles that are still in the top.

Objectively speaking:

1. Were the articles you updated aligned with the search intent?
2. Were they low, average, or high-quality?
3. Were the article written by AI, human, or AI-assisted?
3. Does your site "tick the boxes" in terms of EEAT signals?
4. Is your site in a YMYL niche?

Also, a question for both @Trump and @MrMedia:

After updating your articles, are you requesting re-indexing in GSC?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Yeah, editing posts in any fashion is going to update the sitemap and Google will recrawl and index the changes, triggering freshness and another pass through all the systems. That'll shake things up somewhat but it'll return to the status quo usually.

Let me play devil's advocate so that there's a dissenting voice. I agree with some and not all of what I'm about to say. But it all needs to be on the table so we're considering all information available.

I think it's important to keep in mind that we're in a situation where there's not an answer and certainly not a simple one of using a keyword 3 times instead of 6, etc. Google clearly understands content that's highly optimized or not at all, and all in-between. They can disregard over- and under-optimization the same way they can with links. And content is one variable in this puzzle.

Reconfiguring your whole site or even just the highest performing content for the current time period makes sense to keep revenue flowing, but that'll become a hamster wheel even if it works. And Google has a handle on all of this. Which leads me to believe this isn't a matter of reweighting variables in the algorithm so much so that it's a lot of "side filters and manual penalties" going out, not for the sake of quality results, but for the sake of another agenda.

This "other agenda" could be training users (not webmasters) to expect something different and gear them up to transition to their new AI Answer engine, to use the Chatbots, to try to take a killshot at who Google percieves as the enemy now that they've assimilated all of our content into their LLM's, etc. We're in a transition time that very well may have nothing to do with the algorithm.

Things don't make sense in the "visible realm" of what we're used to dealing with. Which points to a likelihood that there's some internal goal within Google that has nothing to do with SEO and the algorithm... one that's succumbing increasingly to biases, incompetence, money chasing, and most likely pivoting towards a future that includes far more AI.

Changing a perfectly reasonable site, preparing to weather the storm and ride out a depression, and a lot of other approaches may not be what's needed. There are times when depressions aren't that. They may look like that, but it's actually a death. I read another comment about (and I paraphrase) "hating business owners who make money and then move to greener grass when the game gets hard" or whatever.

I've thought like that in the past about these business owners, and my current opinion is they're less stubborn, have less psychological hangups, and are more psychologically flexible, which leads to better results in the only metric that matters, which is the deposits hitting their bank accounts. I'd say be careful about judging and labeling people in a way that further entrenches you into a game that may be coming to an end in a large fashion. Sometimes the grass truly is greener elsewhere.

 

[bernard]

Yeah, the problem is that there's money to be made in SEO, it really isn't dead yet. And it's fairly passive and simple. That makes it hard to let go completely.

 

[Smith]

This "other agenda" could be training users (not webmasters) to expect something different and gear them up to transition to their new AI Answer engine, to use the Chatbots, to try to take a killshot at who Google percieves as the enemy now that they've assimilated all of our content into their LLM's, etc. We're in a transition time that very well may have nothing to do with the algorithm.

This is so well said.

I've been thinking along similar lines for a while... it's borderline conspiracy theory... but...

I believe Google is intentionally pushing businesses away with each update. They do NOT want business owners to rely on organic search for customer acquisition.

This may seem counterintuitive IF you view Google as a search engine. BUT if you view Google as an information retrieval engine, it makes perfect sense.

Serving up SEO-optimized articles from random sites with questionable authority on a given topic is NOT the best way to solve information retrieval. Using an "intelligent" LLM programmed to answer questions accurately and immediately... that's the best way to solve for information retrieval.

They (Google & Microsoft) are slow-dripping capabilities... they can't just drop all of this new technology on us in one go... they need to slowly expose the masses, cull the weak businesses that can't make the transition, and prepare us for all the other changes that will come from this shift.

I'm not alone in thinking that we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of what LLMs are capable of today (See here: intentional mistakes in AI-code, Dall-e, and supermodels). Sam Altman has even referenced the slow-dripping of capabilities in the past, but I don't remember where I heard it specifically.

The point is: If they are slow-dripping these new technological capabilities to the public, then they are also slowly pushing away those of us relying on the existing system for economics.

I know there is a lot of shit-talking about the future of SEO... but these undisclosed (albeit unverified) motivations of the biggest companies in the game lead me to believe that we ARE on the cusp of the next BIG revolution...

it's actually a death

The death of search engines, the death of SEO-driven businesses, the death of organic traffic...

The dawn slow and measured release of information retrieval engines, in a way that does not completely shock the global economy into a massive recession and social unrest.

And before you say "Organic traffic isn't that important that Google and Microsoft would take such a measured approach to protect the economic and social order" you need to remember it's not just small publishers that will fall...

Every major media outlet, every major newspaper, the free press... They wouldn't be able to fund investigative journalism, politicians would go unchecked, national consensus would become uncontrolled, and stock markets (including Google and Microsoft stocks) would crash.

Like I said... it's borderline conspiracy theory.

But my point is this:

If you believe we're transitioning from search engines to informational retrieval engines, you should view these updates as disincentivizing businesses and forcing them to find other channels for customer acquisition.

BUT until that shift is complete...

there's money to be made in SEO, it really isn't dead yet. And it's fairly passive and simple.

I'm personally leveraging my existing SEO assets (and certain new opportunities) to finance the ONE asset that I believe has value NOW & AFTER the transition to information retrieval engines: BRAND!

I have no idea if any of this is true... but my internal compass is telling me to keep moving in this direction. So, that's where I'm headed!

 

[Ryuzaki]

Like I said... it's borderline conspiracy theory.

It's really not. It's simply responsible releasing of new technology. DARPA does that with old tech that they're done with that they then choose a big USA company to release it to the public. Taxpayer-funded tech that no longer provides a military or intelligence advantage gets released to the taxpayers through a company that pays taxes and keeps most of the profits in the US and pays taxes on it, etc. The main point is that it's intentional and timed and dripped. You could call it a conspiracy by definition, without the negative connotation, but one thing it isn't is a theory.

Apple's clicking scroll wheel on the original iPods is an example of DARPA tech hitting the public. Using Apple as another example is that they're about to waste precious real-estate on the new iPhones by adding a new "capture" button for photos. It'll have depth controls, pressure sensitivity, zooming in and out, different layers of focus in that depth, etc. Why would they waste this space and give users something nobody is asking for?

Because users don't realize they'll need it in the next 5 years, and that it'll become the norm. So Apple is going to take a hit and "look stupid" for a little bit with the sole purpose of training their buyers to get used to (and ready) for using these types of photos. Because Augmented Reality (AR) goggles are coming, and then glasses, and then contact lenses, and then brain chips. The key point I'm making is they take a hit in reputation and income and design in order to train the users for something the users aren't aware is coming.

That's what Google is doing.

 

[Trump]

@Trump great insights - thank you for sharing.

A quick follow-up to...


Objectively speaking:

1. Were the articles you updated aligned with the search intent?
2. Were they low, average, or high-quality?
3. Were the article written by AI, human, or AI-assisted?
3. Does your site "tick the boxes" in terms of EEAT signals?
4. Is your site in a YMYL niche?

Also, a question for both @Trump and @MrMedia:

After updating your articles, are you requesting re-indexing in GSC?

Sure thing.

1. Yes, it's buyers guides that follows the same structure and patterns as the ones that are still ranking high.
2. I'd say above average/high-quality. Some of them have been quoted by (physical) industry magazines.
3. 100% human, without any AI involvement.
4. Yeah, it's not your regular affiliate site with no faces, dates or experienced people in the making. Each article shows the date it was written/updated, who wrote it, who the person is, his/her picture, education, industry experience and so on. The websites contact page contains address, phone number and different emails, depending on who you'd want to reach.

5. Nope, it's not YMYL.

The thing that confuses me is that all articles are fairly equal. They have the same structure, in terms of titles, length, depth, tone, quality and so on. They all follow the same pattern. Most of them also have the same type of data (bounce rate and all that stuff).

It's also the same competitors for all keywords.

Yet, some articles just disappeared. On the first page, they are outperformed by competitors who, objectively, are crap. Some are obviously AI-written, you don't know who wrote the article, UX issues etc..

I was holding the top spot for one particular keyword for years. Now it's nowhere to be found since January. Out of the 10 websites ranking in the SERP, 5 (!) of them have cited my article as a reference (both do- and nofollow), haha!

Don't get me wrong, there are of course things that could be improved on my site, like with any site. But it's far better than what is ranking now. I mean, real industry magazines have written about and quoted my site. As well as interviewed me. Most competitors have, at some point, stated my articles as a source. None of this is to say that I deserve rankings, I just mention it to showcase that it hold at least some value. Especially compared to what is ranking now.

 

[MrMedia]

Ok guys, take my points for what they are worth to you.

I have given actionable steps that are working for me now. I'm seeing gains on a site that wasn't even hit so I'll keep doing as I do.

I'm not going to engage in the abstract what-aboutery that seems always be lurking below the surface here these days so with that....

Peace!

 

[Trump]

By the way, I've made a weird observation. It might not be relevant or accurate on large scale, but since me/we are fumbling in the dark:

There are some sites that gained traction after these updates in my niches. Compared to the rest, they are not much different in terms of content quality, SEO, links etc. The only thing that differs them from the rest, from what I can see, is that they aren't using Wordpress.

This has been true for 3-4 of my niches that I've looked into. When comparing them to other sites, it's as if Google thought "Hmm, nothing differentiates these sites apart from the CMS. So I choose the ones that aren't Wordpress".

It could be something, could be nothing, I don't know. Just an observation.

Anyway, like some of you already hinted in this thread - I don't think there is a mistake or a bug in these updates. Google are taking purposeful steps to achieve something. This is the new landscape of SEO, and it doesnt look good for the future.

For me, I have stopped testing and experimenting since the beginning of the year. Im pivoting into other projects/channels instead.

 

[Ryuzaki]

For me, I have stopped testing and experimenting since the beginning of the year. Im pivoting into other projects/channels instead.

Everyone needs to be planting new seeds right now in different sectors, especially ones not rooted in SEO. And anyone who's taking issue with this statement should read this very short business book, that has so many copies in print you'll find multiple at your local used book store:

​

I'll also save you $3 by giving you the entire story:

Two mice and two miniature mice-sized people live in a maze. Every day they navigate the maze the same way to find the cheese that's always replenished in the same spot.

One day, the cheese is moved to a new location in the maze. The mice waste zero time thinking and "hemming and hawing" about it. They just go find the new spot. The humans sit there and think, cry, whine, theorize, be stubborn, resist change, try to optimize their path to the now-empty cheese spot, and so forth. They get mad, sad, fight harder, negotiate in their minds, give up, get excited again, but they never go find the new cheese spot until waaaay later.

The book then talks about how to shorten or eradicate this "human process" of accepting large changes in business and life and celebrates the rewards of things changing and you changing.

Again, like above, I'm not saying for certain things have changed this hard. But it certainly has for 75% of SEO's, at seemingly random with that number growing with each update, hitting all levels of authority and skill and content volume. No amount of negotiating with Google or the universe is changing this, and no amount of blowhard nonsense from survivors will protect them from their turn, as everyone is eventually finding out. No amount of lashing out at others, depression, or anything will change this new reality.

It very well may be the case that the cheese has moved. Those who accept this earliest will get the biggest chunks in the new location before everyone else catches on. Eventually advertisers are going to catch on too, and ad spend will move to the new locations as well. If you don't agree with all this (and I'm uncertain myself), we can all agree that it'd be best to start diversifying and setting up shop in these other channels.

 

[Politico]

Reading all the latest posts here, my mind keeps going back to the idea that what's happening isn't necessarily new to SEO but, perhaps, on a larger scale than previously done.

And that's the randomness and the chaos in the SERPs.

I don't remember how long ago, or where I read it but the idea that Google just fucks with SEOs on a regular basis to try and control something they can't actually control isn't new.

And I for one believe Google intentionally causes random chaos in an effort to stop the reverse engineering of it's ranking algorithm, and send SEOs into a tail spin.

Every update, good sites get hit for no discernable reason and bad sites start ranking with no rhyme/reason.

Happens every time. And the same conversations surrounding it ensue. Every time.

I think the chaos is a feature, not a bug.

We all know that Google's algo definitely can't understand document relevance and utility, and user signals help them "fake it" (in their own words).

All this leads me to believe this past year has just been more of the same.

Shake up the SERPs and keep everyone confused, chasing their own tails. Each major update is like a new iteration of the Matrix.

The Neo's (Seo's) will still rise up, because it can't be controlled. But it can be mitigated through constant destruction and re-building - leading to a somewhat longer-term strategy of survival and "control."

Cases in point:
My pure human, genuinely useful and now kitchen-sink'd EEAT site has continued to struggle in the SERPs since it was hit algorithmically a couple years ago.

But I threw some mid AI content on an old auction domain with relevant history and a few links, and it's already started ranking (non YMYL).

--

I say that to say this - FOR NOW seo is still something you can make work (and possibly always will be). But as always, it's a "use it till you lose it" type of traffic source.

Nothing new, tbh... Once you lose it, start fresh.

But what about all the hard work you did trying to recover your other site? Sorry, not everything works out like we hope.

Switch traffic sources. That's now a property that relies on social, paid or traffic leaking.

And a new property takes it's place to capitalize on search traffic.

Not as time-consuming as it used to be with the help of AI writing tools.

This is the game we chose play gentlemen...

 

[CCarter]

I think we need a new Traffic Leak bootcamp, 9 years later I need another 9 - cause I'm losing hope in a lot of ya'll ability outside Google.

 

[Barry]

LOL even John Mueller's website got hit by the new algorithm updates! ROFL!

He did this deliberately to mock all the SEO’s sites he had deindexed.

 

[Darth]

Page Optimizer Pro. Kyle Roof's on page tool.

Thanks. Just seems like all those other tools that tell you how many times you should use "cars", "honda" "engine" "comfort" etc in your copy, along with headings, etc etc? They've always seemed much the same and not helpful at all IMO. Always keen to try something new if this has some secret sauce though.

 

[Smith]

Thanks. Just seems like all those other tools that tell you how many times you should use "cars", "honda" "engine" "comfort" etc in your copy, along with headings, etc etc?

Sometimes tools work and deliver results, other times they don't. Maybe it's the tool's fault, maybe it's not. It's SEO, so it's hard to say.

I view and use POP like other tools, which is as one of the many tools in a much broader workflow. I don't solely rely on POP and don't attribute my successes or failures to it.

Instead, I have my team use POP as part of our production and updating processes to check work, quickly assess competitiveness, and ensure we aren't missing anything obvious.

For example, today I followed @MrMedia's steps above and had my team pull a batch of content that has recently fallen in the rankings. They used POP to assess the competition quickly, see where we stack up on key metrics, and dial in the page for optimization (in this case de-optimizing).

I also like that Kyle is less commercial than most SEOs. Maybe it's a schtick, but he appears to be a nerd who appreciates the plainness of the algorithm and comes off as a humble operator. He understands that (at least for a while), the algorithm was just math... and math equations can be solved.

Maybe the algorithm has changed and the POP approach is no longer applicable. Or, maybe it never worked and he's just shooting in the dark like the rest of us.

But, worst case scenario, it gives my team a consistent approach to structuring content and I don't have to worry about them completely messing up when I'm looking in the other direction.