Diggity Marketing SEO News Roundup—January 2025
January is no time to take your SEO lightly. The year closed with serious changes and announcements by Google and major generative AI players. Catch up on everything that’s happening in this month’s roundup. In the month’s top stories, you’ll learn how the December spam update ended, see the newest evidence that sites have finally recovered after the August core update, and get a great summary of the tumultuous last year in SEO. After that, you’ll get plenty more news and analysis. You’ll learn what top SEOs say about how the latest spam update worked, how the final form of SEO may have arrived, how sites are winning with calculators, what the new ChatGPT Search Update means, and more! Google Search Status Dashboard: The December Spam Update is Over https://status.search.google.com/incidents/UUq2WSouY7PhSm8zvtD1 Google announces that the rollout of the latest Spam Update is complete. It finished on December 26th, about two weeks after it started. This was the 10th spam update, following the most recent one in June. As usual, Google was tight-lipped about what exact changes were being made. However, you’ll see some analysis of what happened in a few upcoming roundup pieces for this month. This update provoked much discussion among SEOs while it was rolling out. Some community members were posting traffic drops as bad as 50% in the first few days. Others reported that the spam update undid progress they had recently made after the last core update. Others reported more positive signs, including some of the first recoveries the site owners had seen since March. Spam update recoveries weren’t the only kind of recoveries being tracked by SEOs this month. There’s also fresh data showing sites can and are recovering from the August Core Update. In the next story, you’ll learn about the data behind these recovery stories and hear why it may have been possible for these sites. Google 2024 August Core Update: Site Recoveries! Google 2024 August Core Update: Site Recoveries! LinkBuilding HQ brings you this fresh look at recoveries from core updates. This video summarizes and links to some of the latest research on recovering sites that has been performed by major SEOs. First, you’ll get a quick refresher on the original impact of the August update. In a referenced study that included more than 55,000 sites monetized with Mediavine, Raptive, or Amazon Associates, a researcher found that 53% of sites experienced traffic increases, while 47% of all sites experienced traffic losses. Now, there is proof that sites can recover and that they can do even more. Some sites you’ll learn about have shown signs of recovery for the first time in 11 months, and the possible scale of recovery may surprise you. Glenn Gabe’s research is first. In it, he covers his list of 390+ sites he has been tracking. 91 sites out of this list have experienced notable recovery, and he provides some data for you in his X thread. His thread includes some helpful graphics on the sites that recovered (and the ones that didn’t) Lily Ray also recorded a significant recovery for the site Retro Dodo. The last update hit this large retro gaming content site hard, but Lily has graphs showing the rapid recovery of 80% of the traffic. Check out the rest of the video to see more research and community discussion on recovering sites. If you’re interested in Google’s point of view, the next piece will give you a true insider’s perspective. It covers how major decision-makers at Google saw the last year. Wrapping up 2024 | Search Off the Record Wrapping up 2024 | Search Off the Record Google’s Search off the Record podcast offers a look at last year’s changes from inside the company. Hosts, including long-time Google leaders Lizzi Sassman, John Mueller, and Gary Illyes, break down some major topics that came up at the highest levels. AI and the work of the AI team were among the major topics covered. In one example, the hosts discuss whether SEO is dying and being replaced by AI. They all seem very skeptical that SEO is going anywhere. As one host quips, “SEO has been ‘dying’ since 2001.” They discuss questions that keep coming up at conventions and how audience members with a growing interest in AI want to know about topics such as hallucinations, retrieval-augmented generative AI, and other emerging technologies. Other topics in the long conversation include the future of javascript, which is used to turn websites into apps, using LLMs to write code, and NotebookLM. Check out the entire video to learn more about how some of Google’s influential leaders see the future. Next, you’ll return to spam update data with fresh analysis. One SEO will examine whether the update was useful for dealing with search spam. Google December Spam Update Was Massive, But Did It Remove Search Spam? Google December Spam Update Was Massive But Did It RemoveSearch Spam? Barry Schwartz brings you this look at the real effects of the most recent spam update. As usual for the last few spam updates, Google only linked to their spam documentation rather than providing specific details about what changed. Barry takes you through a quick review of these guidelines and what Google recommends. Then, he dives into the real changes in the data. First, he covers the SEO chatter around the update. Many SEOs reported that the update appeared to reward rather than punish spam sites. Spam sites that were not ranking effectively for long periods of time were reported to be surging while the update was still rolling out. Many SEOs also reported problems with existing pages being de-listed and deranked from search engine results. As Barry notes, search results were highly volatile nearly every day of the rollout and then again for several days after the update was reported to have ended. Barry judged this to be one of the biggest spam updates to land yet. He recorded many complaints from white-hat SEOs who denied using spam techniques and had to deal with serious drops during the vital holiday shopping period. He shows you multiple cases of “dangerous” spam sites that benefited from the update. The conclusion seems to be that this update appears less effective at targeting spam than the previous ones despite the large size. It’s unclear if Google is still tweaking this update behind the scenes despite the announcement you read about at the top. If you need some new techniques to avoid getting targeted by spam updates, why not try the “final form” of SEO? This is the FINAL FORM of SEO This is the FINAL FORM of SEO… I figured out how to make more money with SEO than any other method. Would you believe that it’s angel investing? As odd as it sounds, I’ve earned some of my biggest paychecks partnering with businesses to provide funding and expertise in exchange for a share of the growth. SEOs have an amazing position with companies that lack the expertise they provide. It’s possible (I’ve done it) to get equity and shares without putting any money upfront. This works like a joint venture between partners. Unlike typical angel investors, SEO investors get to start with companies that already have traction, sales, market fit, and all the other factors that make a business a worthy investment. That’s not all, as other SEOs in the investing game have pointed out, you can use multiple investments to upsell, cross-sell, get reduced rates for services, and more. This can allow you to improve margins at all of your investments, resulting in faster or better returns for you. Perhaps the best benefit of SEO angel investing is the access it gives you to network. As part of these companies’ hopes and dreams, you’ll be in the room for important decisions and meet people from all the industries that are involved. That’s not to say this process is perfect. As I’ve learned, it doesn’t always work. Vetting is always difficult, and investments can end badly for many reasons, including trade law disputes, bad working relationships, or even criminal behavior. If you’re still interested, the video takes you through all the steps that I follow to find my investment opportunities. I show you how to build your “deal flow,” how to perform in-depth vetting of founders (not just companies), and how to make deals that make this the final form of SEO. Check out the complete video to learn how I do it and get special insights like the questions I ask founders. For now, there’s a small-scale growth strategy that you can put into practice with just one piece of content. 8 Websites Driving Insane Traffic Using… Calculators https://ahrefs.com/blog/website-calculators/ Chris Haines brings you this look at how calculators are some of the most powerful content you can create. To help you understand, Chris takes you through 8 examples of calculators and shows you how they are generating millions of views for their sites. The examples show that this method is effective across some of Read More Read More
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