12 Comments

Great post! Question: what are your personal thoughts about RetroDodo's demise? Pretty solid brand, solid content strategy, has E-E-A-T, and yet it was hit hard by the core update. Is it simply because it's an affilate content site, which is why it got penalized? Either way, it just doesn't add up, which means Google's algorithm is fundamentally broken at the moment!

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Thanks! I haven't taken a look at Retro Dodo's site yet. I doubt the only reason is that it's an affiliate site. There must be something under the hood.

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Stupid question: Does "visibility" = organic traffic? Or is it relative (eg. the percentage of time you show up?) Basically, did the sites that increased their visibility also definitely grow organic traffic?

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Not a stupid question at all! Visibility is a metric from Sistrix and a proxy for organic traffic. Directionally close.

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Thanks!

This article got me wondering what is happening with organic traffic overall. Sure it's still a massive traffic source but it is still growing as quickly? If we get to the point where it's declining it'll become a question of if sites are declining because the pie is getting smaller or if they're actually giving up some of their proportion to other sites.

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Absolutely! And it’s hard to answer without looking at the majority of sites in a vertical. You’ll see it in some verticals where few sites dominate, like health -> healthline, webmd, and 1-2 others. There, you’ll see that the pie is getting a bit smaller. But it’s vertical-dependent imho.

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Yeah makes sense!

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Can you write an article on this topic if it makes sense -

The cost and ROI of doing SEO vs cost and ROI lost of not doing SEO.

You can also replace brand awareness with ROI.

I am this question as I almost got a job with an big indian ecomm brand but at the last moment the brand director told me that don't have money for SEO,(SEO's total cost including the teams salary was 1/10th of performance marketing budget) even though they are spend a lot on social media + influencers + performance marketing.

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Yeah, happy to! Sorry to hear it didn't work out, man.

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Brother, your article on "How to Explain the Value of SEO to Executives" helped me give a presentation to the CEO, so thank you.

I was disappointed that they didn't hire me, but when I think about it, I feel sad for them. It's not because they didn't hire me, but because they are a brand with a good reputation in a niche filled with marketplaces. Their overall group of companies could easily help them outrank even the biggest competitors. In the end, it's their revenue loss.

And I'll find even better companies to work for! 🔥🔥

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It's interesting topic, but I'd highlight a couple of important points:

1) None of the "smaller" publishers you've mentioned really qualify as genuinely small / independent. Hearst is a huge and storied brand, Valnet and DotDash Meredith have large networks of websites. The trend against "smaller publishers" is most acute when comparing these kinds of publishers vs smaller independent outfits focused on a specific, specialist vertical.

2) It's more useful to to compare visibility changes within specific verticals – i.e. a topic or search term. This is where you see large publishers like those you mention outranking specialists, even when their content is much lower quality.

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I think 1) is a fair critique 👍🏻.

Regarding 2), do you have any examples? I think you want to consider the micro and macro picture.

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