No SEO = Best SEO?

From my experience (20+ websites) I saw a huge change on how Google is working. Especially from last years updates. Looks like they are more against SEO than ever. What I mean by this?

Before you could just do great onpage SEO (h1,h2,h3, meta descriptions, keyword density etc.) and you had a great optimized post/page, but now it seems exactly these things are keeping me from ranking. Some of you might call it "over optimization", but in my opinion it goes much far than that. Its like they see you want to rank for a specific keyword by using it in the description, title and headlines and then they just prevent you from ranking for it. Makes you stuck on page 2, 3 or 4.

First time I noticed it was when suddenly my PBN websites were ranking better than my actual money sites. Even I didn't build any link to these expired PBN domains. What I did was writing unique content, treating them like money sites. Set and forget. After a Google update last year they suddenly started ranking. Since them I am using them as a money site as well.

Since the latest updates in June, September and October it seems they are also targeting internal linking. I noticed how rankings for some pages dropped, which I was interlinking a lot to.

What I did these days was building websites in medium competition niches, not entering any main keyword in the title, headlines etc. (only doing a little bit of onpage SEO) also not building any link to it and my websites would just slowly climb up the rankings.

What is your opinion on this? Did you make similar experiences?

Your PBN sites built on expired domains having backlinks and authority? If not, it's interesting.

Could be. People think they can outsmart Google but it's not an issue of being smarter, it's the fact that Google can look at millions of websites and see the obvious patterns. Many "tricks" that SEO people think are so clever may be very obvious when looking at a million websites.

Google doesn't really have to be smart, they can simply look at the huge data they have access to and make pretty easy decisions.

I don't know, it seems to me like you may be accurate, but there's also a lot to be said for SEO, man.

Try making a site with zero backlinks sometime and see how well it ranks, lol.

The new update values trust flow above all else, so perhaps your "money sites" had too many spammy links.

Yes, I agree! Forgot the SEO, Go for social media!

Most pbns have authority links.

Backlinks are working better since September update (well the quality ones)

nakamura said:

Since the latest updates in June, September and October it seems they are also targeting internal linking. I noticed how rankings for some pages dropped, which I was interlinking a lot to.

Click to expand...

In my niches interlinking is playing an important role, I am getting good boosts if it's relevant and to other info articles & without ads/affiliate links and stuff.

nakamura said:

What I did these days was building websites in medium competition niches, not entering any main keyword in the title, headlines etc. (only doing a little bit of onpage SEO) also not building any link to it and my websites would just slowly climb up the rankings.

Click to expand...

This can be niche based or your website has great authority, so it's pushing the medium competition keywords slowly to the top!

For external links I have seen:

Exact match anchors are working even better (in my niche), sites with good links and exact match anchors are leading.

Exact match on web2.0s and shitty links might not do well though.

It seems you had high quality pbns hence you survived, but I feel internal linking is a major part of seo and one should do it. As others have said focus on the right links can do wonders, but build low quality ones you’re bound to suffer.

Your experience matches mine, nowadays I go for more natural content rather than SEO optimized content, I am focusing maybe 90% on user experience and 10% on SEO optimization, a few quality backlinks, and social signals, along with relevant internal linking without overdoing it, and it is working better.

that's easy

user based sites optimized to the click UX is a primary factor today

I see patterns all the time for this

TheVigilante said:

that's easy

user based sites optimized to the click UX is a primary factor today

I see patterns all the time for this

Click to expand...

This makes no sense whatsoever....

Pretty interesting post

Interesting thread, following.

nakamura said:

From my experience (20+ websites) I saw a huge change on how Google is working. Especially from last years updates. Looks like they are more against SEO than ever. What I mean by this?

Before you could just do great onpage SEO (h1,h2,h3, meta descriptions, keyword density etc.) and you had a great optimized post/page, but now it seems exactly these things are keeping me from ranking. Some of you might call it "over optimization", but in my opinion it goes much far than that. Its like they see you want to rank for a specific keyword by using it in the description, title and headlines and then they just prevent you from ranking for it. Makes you stuck on page 2, 3 or 4.

First time I noticed it was when suddenly my PBN websites were ranking better than my actual money sites. Even I didn't build any link to these expired PBN domains. What I did was writing unique content, treating them like money sites. Set and forget. After a Google update last year they suddenly started ranking. Since them I am using them as a money site as well.

Since the latest updates in June, September and October it seems they are also targeting internal linking. I noticed how rankings for some pages dropped, which I was interlinking a lot to.

What I did these days was building websites in medium competition niches, not entering any main keyword in the title, headlines etc. (only doing a little bit of onpage SEO) also not building any link to it and my websites would just slowly climb up the rankings.

What is your opinion on this? Did you make similar experiences?

Click to expand...

1. overoptimization, you mentioned it but there are 3 kidns of optimization. well done optimization, underoptimization,and overoptimization. try to aim for well done optimization.
2. i think whats keeping you from ranking is not using keywords in important places but rather weak backlinks.
3. perhaps your PBN had better domain history than your moneysite so it ranks better with weaker optimization

Nothing has changed from a fundamental standpoint with SEO. Title tags, H tags, Description Tags, Keywords within content, interlinking, proper site architecture, keywords within URL, etc... All still as important as ever. Don't believe me? Try deleting or taking keywords out of your title tag or H tag. Let me know how that works out for you. Is over optimization a thing...sure, but most of the time it's overtly blatant. Also, always compare how your competitors are optimizing their ranking pages. That will give you a good benchmark on where you need to be.

Also, if your website is less than 12 months old, Google certainly treats it differently. The algo tends to put you into a bucket, until they release you and start to give your website trust. All the data shows this in the last year or so. Can you rank in less than 12 months, sure. Is it harder to compete in larger niches when you have a younger less authoritative website? Absolutely.

I started studying SEO a year ago and not having a website (yet) makes it hard to share my experience however like most subjects It really boils down to context of viewing things, not solving a problem is being irrelevant irrespective practicing SEO or not.

Since you noticed doing on-page SEO is not effectively as before it practically answers what is stated above, a valid reminder solving this is and what others already suggested: focusing on thematic links.

Not being a jerk but to work out SEO or not depends on you being relevant or not.

LukaB said:

This makes no sense whatsoever....

Click to expand...

The UX of a page is the most important thing to consider these days today Google uses clickstream technology and Chrome to see all mouse movements which in turn is rankbrain.

when Google can see all page activity like heatmaps, getting someone to click is the most important thing to optimize for justlook at any recipe site, you can't get a recipe till you click something on the page they are the leaders in this!

Take a look at this: https://www.hgtv.com/design/make-and-celebrate/handmade/dollar-store-hacks-pictures

This is happening all the time especially when you have tiny sites ranking over brands

This has been always this way. The problem is that the players that rank for certain keywords then to be the sooner, than the later, dissapointed.
You should go as broad as possible. This is why I've been declining to work on Local SEO for certain competitive areas: is a waste of time, efforts, reputation and everything

But I've found exactly the oppossite. For some weird reason, thanks to the new semantics and way Google is going through, main keywords are not ranking well, but I'm discovering some other keywords that are making the exact same deal as the main keywords. So if a 1 x 5K/mo keyword is not ranking but you have 10x500/mo keywords ranking easier, why not taking the SEO opportunity?

Most clients will say: "But I want the main keyword, not the other 10, because of the intention..." That is the real bullshit

(i.e. "plumbers in norman")

What is the user looking? Just 1 plumber with a ultra-optimized site that looks pesky as if an inner siberian russian guy has taken the rank and rent position? Or a good affordable guy to start relying on in the future without having to crawl anymore?

Maybe the problem is that the intent is switching with all the new special contents and "classic SEO mindset" has been lost in the drain forever.

Think that maybe is not about no-SEO in general, but some particular SEO that is no longer admitted

Lost opportunities to bring new opportunities.

nakamura said:

From my experience (20+ websites) I saw a huge change on how Google is working. Especially from last years updates. Looks like they are more against SEO than ever. What I mean by this?

Before you could just do great onpage SEO (h1,h2,h3, meta descriptions, keyword density etc.) and you had a great optimized post/page, but now it seems exactly these things are keeping me from ranking. Some of you might call it "over optimization", but in my opinion it goes much far than that. Its like they see you want to rank for a specific keyword by using it in the description, title and headlines and then they just prevent you from ranking for it. Makes you stuck on page 2, 3 or 4.

First time I noticed it was when suddenly my PBN websites were ranking better than my actual money sites. Even I didn't build any link to these expired PBN domains. What I did was writing unique content, treating them like money sites. Set and forget. After a Google update last year they suddenly started ranking. Since them I am using them as a money site as well.

Since the latest updates in June, September and October it seems they are also targeting internal linking. I noticed how rankings for some pages dropped, which I was interlinking a lot to.

What I did these days was building websites in medium competition niches, not entering any main keyword in the title, headlines etc. (only doing a little bit of onpage SEO) also not building any link to it and my websites would just slowly climb up the rankings.

What is your opinion on this? Did you make similar experiences?

Click to expand...

That's because the days of trying to rank for keywords are long gone. If you are writing an entire article for 1 keyword, you are not going to succeed. An article should be created for a topic, which contains keyword groups, each containing 100's of keywords. 1000's per page in total.

With every algorithm update, the rules usually change a bit. As it’s already been mentioned, maybe you used a technique that’s no longer desirable. However, even though there are other ways to keep your website alive besides SEO, I still think it is absolutely necessary. Of course, you need to keep your content as relevant and natural as possible. Yet, on-page SEO, interlinking and backlinks, keywords, meta descriptions, etc., are as relevant as they used to be and they are here to stay.

Wow, do you own my website!!!

I am facing the Exact situation .. I have been trying hard over the past year, and the harder I try, the more I go down

My money site was number one in Jan, now its 11! Over the year it has been losing rank steadily..

First my competitor beat me with over optimizing his keyword like crazy.. I bought +70 backlinks from the top ranked websites (major ones) in my country. It cost me a little fortune, and the result? I am 5

Said maybe its content (my competitor built dozens of sub posts all linking back to the main page although they are all targetting the same keyword with the same over optimization). He even shows his whole post in the main page .. so, a typical duplicate + thin content penalty.

I wrote great lengthy content for sub posts (over 60!), and add unique post description to show in the main page to avoid duplication ... With great variety of interlinking (my competitors use exact for all the interlinking and backlinks)

Now I am 9 to 11 although I have best backlinks (quality and quantity) + most content + hundreds of su posts and I beaten by twitter and instagram and other no bl, no content pages who weren't even trying to rank!!

I got no explanation, except, the more work you do, the more rank you lost

What is funny I had set a website last year and forget about it.. didn't build a single backlink or add a word since last year. The keyword mentioned nowhere and I didn't even optimize it, just some dumb content I planned to change and forgot.. this website outranked my main one and has better ranks in most of its keywords now (they both built for same niche and keywords)!

Am I over optimizing, my competitors has mentioned the exact keyword over 194 times with +82 in headings

I open to any explanation!