Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to learn about AI Content Helper - https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-content-helper/?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025 In this episode I sort through some recent articles about the impact of AI overlays on the business of SEO. Is there such a thing as a "GOOD" AI? Looking for a TOC wordpress plugin that does NOT "confuse" Googlebots. We're close. https://carolynholzman.c...
Jul 01, 2025•23 min
Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to learn about Brand Radar https://ahrefs.com/brand-radar?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025 I have for a long time loved software that provides correlational data - the things that move together in search results. Its been a part of SEO testing - that’s how we could test various factors in 2015 to see how they moved together and that culminated with multiple software...
Jun 24, 2025•20 min•Season 5Ep. 25
Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to gain AHrefs certification https://ahrefs.com/certification?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025 Looking for a TOC wordpress plugin that does NOT "confuse" Googlebots. We're close. https://carolynholzman.com/fix-the-canonical-scoring-in-helpful-content/ Last week's episode - https://www.confessionsofanseo.com/podcast/im-kind-of-a-big-deal-season-5-episode-2...
Jun 17, 2025•12 min•Season 5Ep. 24
Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to get started with Site Explorer https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025 This past week there was a huge uproar within the SEO community and it had to do with Cyrus Shepard’s dissection of a wave of reputation management style content posting by Neil Patel for something that happened 11 years. Yeah, THAT Neil Patel. Patel and his companies...
Jun 10, 2025•16 min•Season 5Ep. 23
Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to get started with https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025 This week's show started out as an AI crawler test then a "whose content is it" conversation culminating in Jenny Jenny Abouobaia's Linkedin post titled, " Google Broke the Unspoken Contract — And No One’s Talking About It ". We're close to having a TOC wordpress plugin that does ...
Jun 03, 2025•16 min•Season 5Ep. 22
Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to get started with https://ahrefs.com/rank-tracker?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025 In this episode I do a compare and contrast between an honest and transparent sharing of an established publisher who got caught in a helpful content snare and my analysis of sites that I consulted on before that led me to discover what was the culprit. Spoiler alert. The experience...
May 27, 2025•17 min•Season 5Ep. 21
Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to get started with https://ahrefs.com/site-audit?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_202 https://ahrefs.com/site-audit This week I found out that Google Search Team agrees with me - Table of Content links are hurting people's sites. Thanks to the generosity of Tomiko Harvey, she compiled some observations from that closed door, no camera meeting and wrote about it on her blo...
May 20, 2025•16 min•Season 5Ep. 20
Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to get started with Keyword Explorer https://ahrefs.com/keywords-explorer In this week's Confessions I am sharing the data breakthrough on my Helpful Content Analysis. Short answer. What if Big Data Obscures what can only be seen at the atomic level of a site - two urls, one day, one search term? Last week's episode - Meet GoogleOther Mentioned in the show: Confessions Season 5, Episode 8 T rad Keyword Research Failing Us - inspired b...
May 13, 2025•21 min•Season 5Ep. 19
Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to get started with Ahrefs Web Analytics . https://ahrefs.com/web-analytics?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025 In this week's Confessions I'm introducing my field observation about GoogleOther crawler that comes to new content with a Google build. Its kind of a creepy crawler. But it throws page URLs into the crawling system like ball machine over the plate. I shar...
May 06, 2025•17 min•Season 5Ep. 18
Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring this episode. Click here to get started with Ahrefs Webmaster Tools . https://ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools?utm_source=CarolynHolzman&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=partnerships&utm_content=Q2_2025 In this week's Confessions I share the results of a test that I was running subconsciously! OK, it was by accident that I set this up but WOW did this give a glimpse into how a tiny little line of code is powerful regardless of how you set it. Learn from my...
Apr 29, 2025•17 min•Season 5Ep. 17
Today I'm going to a new hunch about the volatility in search results as measured by the SEO weather tools like Semrush and others. SEO tools that measure the volatility within the results on a daily basis. Conventional wisdom would say the times when the volatility is high is NOT the time to take measurements with SEO tool that use correlational math - like Cora SEO software. But is that true? What else might be at work specifically in the LOW volatility times? This week's Confessions offers a ...
Apr 22, 2025•18 min•Season 5Ep. 16
Accidentally, I learned that THIS episode is the 200th episode of Confessions of an SEO! Yay me! I’ve learned a lot and this week I’m going to go through three ideas or conceptions that the SEO community holds in regards to indexing that I’d like to debunk. 1. Indexers index content because they have a special door into to Google 2. Indexers produce a crawl on demand - think Google’s indexing API 3. Every article online about indexer comparison data is current and accurate Mentioned in the show ...
Apr 15, 2025•23 min•Season 5Ep. 15
Wasn't sure exactly what the topic was this week until I just stopped thinking about it - and it came. In today's show I talk a little about one of my favorite time period and place of my movies and books and smash right into wondering if this is the Golden Age or Gilded Age of AI. Hope you enjoy it. Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@ConfessionsofanSEO https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf <-------- Crawl or No Crawl Knowledge panel Tools that I use an...
Apr 08, 2025•15 min•Season 5Ep. 14
Finally, now we know what EEAT is about - not! But what we do know is what it is NOT and that many in our industry have been claiming they did something that according to John Mueller is just not possible. Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@ConfessionsofanSEO https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf <-------- Crawl or No Crawl Knowledge panel Tools that I use and recommend: Indexzilla - https://www.indexzilla.io (indexing serv...
Apr 01, 2025•13 min•Season 5Ep. 13
Yes, that is my data-driven analysis from server logs - its over and the whole process is nearly complete. In this episode I talk about the new Chrome bot seen on March 20th and how a news story from February was discernible within server logs. I kid you not. Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@ConfessionsofanSEO https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf <-------- Crawl or No Crawl Knowledge panel Tools that I use and recommend: Indexzilla - https://...
Mar 25, 2025•10 min•Season 5Ep. 12
This week it would wrong of me not to talk about the current running Core update that started on March 13th. Something very interesting is under the hood and "might" be the reason there aren't a lot of anecdotal gnashing of teeth. Also in this week, I break down how I KNOW with certainty that Google's Indexing API is useless for the average site. Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@ConfessionsofanSEO https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf <-------- Crawl or No Crawl ...
Mar 18, 2025•23 min•Season 5Ep. 11
So much data, so many things to talk about. If you want to get the skinny on this data through the eyes of an indexation and serving expert - you won't want to miss this. Mentioned in the show Part 1 of What 16 Million Pages Can Say [insert link here] Article on Indexing and Serving Data on 16 Million Page https://indexcheckr.com/resources/google-indexing Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@ConfessionsofanSEO https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf <-------- Crawl or No...
Mar 11, 2025•19 min
What a load of data! That's what I thought when I read a new analysis from LinkCheckr on 16 million pages and their state of indexing. If you want to get the skinny on this data through the eyes of an indexation and serving expert - you won't want to miss this. Mentioned in the show Article on Indexing and Serving Data on 16 Million Page https://indexcheckr.com/resources/google-indexing Trad keyword search episode https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/confessions-of-an-seo-1973881/episodes/trad-key...
Mar 04, 2025•17 min
Keyword research has been the foundational activity in SEO since, well, forever. Grab a list of search phrases and optimize a page for each was standard when I entered into SEO. But data reveals that "trad" keyword research is not getting us what we or our clients want. There is a new idea on the block - espoused by myself and others. This week I share an article by Dale Bertrand from Search Engine Land - https://searchengineland.com/fix-traditional-keyword-research-search-intent-451880 Mentione...
Feb 25, 2025•18 min•Season 5Ep. 8
Where do you get your SEO knowledge? How much information out there is just a repeat of what you can read already and perhaps walk away with a higher understanding from the original? I call article like the one I talk about today as Fast Food SEO journalism. And its everywhere. I happen to have a passion about Table of Content links so when there's an article that implies Google says # in URLs are OK - I want to know what precisely is being discussed. Mentioned in the Show - Search Engine Journa...
Feb 18, 2025•16 min
In this episode you will hear about one of my test sites that took a "dirt nap". If you don't know what that means, count yourself lucky! Mentioned in the Show - Last week's episode where I shared my threshold details https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcL6uHMkepw Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@ConfessionsofanSEO https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf <-------- Crawl or No Crawl Knowledge panel Tools that I use and recommend: Indexzilla - https://www.indexzilla.io ...
Feb 11, 2025•14 min•Season 5Ep. 6
In this episode we're gonna get to brass tacks on backlinks and reasons why if you build them on sites or in a fashion that is NOT going to permit Google to take them into the index and/or serve, you're wasting your time. Think of this as know before you go with that backlink source. Get 45% off Magic Mind bundle with my link: https://magicmind.com/confessions #magicmind #mentalwealth #mentalperformance https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf <-------- Crawl or No Crawl Knowledge panel Mention...
Feb 04, 2025•16 min•Season 5Ep. 5
Have you had "scaling" conversations without know they were "scaling" conversations? How much of our time could be saved if we figured out if it NEEDED to be scales vs just assume everything worth doing is ONLY worth doing if you can scale it. Get 45% off Magic Mind bundle with my link: https://magicmind.com/confessionsjan #magicmind #mentalwealth #mentalperformance https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf <-------- Crawl or No Crawl Knowledge panel Mentioned in the Show - Tools that I use and re...
Jan 28, 2025•18 min•Season 5Ep. 4
Welcome to Season 5 of Confessions of an SEO podcast! This week I unpack a discussion on what do you do when Google Patents say one thing and the SERPS imply another? How can both things be true at the same time and our heads not explode? Get 45% off Magic Mind bundle with my link: https://magicmind.com/confessionsjan #magicmind #mentalwealth #mentalperformance https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf <-------- Crawl or No Crawl Knowledge panel Mentioned in the Show - Article about Patent Transparenc...
Jan 21, 2025•21 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Welcome to Season 5 of Confessions of an SEO podcast! In this episode I'm sharing my schema testing data at least as how it stands here in January 2025. You can find my test write up on this page - https://bit.ly/indexdetector - slight scroll down to the words "Schema Testing on a BLANK page testing write up" And in the YT thumbnails - you'll find the video where I screen share my way through the test write so you can follow along. https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf <-------- Crawl or No Crawl Kn...
Jan 14, 2025•14 min•Season 5Ep. 2
Welcome to Season 5 of Confessions of an SEO podcast! In this episode i talk about an article about a Search On The Record podcast from Google engineers. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-podcast-discusses-seo-expertise/536606/ https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf <-------- Crawl or No Crawl Knowledge panel Interview with Jesper Nissen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LssaigpBYiI Tools that I use and recommend: Indexzilla - https://www.indexzilla.io (LAUNCHED!!!) Cora Software ...
Jan 07, 2025•14 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Final episode of Season 4! Wishing you and yours a wonderful, warm, expansive New Year! https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf <-------- Crawl or No Crawl Knowledge panel Mentioned in the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LssaigpBYiI link to the Monday training - Tools that I use and recommend: Indexzilla - https://www.indexzilla.io (LAUNCHED!!!) Cora Software https://bit.ly/confessionscora...
Dec 31, 2024•11 min•Season 4Ep. 50
This is one of the last 2 episodes in Season 4. As I started to update my indexation history log, I saw that as of today this is my 1200th day of testing. Round numbers are fun and sobering too! https://g.co/kgs/xXDzBNf <-------- Crawl or No Crawl Knowledge panel Mentioned in the show: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/confessions-of-an-seo-1973881/episodes/no-such-thing-as-helpful-conte-227270513 Tools that I use and recommend: Indexzilla - https://www.indexzilla.io (LAUNCHED!!!) Cora...
Dec 24, 2024•10 min•Season 4Ep. 49
This week I am sharing a very sensitive topic about SEO testing. At least, sensitive to me. Publishing a test and claiming it did something matters. There are protective measures in SEO testing as I learned it - 1. the test set up 2. the peer review using known search engine and indexation behavior to ensure that the test was indeed TESTING the hypothesis 3. a conclusion indicating if results were clear, absent or mixed aka inconclusive It is the responsibility of the seo testing community to pr...
Dec 17, 2024•18 min•Season 4Ep. 48
Too much outcome, not enough journey In this episode are updates about what I'm working on and things I want to get better at in 2025. Mentioned in the show Season 1, episode 2 - Why I Dislike Working With SEO Clients Tools that I use and recommend: Indexzilla - https://www.indexzilla.io (Coming Soon!) Cora Software https://bit.ly/confessionscora On page analy...
Dec 10, 2024•15 min•Season 4Ep. 47
