Rewind to fast forward - WeLoveSEO 2021 Paris

1
Rewind to fast forward
Play the classics or time for change?
Bastian Grimm, Peak Ace AG

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At least, not really, anymore.
Technical SEO doesn’t matter.

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Fully automated, AI-driven content generation is NOT
a thing of the future – it’s already here.
Nope, content isn’t, either…

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
4
Back in 2008, I used to explain SEO to C-suites like this:
Seriously, who doesn’t love the good old 4:3 slide format?!
Even back then, there were three
crucial pillars… including links!

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You didn’t really want me to talk
about links, right?

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I love data as much as the next person – but SEO can do
so much more than that. It can help us understand
demand, behaviour, and more.
Don’t obsess over rankings!

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
7
We’re moving away from “over 200 ranking factors”
And as for those “ranking factors studies”… well, ranking signals can't be sorted on a
spreadsheet by order of importance – it’s much more complex than that!
Source: https://pa.ag/3BbVS6k
The MUM algorithm can take images
as an input (no keywords!) and provide
an answer sorted from web pages around
the world, regardless of language.
How would a general “ranking factor”
like links or keywords in title even work
in a scenario like that?

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
8
Let’s look at a few hypotheticals. What if…
Technical SEO doesn’t matter anymore?
1 CMSes like WordPress solve major technical issues by
themselves
Content is no longer a key differentiator?
2 Content can be produced by AI at scale, with almost no
human intervention
Links don’t move the needle anymore?
3 Declining in relevance and other, more accurate types of
ranking signals available

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Before we go there,
let’s take a step back…

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PAST

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
11
25 years ago, students Brin and Page set up a search
engine they called “BackRub”:
Source: https://pa.ag/3EAUhJl
BackRub in 1996:
75 million
indexed URLs
Google in 2021:
more than 130
trillion URLs

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
12
A bit later, an early version of Google looked like this:
This was end of ‘98, and Google! Was! Excited! To! Be! Here!

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
13
And search result pages used to look somewhat different:
This was a bit later, around 2006-2007

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
14
Notice anything familiar?
Yup, good ol’ left-hand navigation is back – only took Google 15 years or so:

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
15
Ok, in fairness – it’s much smarter than it used to be
Google calls this "dynamic organisation“; vertically organised on mobile. It appears in
different colours, different positions and is sometimes even sticky:
Source: https://pa.ag/3hMvY1C

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
16
Also, continuous search just got introduced in Chrome
“Keep searching without needing to hit the back button” – essentially continuous search
directly in your Chrome browser, and yes, this can/will also contain competitors:
Source: https://pa.ag/3ECb3In
[…] To make it easier to navigate from
one search result to the next in Chrome,
we’re experimenting with adding a row
beneath the address bar on Chrome for
Android that shows the rest of the search
results so you can get to the next result
without having to go back […]

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
17
As well as continuous scrolling on mobile devices
Available in Google Search for most English searches on mobile devices in the US:
Source: https://pa.ag/3BLJvhM

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
18
Google is blending Search & Chrome more and more
Chrome is adding a “side search” panel which will make it easier to browse previous
search results – no need to hit the back button anymore:
Source: https://pa.ag/2Yj8N7S

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
19
Google is really becoming creative with more ad space
“You can traffic full-page web ads that appear between page views“ – like seriously?!
Source: https://pa.ag/3FjJlR4

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
20
Google continues to pull as much data as possible
For most queries about this year’s Olympics, there was no need to leave the SERP:
Source: Alistair Lattimore via https://pa.ag/3ztZjDM

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
21
Nothing new, right?
That’s very true actually; in fact, I used this example in a presentation years ago:
Source: Peak Ace presentation from 2018 via https://pa.ag/3hPQfU1
new president usa
The searcher instantly found what
was expected= happy user!

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
22
Google wants to be the single global source of information
Google will change and evolve
to meet this goal. If your business
doesn't adapt - it's going to lose.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
23
It’s more than pulling in data: it’s making you “stick”
Now, you need one more click to get to what you need (like a phone number,
or a route) – essentially, Google is artificially inflating the number of searches, again:
Source: https://pa.ag/39kdxwz

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
24
Google dedicates almost half the first page to its own
products, which dominate the coveted top of the page:
Source: https://pa.ag/2ZgGJTl

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
25
Speak no evil, think no evil!
Google makes it obvious that certain words are taboo in both internal and external
communication, e.g. don’t use “market share”, or “market” – instead, use “industry”:
Source: https://pa.ag/3nQV9Ug & https://pa.ag/3zkWDIN

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
26
Tons of smaller changes, impossible to really keep track
Around July ’21, Google started testing indenting search results from the same domain:
Source: https://pa.ag/3hPsSda

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
27
Google introduced various types of in-SERP warnings
E.g. for fast-changing information and to fight misinformation:
Source: https://pa.ag/3tUcVqR

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
28
Back to the big stuff: Much more than visual changes
High-authority sites (with health info) started seeing massive increases in June 2020,
which were (partially) scaled back during the December 2020 core update:
Source: Sistrix Toolbox & Lily Ray via https://pa.ag/39Bkslf

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
29
But speaking of updates… summer of updates, much?
Passage ranking
(EN only)
10.2.
June core
update
5.6.
Page experience
update
15.6.
Web spam update
(Part #1)
24.6.
Web spam update
(Part #2)
30.6.
July core
update
4.7.
“About this result”
panel update
22.7.
Page title
update
25.8.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
30
Can‘t keep up?
Sistrix (Google Updates Checker) or Semrush (Sensor) has got you covered, for free!
Source: https://pa.ag/3koWG1S & https://pa.ag/3hLQDTi

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Who'd have thought that Google would actually
mention links from time to time ...
"Web Spam Updates“ are back…!

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(Yet)
Maybe links aren’t entirely dead?

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No one really uses fancy “new“ attributes
like rel=sponsored, but Google desperately
wants the data.
My guess?

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
34
I think there’s a reason why this is all happening at once…
In May 2021, Google published a major release of “TF-Ranking” that enables full
support for natively building LTR models using Keras (a high-level Tensor Flow 2 API):
Source: https://pa.ag/3EJYRoG
These [Keras] components make
building a customised LTR model
easier than ever and facilitate
rapid exploration of new model
structures for production and
research. Our most recent release
[is] the culmination of 2.5 years
of neural LTR research.

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LTR is a class of techniques applying supervised machine
learning (ML) to solve ranking problems.
LTR = Learning to Rank

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
36
Interpretable LTR using GAMs (=interpretable rankings)
GAMs are compact, intrinsically interpretable models which consider both the ranked
items and context features (e.g. query/user profile)
Source: https://pa.ag/2ZcvBXs

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
37
So, let’s try to make this a bit more visual:
Source: https://pa.ag/3EJYRoG
For each input feature
(e.g. distance), a sub-
model produces a sub-
score that can be
examined, providing
transparency. Context
features (e.g. user device)
can be used to derive
importance weights of
sub models.

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Now, developers (and you) can “understand“ choices,
selections and groups of rankings created by those LTR
ML models, for much faster improvements
This is REALLY huge!

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
39
Clearly, this trend will only continue:
Google recently updated the “How Google Search Works” website reported that they
made 4,500 “improvements” to search in 2020 alone:
Source: https://pa.ag/3BbqN2H

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Fail to give searchers what they want, and your chances
of ranking are slim to none
But it‘s not only updates;
intent also plays a huge role!

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
41
30-second recap: what’s search intent anyways?
Search intent is the why behind a search query: why did the person make this search?
Are they looking for information, to make a purchase, or for a specific website?
Informational
Navigational
Commercial
Transactional
▪ “Jason Statham movies”
▪ “Berlin Paris distance”
▪ “what are carbs”
▪ “peak ace address”
▪ “gmail”
▪ ”instagram login”
▪ “Dubai winter temperature”
▪ “haircut near me”
▪ “best webinar software”
▪ “Audi rsq8 price”
▪ “champagne next day delivery”
▪ “BER CDG flights”

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
42
Google is obsessed with “Intent”
The current version of their Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines mentions “Intent” over
420 times – the “Needs Met” section spans over almost 30 pages:
Source: https://pa.ag/2W1qRCS

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
43
Hate to say but it… again, ML plays a role here as well:
Back in 2007, Microsoft published a patent that suggests that 87% of ambiguous
queries can be identified and understood with supervised machine learning:
Source: https://pa.ag/2XHdZTt
We propose a machine learning
model based on search results
to identify ambiguous queries.
The best classifier achieves accuracy as
high as 87%. By applying the classifier,
we estimate that about 16% queries
are ambiguous in the sampled logs.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
44
Thanks to recent advances in ML, Google has
made huge leaps ahead with getting search
intent right - and they're only going to get
better at it. I expect them to reduce the number
of results once they’re ~100% certain.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
45
Can’t get your head round it? Automating at scale?
Kevin Indig has got you covered! Go check out his two articles on the topic:
Source: https://pa.ag/3u41oFj

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
46
You‘re late to the party if you haven‘t figured this out yet:
It’s of utmost importance right now
to get intent mapping right; intent
means relevance and therefore better
rankings. Get this wrong, and you
have no chance of ranking long term.

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So yep, tons of things going on –
let’s fast forward to today:

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PRESENT

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Wait a second - this isn't new! Isn't this just what
we used to call “domain authority”?
Expertise, Authoritativeness
and Trustworthiness (E-A-T)

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
50
Back in 2019, Google gave us their official “confirmation”
E-A-T is an important part of their algorithms. If you have been negatively affected by a
core update, you need to get to know the QRG as well as E-A-T specifically:
Source: https://pa.ag/3u1kBrm
The concept of E-A-T
is discussed in detail
in Google’s Quality
Raters’ Guidelines
(QRG). Demonstrating
good E-A-T both on
and off your website
can (potentially) help
improve rankings.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
51
Let‘s try to summarise what E-A-T actually is
Surfacing results with good E-A-T
is a goal of Google, and what the
algorithms are supposed to do –
but E-A-T itself is not an explanation
of how the algorithms currently work.
Because there are soooo…(!) many misconceptions out there:

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Google's algorithms don't give an E-A-T score.
Quality raters analyse E-A-T in their checks, but don't give
a score and it doesn't directly affect your rankings.
There is no E-A-T score

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
53
E-A-T is not an algorithm (on its own)
[Google has] a collection of millions of tiny
algorithms that work in unison to spit out a
ranking score. Many of those […] look for signals
in pages or content. When you put them together
[…], they can be conceptualised as E-A-T.
Gary Illyes at PubCon in October 2019:

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
54
E-A-T is not a “real ranking factor”
Source: https://pa.ag/3zAqvAO
See what I did there?

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
55
E-A-T approximates what the algorithms should do
Source: https://pa.ag/3CCXW7I
[…] what would Google do algorithmically to impact those
[E-A-T] things? When it comes to, say, health – would
Google employ BioSentVec embeddings to determine which
sites are more relevant to highly valuable medical texts? […]
I tend to think they’re experimenting here [… and] this is a
far better conversation than say, should I change my byline
to include ‘Dr.’ in hopes that it conveys more expertise?”
This quote from AJ Kohn contains a fantastic, hands-on description:

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
56
BioSentVec? Sentence embeddings? YES, more ML!
Sentence embeddings represent entire sentences and their semantic information as
vectors. This helps the machine to understand context, intention, and other nuances:
Source: https://pa.ag/3u3EttK
BioSentVec is a set of biomedical
embeddings pre-trained on 30M+
articles; specifically for the health
vertical, this would allow search engines
to more accurately judge content for
accuracy and trustworthiness.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
57
Still confused about what EAT is & how to improve it?
Check out these articles from Marie Haynes (MHC) and Fajr Muhammad (iPullRank):
Source: https://pa.ag/39uPgUo & https://pa.ag/2W3gb6T

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Introduced in early 2021, it gives more information
about the sites that appear in Google Search
“About this result“ panel

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
59
Continued investment in information literacy features
“About this Result” has been viewed 400M+ times since its launch, and a new version
with even more details is on the way:
Source: https://pa.ag/2YlOdUQ
The panel will now include
information about the source itself
(Wikipedia description), and what
the site says about itself, as well as
news, reviews and other
contextual information that can
help the user to better evaluate
unfamiliar or new sources.

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… or Passage Indexing? Or both?
Passage Ranking

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
61
Passage Indexing >> Passage Ranking
Google’s approach to better understand and rank “less well-structured” long-form
content:
Source: https://pa.ag/2W0Sqw3
Focus on very long pages and/or pages
that target multiple topics
Improved understanding of certain sections
(“passages”) of a page better which
previously might have seemed irrelevant
Passages won’t be indexed alone; the
passage identified will be given additional
weight in ranking, thus “passage ranking”.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
62
Passage Ranking went live on February 10, 2021
But: “only in the US in English” (read: for English-language search queries)
Source: https://pa.ag/2W0Sqw3
Sooo… maybe they’ll tell us, maybe not?!

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
63
Passage Ranking: what you really need to know
Google’s Martin Splitt says: “It’s just us getting better at more granularly understanding
the content of a page, and being able to score different parts of a page independently”
Source: https://pa.ag/3kx6o2h

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“Continue to focus on great content” – that’s what
Google tells us. So why even bother?
There’s nothing special
creators need to do!

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
65
Could there be another “ML connection” going on here?
Check out Dawn Anderson’s fantastic coverage of BERT, its capabilities as a re-ranker
including current limitations and why BERT is (most likely) used in passage ranking:
Source: https://pa.ag/3u0KuaN
[…] it is highly likely BERT has a strong connection
to the change [passage indexing], given the
overwhelming use of BERT (and friends) as a passage
re-ranker in the research of the past 12 months or so.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
66
Passage re-ranking using BERT
BERT has probably been (completely) repurposed to add contextual meaning to a
training set of passages in two stages:
Source: https://pa.ag/3oCy0Wh
Super super(!) simply put, a
“re-ranker” takes classic
rankings signals and then re-
ranks the initial results based
on additional or more refined
input and/or data. Essentially,
a re-ranker is a layer on top.

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So, where does all this lead?

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FUTURE

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
69
Here’s what I think is going to happen…
Google is moving towards becoming a fully
automated recommender system, operating in
an (almost entirely) query-less world, which
anticipates your every question based on your
individual search journey/context.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
70
What’s a recommender system?
Recommenders produce items based on user history/similarities. Results are computed
by predicting their rating or by recommending similar items:
Source: https://pa.ag/3CCSIJa

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Google has been figuring out what people might ask
based on search history, user data and other data points
for a long time. Just see “people also ask”!
Anticipate questions before asking?

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
72
In fact, at Search On 2021 Google confirmed exactly this:
Prabhakar Raghavan (SVP
, Google) said:
Source: https://pa.ag/3amVV3L
My team and I spent a great deal
of time providing high-quality
answers to questions that
haven’t even been asked yet.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
73
A query-less world – but how?
Obviously, it’s already possible to search on lots of devices without a keyboard; but AI-
driven solutions allow for surfacing info/content without actively searching for it:
Source: https://pa.ag/2W1E3ro
Google Discover is a content
recommendation engine that suggests
content across the web based on a
user’s search history and behaviour.
Google Assistant allows users to engage
in two-way conversations and get
answers from the system without ever
even looking at a “classic” search result.
Google Lens lets you search what you
see - from your camera or photo.
Over 3 billion searches monthly already,
and especially popular in learning.

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Moving beyond standalone, individual search queries
which were meant to provide “the best answer” towards
understanding context and language in search.
Search journeys?

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
75
The Google Multitask Unified Model (MUM)
Google’s most recent push into AI, seeking to deliver search results that overcome
language and format barriers to deliver an improved search experience:
Source: https://pa.ag/3kvuUAQ & https://pa.ag/3CFMMiP
▪ Like BERT, it’s built on a transformer architecture
▪ 1,000x more powerful than BERT
▪ Can acquire deep knowledge of the world
▪ Understand and generate language
▪ Trained across 75 languages
▪ Understand multiple forms of information

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
76
A lot of innovation in NLP comes with larger datasets
MUM uses the T5 model which is pre-trained on C4 and achieves state-of-the-art
results on many NLP benchmarks:
Source: https://pa.ag/3EFfRfT
To accurately measure the effect of
scaling up […], one needs a dataset
that is not only high-quality and
diverse, but also massive. […]
To satisfy these requirements,
we developed the Colossal Clean
Crawled Corpus (C4), a cleaned
version of Common Crawl that
is two orders of magnitude
larger than Wikipedia.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
77
One thing that often gets overlooked…
Source: https://pa.ag/3CFMMiP
MUM is multimodal, so it understands
information across text and images
and, in the future, can expand to more
modalities like video and audio.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
78
Google Cloud > Vision AI (for images)
Vision API offers access to powerful pre-trained ML models. Detect objects and faces,
read printed and handwritten text, etc.
Source: https://pa.ag/3u3nOGR

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
79
“Search part of the page with Google Lens“, anyone?
Want a test-drive? Go to > chrome://flags > Enable Lens Region Search (restart Chrome)
Source: https://pa.ag/3DfKc3o

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
80
Also, Google is getting into brands in a big way
They will soon be measuring brand penetration using image recognition:
Source: https://pa.ag/3AK3Lz0
Image analysis by e.g. utilizing
Google Streetview can tell them a
lot about brand saturation and
capacity in different geographic
areas – Google might already
know how much more than what
we actually think they do.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
81
Google Cloud > Video AI
Current core features around understanding “things” in a video (e.g. objects, location
and actions), various new stuff in beta (celebrity, face and person detection):
Source: https://pa.ag/3CAE2KD
Google’s Video AI API services have
some really powerful features:
▪ Streaming video analysis
▪ Object detection and tracking
▪ Text detection and extraction
▪ Explicit content detection
▪ Automated closed captioning & subtitles
▪ Celebrity recognition
▪ Face detection
▪ Person detection with pose estimation
▪ … and more!

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
82
Google Cloud > Speech-to-Text (for audio, e.g. podcast)
Audio input processing at-scale including complex features such as multi-speaker
recognition, etc.
Source: https://pa.ag/3lLG3wO

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
83
MUM & Lens were the hottest topics at Search On 21
According to Google, MUM technology is going to revolutionise the way we engage
with information; if you haven’t watched the video yet – make sure you do:
Source: https://pa.ag/3l8DAgK
MUM can simultaneously
understand information across
a wild range of formats and
draw implicit connections
between concepts, topics, and
ideas of the world around us.

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Google is already very capable
of understanding formats way
beyond simple text!

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What does that mean for
our SEO work?

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Maybe “doesn’t matter” is a little strong. Going forward,
I see tech SEO as more of an “enabler”
Technical SEO

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Or as some people call it: “edge SEO“ or
“SEO on the edge”. Ever heard of it?
Serverless SEO

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
88
Why “SEO on the edge” and how does it work?
Using a CDN, all requests will pass through “edge servers“. When we ignore DNS,
databases etc for a minute, this is what it would look like:
First request, ever.
peakace.js is not cached
on edge server yet
Origin server
Request: peakace.js Request: peakace.js
peakace.js delivered
from origin server
Response: peakace.js
peakace.js gets cached
on edge server

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
89
Why “SEO on the edge” and how does it work?
The 2nd request of “peakace.js” is sent to the edge server, however this time “the edge”
knows about it and can deliver it straight away; the request won’t reach the origin:
Second request
(independent of user)
Origin server
Request: peakace.js
peakace.js delivered
from edge server
peakace.js is cached
on edge server

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
90
Back in Sept 2017, Cloudflare introduced their “Workers“
Workers use the V8 JavaScript engine built by Google and run globally on Cloudflare's
edge servers. A typical Worker script executes in <1ms – that’s fast!
Source: https://pa.ag/3otrFMK

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Using Workers to overcome challenges
and limitations with popular CMS and
e-commerce platforms.

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Workers are fairly straightforward and easy to implement,
requiring only minimal dev efforts.
Easily build a proof-of-concept
rollout & business case

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
93
Does this only work with Cloudflare?
Similar implementations are also available with some of the most popular CDN
providers out there:
[email protected] Edge Workers Cloudflare Workers
Lam[email protected]

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
94
You can easily test new page titles / descriptions
An HTMLRewriter allows you to build comprehensive and expressive HTML parsers
inside of a Cloudflare Workers application:
Element selectors are super
powerful yet easy to use:

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
95
With full control over the HTML response, it’s easy to test
new content!

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Signed exchanges (SXG)?

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
97
SXG allow Google Search to prefetch your content
Similar to AMP
, SXG allows resources like HTML, JS, CSS, images and fonts to be pre-
fetched directly from the SERP – allowing for an “instant experience“ post click:
Source: https://pa.ag/3AbSlUg

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
98
Again, Cloudflare has got you covered:
The technical implementation process is not simple, so I expect this to be huge!
Source: https://pa.ag/3uFs3IW

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
99
According to Sistrix’s research, CWV seem to have impact:
Source: https://pa.ag/2WHBn2t
Page experience in the form of
the Core Web Vitals has a
measurable influence on the
Google rankings. […] for most
commercial websites, it is worth
it. In addition, fast websites not
only help the Google ranking,
but also improve UX.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
100
▪ A deep-dive into all of the Core Web Vitals metrics
▪ Introduction to Google Lighthouse
▪ Critical rendering path optimisation
▪ Image optimisation strategies (formats, file types,
compression, loading strategies) and tools
▪ Font loading strategies
▪ Performance budgeting & monitoring
▪ TTFB, preloading and pre-fetching, CDNS and more.
A deep-dive into Google’s Core Web Vitals
Use my checklist on SpeakerDeck.com to double check:
All slides on SpeakerDeck: https://pa.ag/3874aQL

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User-Agent client hints?

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
102
The User-Agent string is messy, like, very messy:
Over the decades, this string has accrued a variety of details about the client making
the request as well as cruft, due to backwards compatibility:
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P)
AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/93.0.4577.82
Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1;
+http://www.google.com/bot.html)

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
103
The UA string will be frozen, client hints to take over
User-Agent Client Hints are a new expansion to the Client Hints API, that enables
developers to access information about a user's browser – or a crawler’s features:
Source: https://pa.ag/3AiiUaI

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
104
It‘s never too early to start testing these things:
Googlebot (running Chrome >89) already populates those CH-headers:

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
105
There will always be new things in search:
Technical SEO will almost exclusively
focus on testing for humans and
crawlers alike - providing crucial
recommendations enabling sites
to rank in search.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
106
Technical SEO testing – Peak Ace runs its very own test lab
We are trying to understand how Googlebot handles “things“…
Set up new HTML documents/tests with the click of a button
Add an unlimited number of server-side headers, such as X-Robots,
canonicals, hreflang, redirects, caching, etc.
Add elements to the document , for example meta robots,
canonical or tags to run JS Add unique content to the page, depending on the language you want to test for (sometimes, content generation has a valid use-case) Add any type of HTML to the <body> / DOM Integrated bot tracking (JS for evergreen Googlebot + non-JS) by default Automatically generate output by using standard tags (e.g. <iframe>) as well as JavaScript (to ensure rendering is in play) And lots more… 

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
107
Testing beyond technical SEO stuff – real SEO AB testing
SearchPilot and Ryte offer robust solutions to get you going (as in testing!) asap:
Go check them out: https://www.searchpilot.com/ & https://en.ryte.com/

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How to win in the era of “infinite content”?
Content

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
109
The danger of heading towards search singularity:
AI makes it easy to churn out vast
quantities of mediocre content […]
there’s a real risk of medium to long-tail
targeted search results becoming a battle
between human- and AI-generated
content - a search singularity.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
110
GPT3 is only just the beginning…
In Sept 2020, The Guardian had GPT-3, OpenAI’s powerful language generator write an
essay for them from scratch based on a short instruction and some prompts:
Source: https://pa.ag/3moPX83
GPT-3 produced eight different outputs,
or essays. Each one was unique,
interesting and advanced a different
argument. The Guardian could have
just run one of the essays in its
entirety. […] Overall, it took less time
to edit than many human op-eds.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
111
Check out Jarvis – its quality is already really good!
AI trained to generate original, creative content such as headlines, blog posts, sales
emails, video transcripts, and more:
Source: https://www.jarvis.ai
▪ Relies on GPT-3 API, meaning its best
results are in EN
▪ 50+ templates for super-specific
briefings (e.g. FB ads, blog posts,
headlines, etc.)
▪ Specific modules for Amazon, online
shops, or functionality such as a
“summarizer”.
▪ German language available ;)
▪ Don’t just take my word for it! And
try Copy.ai, Writesonic or Copysmith

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OK, let’s talk about the elephant in the room:
quality.
But it won’t be good
enough to rank!

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
113
But it won’t be good enough to rank! Or will it?
Source: https://pa.ag/3BoVRMo
It’s easy to argue that AI-written content is…
not good enough to rank; that it simply dumps
connected ideas together [and connects them
with] passable sounding phrases. [A] simulacrum
of good writing, [it] looks good at first blush but
falls apart on closer inspection.

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Especially on mid- and longtail, it’s fairly common:
No narrative. Repetitive information.
Unoriginal formats.
Have you looked
at the SERPs lately!?

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
115
Truth is, machine-generated content already ranks well!
Granted, this doesn’t always last long term – but still, its totally possible. And has been
for years already, long before AI – with good ol’ “spun” texts:
Source: https://pa.ag/3Bg4xok

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(maybe add some… links?)
And if your content doesn’t rank?

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
117
In all seriousness though:
We’re going to get to a point where
language models – not GPT-3, but one
of the successors in the near future –
will be able to generate perfectly
optimised content.

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Even if it‘s just to generate some headlines, titles and
meta data for you; I‘m sure you‘ll be surprised!
Give GPT-3/Jarvis a try!

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
119
Quality is a powerful differentiator today, but it’s about to
become even more important:
Source: https://pa.ag/3BoVRMo
▪ Focus on information gain in every article
you create
▪ Diversify beyond search and invest in thought
leadership (counter-narrative opinions, personal
narratives, network connections, industry analysis &
data storytelling)
▪ Share the same information but create a
new experience

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Cool! Now, who’s excited to hear about some links??
Links

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Nope, still not going there…

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122
Now what?

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
123
I hope by now we can all agree on this?
AI is fundamentally going to
change the next generation of
search experience.

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
124
In my view, we’re going to see a fundamental shift:
Technical SEO, content and links -
machines will take care of
them all as a basic requirement.

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Experience & Satisfaction

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
126
If a page's elements and content don't affect
Google's understanding of it, user experience
becomes the differentiating factor.
Experience and satisfaction will be most
important to users, and therefore search engines.
Let’s fast forward a bit then, shall we?
If Google were omniscient and could understand content/context perfectly, how would
you rank one page above another if both are equal in quality and relevance?

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
127
The three cornerstones of SEO – 2022 edition
Ensure crawl- & renderability,
optimise architecture, internal
targeting and linking.
Provide unique, holistic and
qualitative coverage of relevant
topics for your readership.
Off-page
On-page
“Get people to talk about us.”
External linking, citations, brand mentions & PR
Trust
Technical
Content
Experience &
Satisfaction

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
128
The war for data is already raging!
Google is delaying cookie blocking, Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC, IOs 14 tracking
prevention, etc.
Source: https://pa.ag/3rBMynk

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
129
Google is going to double-down on ecom/payment data
Until AI works perfectly, Google is going all-in on payment – because ecom data
(like shopping baskets) for attribution and measurement (of satisfaction) are gold!
Image Source: https://pa.ag/3ovhF5D
Experimental features are already part of
Chrome - try for yourself: chrome://flags
(#ntp-chrome-cart-module)

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I don’t think so – but here’s some takes on “near” future
changes I predict we’ll be seeing:
Too far in the future?

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pa.ag
@peakaceag
131
Here’s what I think we’ll be seeing soon:
01
Continued push
for entities &
structured data
With a major focus on
solving the challenge
of inconsistent data
sources and to train
ML algos to
perfection.
02
Establishing
Chrome as the OS
for the web
Google needs this
layer of data and
will push hard
(e.g. Apple/Safari deal)
for continued market
domination
03
Increased
competition due
to MUM
While AI will make
Google even better at
interpreting complex
intents, at the same
time you’ll need to
compete against
more websites.
04
Emphasis on
task-driven
(classic) search
To remain relevant
in “classic search”,
Google needs help
answering any user
question at any time.
Re-finding things will
become a major task;
the “new” SERPs will
reflect that.
05
“Buy now”
button in search
results
With ecom and CMS’s
moving headless and
APIs everywhere, we
should see this within
12 months…!

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www.pa.ag
twitter.com/peakaceag
facebook.com/peakaceag
Take your career to the next level: jobs.pa.ag
Looking for a new challenge?
Peak Ace is hiring for a variety of international
SEO roles, from trainees to team leads.
Get in touch today!
Bastian Grimm
[email protected]

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Rewind to fast forward - WeLoveSEO 2021 Paris

Rewind to fast forward - WeLoveSEO 2021 Paris

Bastian Grimm
PRO

More Decks by Bastian Grimm

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Rewind to fast forward - WeLoveSEO 2021 Paris

Rewind to fast forward - WeLoveSEO 2021 Paris

Bastian Grimm PRO

More Decks by Bastian Grimm

Other Decks in Marketing & SEO

Featured

Transcript

Bastian Grimm
PRO