Industry News

As the Google December 2022 helpful content update and link spam update continue to roll out, I am now seeing more signs of volatility and chatter within the SEO industry in the past 24 hours. It seems like there is another algorithm update, or maybe a continuation from the previous ones, taking place on January 3rd and 4th.

Welcome back from the holidays, don't worry; you didn't miss much. The December 2022 helpful content update and December 2022 link spam update are not done yet. They should be done soon, but right now, when I write this, they are not done.

David Hoang wades into the treacherous waters of the Should managers be technical? debate, and IMO comes out safely on the other side. I really like the 3 points he makes towards the end to articulate his point of view. I won’t spoil it because it’s worth reading the whole post. There’s one other bit I wanted to comment on, though:

The key roles of managers are to set expectations, ensure the team is operating efficiently, and maximize the output of the people on your team. In order...

Welcome to 2023, and with that, here is our Google webmaster report for 2023 - where we summarize the bigger Google SEO-related changes in the past month. The big items were the release of the December 2022 helpful content update and the December 2022 link spam update.

Via Chris Coyier I found this great post by Karl Sutt on How to communicate effectively as a developer. I especially appreciate him pointing out the importance of communicating clearly in short-form writing like Slack messages. His example of “low-resolution” vs. “high-resolution” writing in that context is a useful reminder for all of us:



In both cases, the example on the left is what I call “low-resolution writing”. There is very little context, too much reliance on pronouns...

While it has been calm for the past several days, today is a new day and I am seeing some signs of more volatility and ranking fluctuations as of the past 24 hours or less. Some of the automated tracking tools are picking it up, and I am seeing some renewed chatter in the SEO industry.

Google officially confirmed that the helpful content update needs more time to roll out, but now the link spam update is also past the two-week mark, and it is not done rolling out yet either. John Mueller of Google said these updates may take longer to complete due to the "holidays" and "for safety reasons."

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It seemed a lot calmer this past weekend, Christmas weekend than we had it a while in the world of Google search volatility. This is a good thing since we really want to see the two Google ranking algorithm updates wind down before yearend.

As you know, the December 2022 helpful content update and the link spam update are rolling out now. In fact, it seems like the helpful content update needs more time to do its thing. Taking a look at the past few weeks, the Google Search results, it has been pretty volatile.