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This is SEM: your daily SEO inspiration, where I curate/summarize one valuable item related to SEO and send it your way M-F.
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Yesterday Google tweeted about a new algo update:
Released the April 2023 reviews update, which now covers reviews about products, services, and things. Learn more about how to write high quality reviews:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/ecommerce/write-high-quality-reviews
If you’ve got an affiliate review site that URL is definitely worth a read or seven.
Dr. Marie Haynes summed up the most important points in a tweet (that I still cannot embed):
More from Google on the Reviews System (not just product reviews.)
Rewards original research, insightful analysis
Targets articles that recommend, give an opinion, analyze
Page level but could be sitewide if enough review content
Several languages
My Take:
Well well well, we meet again for what must be the 57th time this year, Google update. In February we had the product reviews update, in mid-March it was a core algo update. And now in April there’s another reviews update. So we’re on-pace for one-per-month at this rate…
Yeah…
So I’ve only looked into this a little (as it’s like… one day old at this point), but I bet this update affects a bunch of smaller sites just trying to make some space for themselves in the SERPs commonly dominated by huge, rich media brands and we will not really see much movement for those huge, rich media brands.
That’s just the way it goes, I guess…
I check the results for terms like “Best CBD Oil” and see huge sites like Forbes or newspapers I’ve never heard of like the St. Louis Post Dispatch ranking solidly on page one and I ask myself—this newspaper, this author of the sponsored post, do they have original research and insightful analysis? No—it’s the same 4,000 word “Top X” article with different brands on each site depending on how much they paid to be there, but that’s about it…
So I mostly assume all the smaller sites will get hit.
Anyway, be sure to spend lots of extra money doing legitimate reviews with original research and in-depth analysis or you’ll never see your precious page one again… (unless, of course, you hit that Parasite SEO. Put it on the St. Louis Dispatch and ride those page one rankings…)
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That’s it for today’s newsletter. Check out some of my current favorite resources/tools:
Resources And Recommendations
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Smash Digital (link building):
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A Weekly(ish) Longform SEO Newsletter:
📖 It’s me, I’m the weekly-ish writer. Check out my newsletter, Rank Theory, for "emerging theories, illuminating experiments, and occasional shitposting."
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Thanks for reading!
Until tomorrow…
Sean Markey
sem@seanmarkey.com
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