Google/SERP Updates:

(0:42) New Search Console URL Inspection API 

Google has released a new API for the URL Inspection tool on Search Console. It will allow developers to ping the API and introduce coverage data into their reporting and tools. This is great news for SaaS tools, CMS plugin tools, SEO agencies, and in-house SEOs.

Even though it’s free, the API does have some limitations per property:

• 2,000 queries per day
• 600 queries per minute

Some devs have created some tutorials to use the data:

• How to use the new URL Inspection API of Google Search Console with #Python. – Tobias Willmann
• Google URL Inspection API with Python – JC Chouinard
• How to use the newest URL Inspection endpoint from the Google Search Console API with Node.js – Jose Luis Hernando

Some SaaS tools have already been integrated with the Search Console URL Inspection API:

ScreamingFrog Update – Includes URL Inspection API integration:

• Google Index Status (including presence on Google, coverage, etc.)
• Mobile Usability
• AMP Validation
• Rich Results & Validation

Google Bulk Inspect URLs – Inspect multiple URLs at once and export the result to Excel and/or a CSV file

Valentin Pletzer but out a Bulk URL Inspection tool for free to generate a quick CSV that hits a lot of the data points available including:

• googleCanonical
• userCanonical
• indexingState
• Sitemap

SiteBulb added integrations as well after the SEO Weekly was filmed.

(3:51) Google Penalizing News Publishers With Manual Actions For Discover & Google News

Barry Schwartz has noticed that since Google put out their Discover/News policies a year ago, we are starting to see actual penalties be levied. Here are the policies for reference:

Search Content policies

And here are some of the reasons that websites are being penalized:

• Misleading content
• Medical content
• Manipulated media

Twitter Threads/Tweets:

(4:30) Do you think it’s better to be an all-rounder SEO or a specialist in a particular niche? What do you consider yourself? – Emma Thompson

Emma received a bunch of great responses to her question on Twitter. Here were a few highlights from the replies:

There is no “better”. I’m an SEO all-rounder who now naturally tends to pick up tech work. Though, say there’s a specific tech problem to diagnose/solve, I do think it’s useful to have the content and links background as it helps open up other routes of enquiry – Natalie Mott

Started off specialized – I only did Google penalties at first. Then as I learned and got more clients I added more offerings, and hired. Now we are still specialized – we do mostly audits, but every day we expand our skillset a little more. – Dr. Marie Haynes

I’m an all-rounder. I love technical but also love getting creative with link building; especially the idea formation. I think people should work where their strengths lay. My old-inhouse team was structured to suit this with tech people and PR people working together – Sunny Matharu

(6:53) Tell us you’re in SEO without saying you’re in SEO – Ahrefs 

On a lark, Ahrefs got the funny Twitter thread going and there were some gems in the replies:

Just solved a multi-million dollar problem in two minutes by updating title tags…  – Andrew Shotland

I make invisible stuff visible –  Chirag

It depends.  And, it will take time.  – Noel Ceta

I say this to my team every day “It’s not our fault, but it’s our problem.” – Shane Martin

(8:14) Wordle acquired “in the low seven figures”. Or as their SEO team said, “for {$143 to $429} per current linking root domain and we should be able to cover the cost with a few well-placed internal Wirecutter links”. Kane Jamison

The simple viral word game Wordle was acquired by the New York Times this week and SEO’s highlighted the SEO benefits of the acquisition. Kane Jamison joked about its link value and the fact that the site the games in on has 64K backlinks.

(9:03) Searchdle – Ryan Jones

Riding the Wordle wave, Ryan Jones of WTFSEO created a little derivative combining Wordle and Search to make Searchdle. Same concept using SEO terms.

General SEO:

(9:30) The Erasure of Hamlet Batista’s Legacy by the SEO Software Industry

Michael King put together a piece about his frustration with a recent wave of SEO SaaS tools rolling out a feature set using technologies for SEO A/B testing or “Edge SEO” originally patented by the late Hamlet Batista. Michael believes that the right and honorable thing to do would be to contribute to Hamlet’s family, his legacy, and acknowledge the credit that he deserves as they profit from his ideas.

At best, we’re talking about negligent theft of intellectual property. At worst, the all-too-common erasure of the contribution of a person of color by the dominant caste. ~Michael King

Michael offers up 3 things that we can do –

1. SEO Software Companies seeking to profit from Hamlet’s uncredited and uncompensated intellectual labor should contribute to ensuring the financial security of Hamlet’s family 
2. SEO Software companies profiting from Hamlet’s uncredited and uncompensated intellectual labor should donate annually to a scholarship fund in Hamlet’s name
3. SEO Software Companies profiting from Hamlet’s uncredited and uncompensated intellectual labor should credit him. Simple. 

Support Hamlet’s family: https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-memory-of-hamlet-batista

(12:32) 29 newsletters that will make you a better SEO – Lidia Infante

Lidia curated an awesome list of newsletters touching on SEO, Marketing, PR, and more. Some of the SEO standouts include:

• SEOFOMO
• SEO for Lunch
• WTSNewsletter
• SEO Notebook
• Moz Top 10

(13:42) IndexWatch 2021: The SEO Losers In Google’s US Search Results

Lily Ray shared her annual analysis of US search visibility in partnership with SEO software Sistrix to highlight the losers of visibility in 2021. This was the companion to the piece that she released last week, SEO Winners.

Some insights included:

• Reduced the visibility of various non-U.S. ccTLDs across several notable brand properties like Pinterest and Amazon.
• Losses for some product review sites like TechRadar
• Travel comparison sites like TripAdvisor
• UGC sites like Quora and Urban Dictionary

(14:54) Bringing Diversity to the SEO Community

Mordy Oberstein had Rejoice Ojiaku on the SEO Rant podcast to discuss the importance of her continued campaign to improve diversity and support of BIPOC and women in the SEO industry. Her big callout focused on financially supporting initiatives to include more black talent at organizations and speaking at conferences and events.

(16:02) Leveraging Synergies Between SEO and Other Channels: An Integrated Marketing Approach – Éléonore Frère

Elenore Frere wrote a deep dive on Moz highlighting all of the ways that SEO can work in tandem cross-channel with a variety of digital marketing channels. When it comes to Search Engine Advertising, some of her suggestions include:

• Achieve SERP domination with organic search and ads
• Use SEA to predict SEO
• Optimize metadata using both channels
• Optimize bidding strategy and budget management

(17:54) Annoying SEO Encounters #1 - When you are not granted Google Analytics access – Natalie Mott

Natalie put together a great explanation of why it’s so difficult to obtain Google Analytics access from clients, how you can more effectively gain access, and if you can’t, what you can use instead.

The solution to this problem is to be assertive and persistent in asking for what you want, and to build relationships with other people in the business who will help you reach your objective outside of your main point of contact, if necessary / appropriate.  ~ Natalie Mott

(19:33) ​​11 Stunning SEO Data Visualizations To Inspire Your Reporting by Brie Anderson

Brie Anderson curated a series of beautiful data visualizations that specifically surface insights for SEO analysis, leading to a better SEO strategy. 

Technical SEO Articles:

(20:15) The eCommerce Technical SEO Framework: Making the Ambiguous Approachable

Tory Gray delivered a comprehensive deep dive into eCommerce Tech SEO. She examined unique and common issues that consistently come up and how to start to solve them.

For example, some of her SEO Problems that are pretty unique to eCommerce include:

• Faceted Navigation Challenges
• Stock Challenges: Handling for Rotating/Out-of-Stock Products
• Categorization Challenges
• Seasonality, Sales & Promotions Challenges (or rather, opportunities!)

(21:13) Core Web Vitals Data Study w/ CrUX & 5.2M Pages — Ahrefs – Patrick Stox

Patrick Stox of Ahrefs compiled data from 5.2M pages to identify some Core Web Vital benchmarks across the internet and highlight where we stand as Page Experience continues to be an important component of SEO. 

Some of his findings include:

• Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX), which is the source of Core Web Vitals data – 33% passing.
• 10% improvement from Jan. to Sept. by device.
• We still have work to do for LCP and CLS.

Tools/Features: 

(23:36) Frase Free tools including their Blog Outline Generator

SEO Content software Frase.io has a variety of free tools to use AI and generate resources to help you create optimized content for your website. This blog outline generator just requires a title and description to create the asset.

(24:09) Using Keyword Time Activated Peaks (KTAP) for SEO Reporting – John Murch 

John Murch of iPullRank produced his step-by-step tutorial on how to use the GrepWords keyword database to create a visualization of keyword search volume over time using a new framework: Keyword Time Activated Peaks of KTAPs.

Rankable: 

(24:57) How To Create Newsworthy Content with Amanda Milligan

This week, Amanda Milligan of Stacker joined the podcast to discuss how to create data-backed content that generates authority, how to build credibility in your industry with content, and the benefits of content syndication.