A Review of Episodes 101-119 - Episode 120

Summary

Grumpy SEO Guy Podcast Summary: Episode 120 – A Review of Episodes 101-119

Release Date: August 6, 2025

In Episode 120 of the Grumpy SEO Guy podcast, the host conducts a comprehensive review of episodes 101 through 119. This summary encapsulates the key discussions, strategies, and insights shared throughout these episodes, providing valuable takeaways for both seasoned SEO professionals and newcomers alike.

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1. Introduction to Episode 120

The episode kicks off with the host reiterating his commitment to delivering practical SEO strategies devoid of unnecessary fluff. Emphasizing his 14 years of experience, he states:

“You will know more about how the SEO industry works than 99% of SEO 'professionals.'” – [00:00]

He sets the stage for the review, highlighting the structure of summarizing each episode by its number and title, followed by a concise analysis.

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2. The Ethics of Link Building (Episode 101)

Core Discussion: The ethical considerations of link building are dissected, addressing accusations of promoting black hat methods like Private Blog Networks (PBNs).

Key Points:

• Backlink Strategies: The host outlines four primary methods to acquire backlinks:
  1. Do Nothing: Rely on natural linking.
  2. Buy Backlinks: Purchase links from various sources.
  3. Link Outreach and Guest Posting: Engage with other websites for backlinks.
  4. Build Your Own Backlinks: Create backlinks through personal efforts.

“We never tell you that you need to do something a certain way, okay? We tell you how the SEO industry works.” – [02:45]

He clarifies that while he provides the avenues to obtain backlinks, the ethical choice lies with the listener.

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3. SEO is Simple, Not Easy (Episode 102)

Core Discussion: SEO fundamentals are broken down to emphasize that while the concepts are straightforward, their implementation remains challenging.

Key Points:

• Four Essentials to Rank:
  1. Avoid Penalties: Ensure compliance with search engine guidelines.
  2. Content: Presence of content, irrespective of its quality.
  3. Relevancy: Aligning content with targeted keywords.
  4. Authority: Building authority primarily through backlinks.

“SEO is simple, but it's not easy.” – [04:58]

The host elaborates on each component, stressing that authority acquisition is the most arduous aspect due to the competitive nature of obtaining quality backlinks.

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4. Beware of SEO Buyer Scams (Episode 103)

Core Discussion: Explores deceptive practices where potential clients attempt to exploit SEO services for free or discounted work.

Key Points:

• Scam Tactics: Buyers may request heavily discounted or free SEO services under the guise of potential future business, which seldom materializes.
• Host's Response Strategy: Provides a template response to such scam attempts, maintaining professionalism while declining the offer.

“If you want to stop looking at like every time... you have to be aware that if you're buying a domain, there's a lot of things you should look at besides Dr.” – [27:59]

The episode underscores the importance of discerning legitimate opportunities from scams to maintain the integrity of SEO practices.

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5. Understanding Backlinks and Authority (Episodes 105 & 106)

Core Discussion: A deep dive into the mechanics of backlinks and their pivotal role in establishing website authority.

Key Points:

• Four Ways to Acquire Backlinks:

  1. Do Nothing: Passive link acquisition.
  2. Buy Backlinks: Purchasing links with caution.
  3. Link Outreach and Guest Posting: Building relationships for backlinks.
  4. Build Your Own Backlinks: Proactive backlink creation.

• Quality Over Quantity: Emphasizes that not all backlinks are equal; contextual and relevant backlinks are more beneficial than numerous low-quality links.

“You could have one backlink that is more helpful than hundreds of bad quality backlinks.” – [38:13]

The host advises focusing on authoritative and contextually relevant backlinks to enhance SEO effectiveness.

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6. Debunking Common SEO Myths (Episodes 109 & 112)

Core Discussion: Challenges prevalent misconceptions in the SEO world, particularly the overemphasis on content quality and conflating SEO with conversion optimization.

Key Points:

• Content is Not King: Asserts that content quality is not a direct ranking factor, as search engines cannot inherently differentiate between good and bad content.

  “Quality of content is not a ranking factor for reasons that we will talk about later.” – [19:20]

• SEO vs. Conversion Optimization: Clarifies that SEO focuses on search engine rankings, while conversion optimization aims at increasing website engagement and sales. These are distinct processes requiring different strategies.

  “SEO is search engine optimization. It's the process of getting websites to the top of the search engines. It has literally nothing to do with conversion optimization.” – [27:33]

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7. Monitoring SEO Progress (Episode 110)

Core Discussion: Guidance on effectively tracking SEO performance using SERP (Search Engine Results Page) charts.

Key Points:

• SERP Charts: Essential tool for measuring website rankings over time.

  “The only way to measure SEO progress is with a SERP chart because the only thing that SEO does is gets you to the top of the search engines.” – [22:19]

• Tool Recommendations: Suggests using tools like Serp Fox for accurate tracking, emphasizing the need for customizable keyword tracking rather than relying on average position metrics.

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8. Advanced Link Building Techniques (Episodes 111 & 114)

Core Discussion: Strategies for constructing and managing Private Blog Networks (PBNs) and distinguishing between good and bad backlinks.

Key Points:

• PBN Construction: Importance of purchasing authoritative domains, correct hosting (avoiding SEO-specific hosts), and meticulous website management.

• Good vs. Bad Backlinks:

  • Bad Backlinks: Forum profiles, sidebar links, and blog comments are deemed spammy and ineffective.
  • Good Backlinks: Contextual links within relevant content that add value.

“A good backlink is contextual. It appears in the writing somewhere and makes sense.” – [29:45]

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9. The Impact of AI on SEO (Episodes 115 & 119)

Core Discussion: Examines the relationship between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and SEO, dispelling fears about AI undermining SEO efforts.

Key Points:

• AI's Role: Advises against over-reliance on AI services, promoting traditional SEO practices as more reliable.

  “Calm down. AI is not taking your traffic.” – [30:22]

• LLMs and SEO: Critiques the notion of using files like LLMs.txt for influencing AI behavior, noting that major AI tools do not utilize such files.

• AI-Generated Content: Highlights challenges with AI content indexing, suggesting that AI content may lack uniqueness and value compared to human-generated content.

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10. Addressing SEO Metrics and Scams (Episodes 113 & 118)

Core Discussion: Critiques the overemphasis on metrics like Domain Rating (DR) and exposes scams related to high-DR backlink offerings.

Key Points:

• Domain Rating (DR): Warns against placing undue importance on DR when evaluating backlinks or purchasing domains.

  “Domain rating is an estimate of a website's authority that's all it is.” – [27:59]

• Backlink Scams: Exposes fraudulent practices where scammers offer high-DR backlinks that offer no real SEO benefits.

“They will put a comment at the bottom of the article, right? So technically, you're getting a backlink from a high doctor website. However, it's not going to benefit you even a little bit.” – [40:57]

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11. Public Challenges and Community Engagement (Episodes 117 & 119)

Core Discussion: Engages the audience through public challenges, urging proof-based claims in SEO practices.

Key Points:

• Public Challenge: Invites SEO practitioners to demonstrate websites ranking without backlinks, reinforcing his stance on the indispensability of backlinks for authority and rankings.

  “If you have a website in a medium to competitive industry that ranks with no backlinks, please show it to me.” – [37:32]

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Conclusion

Episode 120 serves as a robust encapsulation of critical SEO principles, debunking myths, exposing scams, and reinforcing the importance of authoritative backlinks and ethical SEO practices. Grumpy SEO Guy’s candid and no-nonsense approach provides listeners with actionable insights and a clear understanding of effective SEO strategies.

For those seeking to delve deeper into specific topics, the reviewed episodes offer detailed discussions and practical advice to enhance your SEO endeavors.

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Notable Quotes:

• “SEO is simple, but it's not easy.” – [04:58]
• “Quality of content is not a ranking factor for reasons that we will talk about later.” – [19:20]
• “A good backlink is contextual. It appears in the writing somewhere and makes sense.” – [29:45]
• “Calm down. AI is not taking your traffic.” – [30:22]
• “If you have a website in a medium to competitive industry that ranks with no backlinks, please show it to me.” – [37:32]

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Stay Connected:

• Subscribe: Ensure you never miss an episode by subscribing to the podcast.
• Support: Show your support on Patreon.
• Community: Join discussions on the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit.
• Contact: For detailed inquiries or SEO advisory calls, email [e-mail].

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This summary aims to provide a comprehensive overview of Episode 120, capturing the essence of the discussions from episodes 101-119. For an in-depth understanding, listeners are encouraged to tune into the individual episodes.

Transcript

[A]

This is Grumpy SEO Guy episode 120, a review of episodes 101 to 119. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. I'm the grumpy SEO Guy and I'm sharing with you the strategies that have helped me successfully run my SEO agency for the last 14 years. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my knowledge and experience, discussing tips and strategies, and trying to help you cut through the confusion that permeates this industry. If you listen to this podcast, you will know more about SEO than 99% of people on the planet. Ready? Let's get started. I'm the Grumpy SEO Guy. Let me tell you why I'm grumpy today. I'm grumpy today because people are still not quite certain about how certain parts of SEO work. So in this episode, we're going to review episodes 101 to 119, continuing with the manner of doing a review episode every 20 episodes. So I will tell you the number of the episode, the name of the episode, and then I will provide a review of what we talked about in that episode. But first, let's do some announcements. New episodes come out on Wednesday, 9am Central Standard Time. That's for the podcast. For those of you that listen to this on YouTube, it's gonna be a little bit after that. If you leave a comment on YouTube, I try to respond on Thursday, but sometimes it takes longer than that. If you like the podcast, please subscribe. If you really like the podcast and wanna support us on Patreon, you can do so at patreon.com grumpyseo. And if you want to stop by and say hi, you can Visit the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit Reddit.comr grumpyseoguy and if you have a question that is more detailed than something that could be easily handled on Reddit or via email, and you want to set up a Zoom SEO advisory call, you can email me at hello grumpy seoguy.com and we can talk about how to get that scheduled. Okay, now let's do the review. But before we do that, my lawyer tells me that I have to say this right now. A quick disclaimer before we get started. Everything I say here is based on my experience and opinion from 14 years in the industry. I don't officially know how Google or any other search engines work. Everything I say here is hypothetical and based on My experience, this podcast does not constitute advice or services. What worked for me may or may not work for you. Okay, back to the show. Okay, episode 101, the ethics of link building. So there have been some comments that, oh, grumpy SEO guy thinks he's so good at SEO, but he's teaching black hat methods. Oh, okay, look, look, first of all, no, we're not. And the specific thing that they're talking about here was a private blog network. They said private blog networks are black hat.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

So this episode is discussing how ethical some of the stuff that we talk about could be. So there are some people, for example, who think that having a private blog network is unethical.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

So to be transparent here, we never tell you that you need to do something a certain way, okay? We tell you how the SEO industry works. For example, there are four ways to get backlinks, and you know you need backlinks because backlinks are the only way to get authority, and authority is required to rank. So you know that you need backlinks. And. And there are four ways to get backlinks. We're gonna cover these later, but let's do them really quickly. You can do nothing and let people link to you. You can buy backlinks, you can link outreaching guest post, or you can build your own backlinks, okay? That's how you get backlinks. I'm not telling you that you have to do it a certain way. I'm telling you those are the four ways to get backlinks. One of them is to use a private blog network, or as we call it, a private blog portfolio. Because a private blog network suggests that all the websites are linked to each other, and that's a bad way to. Anyways. I'm not saying that you have to do it that way. If you think that is not ethical, don't do it that way. Problem solved. But you do need backlinks, and my goal is to tell you how to get backlinks, okay? If you don't want to use a private blog portfolio, don't use a private blog portfolio. You can do the other three methods, but if you think buying backlinks is not ethical, then you can't do number two. Either you can only do nothing and let people link to you, or link outreach and guest post. Those are your choices, okay? If you don't like something, don't do it. Problem solved. But you also need backlinks. So you need to decide how you want to get backlinks. There are four ways to get backlinks. We just talked about them. We're going to talk about them later. Those. You need to do at least one of those methods.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

Ethical or not, I'm not sure, but I'm telling you how SEO works. I'm not telling you how you need to do it.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

Anyways, episode 102. SEO is simple, not easy.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

So SEO actually is simple. But simple doesn't mean easy.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

So let me. Let's go over this really quickly. In order to rank, okay, there are only four things that you need. And to be clear, this is for what I call regular SEO. This is not for local SEO. Local SEO is different. Local SEO is when you see the actual addresses of the physical locations in the results. It's when they appear in the maps.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

That is local SEO. If you are not talking about that, that is regular SEO.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

So the rules are different. We are talking about regular SEO here. There are four things that you need to rank.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

We have other episodes about them. We're going to talk about them later too. But there are four things that you need to rank. I'll tell you them very quickly because SEO is simple. One, don't get a penalty. Two, have content. The content doesn't need to be useful, helpful, or good. It doesn't even need to be true. It just needs to exist on your website. Three, you need relevancy. And four, you need authority.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

Really fast. Don't get a penalty. That's easy. Have content. That's easy. Have relevancy. That's easy. Let me explain these really quickly. Content is just whatever's on your site.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

Content is useful for two reasons. First, you need content so you don't have an empty website.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

If people got to your website and it was empty, they wouldn't do anything. There is no reason to have a website like that. So you need content so your website isn't empty. You also need content to help create relevancy. Relevancy means what is the topic of your website? If your website is about blue widgets, okay, you need to be relevant for blue widgets. And one of the ways to do that is to have content that discusses blue widgets.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

Very easy. Very easy. Number three, relevancy. Like we said, relevancy comes from content and from backlinks. If your website is about blue widgets, and you get backlinks that talk about blue widgets, that will also provide relevancy for blue widgets.

[B]

Okay? Okay.

[A]

That's easy.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Relevancy is easy. Just literally Talk about whatever your keywords are in your content and you have relevancy. Easy. Number four, authority. Authority is hard to get once people understand the four things that they need to rank. One of the most regular questions that we hear is, how do I find good backlinks? Remember, authority comes from backlinks, okay? Backlinks are the only way to get authority. It doesn't matter what anybody else tells you, okay? Content doesn't create authority. Site loading speed doesn't create authority. Dwell time doesn't create authority, okay? None of those things create authority. Authority only comes from backlinks. So you need backlinks, okay? So you need good backlinks, okay? All backlinks are not the same. Some backlinks are horrendous, okay? You need good backlinks. So once you understand these four things and you understand that you need authority and therefore backlinks to rank, one of the most frequent questions that we get or that we see on forums is, how do I find good backlinks? Well, it's supposed to be hard, okay? Because SEO is simple. I just explained how to do it very quickly, but it's not easy. The first three are easy, okay? Not getting a penalty is easy. Having content is easy. Having relevancy is easy. Having authority is hard. Getting authority is very difficult. There's a reason it's difficult, which we explain in other episodes. But, yes, it is very hard to find good backlinks. That is why they work, okay? So SEO is simple, but it's not easy. And it's not supposed to be easy. All right? It's kind of like. Think of it like this. Think like winning a race, right? Winning is simple. All you have to do is run faster than everyone else. Simple. Then you win. But is it easy? No. Especially if your competition is fast and they've been training really hard. Okay? Same thing. Exactly. SEO is simple, but it's not easy. Winning a race is also simple, but it's not easy.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

Next episode, episode 103 Be careful of this SEO buyer scam. So we've talked a lot about scams in SEO on this podcast, and usually we're talking about sellers and vendors. But there is a buyer scam, too, and I'm gonna explain it right now, because somebody tried to do this to me when I started, and I didn't fall for it, but for a different reason. I just thought it was a bad deal. Let me explain to you how the scam works. This is how it works. Somebody will message you and they'll say, hey, we saw Your service. We're very interested. We spend a ton of money on SEO, and we were wondering if you could give us a. They either ask for a heavily discounted copy or a review copy. And we were wondering if you could give us a review copy or a big discount on our first order. Because, listen, if we get good results, we will definitely buy a lot of SEO from you. Okay? So let me tell you why this is a scam, okay? They're not, okay? They are emailing everybody, okay? And trying to get free SEO, okay? And if you provide them SEO, they're still not gonna buy it from you in the future because they just got lots of free SEO. If you email, you know, let's say you email, like 50 people and you make that offer, There are going to be some people in there who agree to the terms and they're gonna get free SEO. Why would they need to buy SEO after that? They just got a lot of free SEO. Like, come on. Right? Like, come on, dude. So anyways, so look, so that's the scam. And then even if that's not the case, let's say you're the only person who gives them free SEO, right? They'll come up with some reason to. You know, even if you're the only person who gives them SEO, they'll be like, well, we didn't really like it, so whatever. Anyways. So anyways, when somebody asked me that, like, this was a long time ago. When somebody asked me that, they contacted me and they tried to make this request, and I didn't agree to it, but I didn't agree to it for a different reason. I just thought it was a bad deal. So I think this is how you. Well, first of all, I wouldn't respond to these people, but if you want to respond, this is how you respond to them. This is what I said. I said, cool, I'm glad that you spent a lot of money on SEO. That's awesome. I said, listen, we don't offer discounts on single packages, but if you do a lot of business with us, then maybe we can discuss a discount. Good SEO takes a long time, right? You can't have a free sample go away, you know, like. And of course, they didn't respond back because it was a scam. But anyways, whatever. So that's. That's the scam. So if you're an SEO seller and somebody offers and somebody says that, oh, you give us a free review copy and we will definitely purchase a lot of services from you in the future. No, it's a scam. Don't do it. Okay, next episode, episode 154 do an A Day in the Life and a question from patreon, PBNs and OBL. Okay, so in this episode I just explained kind of what my day to day activities are like. I can't guarantee you that this is even remotely close to what doing SEO at some other agency would be like because I don't know, I do my own thing. Anyways, look, so we also take questions from a Patreon member in this episode and we talk about PBNs, which is private blog network, and OBL. A OBL means outbound links. It means how many links from your website exist.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

If you link to 5 websites, that's 5 OBL. However many websites you're linking to, that's the number of outbound links or OBL on your website. So we discussed that in this episode, but you can listen to that episode if you want to know more about OBL. Next episode, episode 105 there are four things you need to rank. These are what they are with examples. Okay, we just covered this. Let's cover it again. There are four things you need to rank. 1. Don't get a penalty.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

If you want to know more about penalties, listen to episode two. It explains different types of penalties, how to avoid them, how to recover from them, et cetera.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

Number two, you need content. It doesn't have to be helpful, useful, good, or correct. It just has to exist. Please understand, if you don't already, the quality of content is not a ranking factor. Okay, Quality of content is not a ranking factor for reasons that we will talk about later. Number three, you need relevancy. Number four, you need authority. It's pretty straightforward. This episode explains more detail about those things and gives you some examples of them. But ultimately Those are the four things that you need to rank. Next episode, episode 106 There are four ways to get backlinks. Here they are. As you know, you need backlinks to get authority because you need authority to rank. There are four ways to get backlinks. Here they are. 1. Do nothing and let people link to you. This method works, but if you're not already in the results, it's probably not going to be very useful to you because nobody's going to find you if you're not at the top of the search engines. Nobody can find you and nobody's going to link to you. So it's not a very good method if you're not ranking. Number two, you can buy Backlinks. I'm not telling you that you should or shouldn't buy backlinks, okay? I just want you to know that this is a method to get backlinks. Please do not buy backlinks before you listen to episodes 37 and 39, which talk about the difference between good backlinks and bad backlinks. Okay, number three, you can do link outreach and guest posting. Link outreach is when you message somebody and say, hey, your website is about such and such topic. Our website is about the same topic. Can we have a backlink? Sometimes they say, yes, it's a good way to get a backlink. Sometimes they make you pay. Just be aware of that. Guest posting. Guest posting is when you message somebody and say, hey, we'll write an article for you and then you give us a backlink. Usually the backlink is in the article somewhere. So this is kind of win win because they get free content and you get a free backlink. It might work. They also might make you pay for it, just FYI. And the fourth way to get backlinks is to build your own. We explain this process in detail in episodes three, four and five. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that in a bit. This method is a little bit more complicated, but sometimes it might be what you want to do. So anyways, there's four ways to get backlinks. One, do nothing and let people link to you. Two, buy backlinks. Three, link outreach and guest posting. Four, build your own. There are no other ways to get backlinks besides those four. Every time somebody comes up with something cute and clever, it's still just a version of one of those four. Anyways, okay, next episode, episode 107. You might get a penalty. Maybe. Okay, so we made this episode because people were pointing out websites that were doing spammy things and they were like, this website's doing spammy things and it's still on the first page of Google. Look, just because you do something that might get you a penalty doesn't mean that you are going to get a penalty. It means you might get a penalty.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

Like you can do things wrong or I guess badly and not get a penalty, but you also might get a penalty. It's really that the search engines discretion. So we recommend that people not do things that can cause penalties, even if doing so might provide you a little advantage. In some cases we recommend not doing things that can get you penalties because you don't want to get a penalty. Listen to episode two. If you want to Learn more about penalties. Okay, next episode, episode 108. What are those spammy SEO links everyone seems to be getting constantly? If you have looked recently at a website in, for example, Ahrefs and looked at its backlinks. So, by the way, Ahrefs is an SEO tool. One of the things it does is shows you some of your backlinks. I say some of them because it's possible to block your backlinks from appearing in these results. But that's a complicated topic that we're not going to talk about now. Anyways, look, it will show you the backlinks. Ahrefs is a H r e f s.com ahrefs.com It's a very good tool. We've used it for a long time. If you have looked at any website recently, you have probably seen dozens of these spammy backlinks that say, buy your high DA domains here or get the best high DA backlinks here. And like that kind of stuff. Like that's what the links say in the anchor text. And anchor text, of course, is the text in the link, okay? So people are freaking out about this because they're like, oh, no, I got all these spammy backlinks, okay? First of all, they're spam. They're not helping. This is a marketing campaign, okay? This is the reason they're doing it. Most people don't check their backlinks because they don't. They're not really that into it. Like, I would say that probably normal webmasters don't bother checking their backlinks because it's extra time and it costs money and they just don't care. But they figure if you're the kind of person who does look at your backlinks, you're probably aware of the value of backlinks. So they're trying to market to you. You read these backlinks and they say things like, buy high DA domains here or you know, something like that. And you think, ooh, this might be good. So you click on it. This is still marketing spam, okay? I would not buy backlinks or domains from anybody who advert. Advertises with spam, okay? And these people are spamming everybody. I would say in the last year, we have seen these kind of backlinks on almost all the sites we have looked at. We saw one the other day that didn't have any. And like, the person with whom I was looking at this and I were like, wow, we cannot believe it did not have any of these spammy backlinks. But guys, everybody has. Almost everybody has them. It's. But like you guys, the majority of websites that we look at have them. It used to be like one or two companies doing this, and now it's dozens. I guess they think it's effective. I'm not sure if anybody's actually buying backlinks from them, but the point is, you can ignore them. They use these backlinks usually get labeled as spam anyway, so I would just ignore them. But that's. That's the reason they exist. Okay, next episode episode 109 good content is a myth and what UFC and SEO have in common. Okay, so there's many people who say that content is king. Maybe you've read that before. And they say that all you have to do is write good content and you will rank higher. No, that's wrong. Quality of content is not a ranking factor.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

It's not okay, for many reasons. Number one, search engines can't tell the difference between good quality content and bad quality content. They can't. Number two, even if they could, how would they consider bias? Maybe you like a piece of content and I don't. Maybe there's a piece of content I like that you don't. Which one of those is good? There's no good or bad. There's only bias. Think of it like music. What's a good song? Maybe I like a song and you don't like that song, but doesn't mean it's good or not. It's art. It's literally art. And there's no such thing as good or bad content is the same thing.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

So anyways, because search engines cannot tell the difference between good quality content and bad quality content, and let me be very clear, you need to understand this concept if you want to be successful at SEO.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

But search engines can't tell the difference between good quality content and bad quality content. So what they do is they use authority. Remember, authority comes from backlinks. The more authority a website has, the more authority a backlink shares. Okay, Well, I should say that usually the more authority a website has, the more authority a backlink from that website shares. Usually. Okay, so if you get a backlink from a very authoritative page, you will get more authority from that backlink than if you get a backlink from a website with less authority. Usually. There are always exceptions to everything. Usually. But just, Just, just go with that for now. Okay, so because search engines cannot tell the difference between good quality content and bad quality content, they have to use authority instead. You can think of it like popularity.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

A good quality website probably attracts better quality backlinks from better quality websites, right? So probably a good quality website has higher authority, okay? Probably a lower quality website has less authority, okay? Because it doesn't attract as good quality of backlinks. Cause why would somebody link to it? It's not as good.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

Now obviously when you start doing search engine optimization, that messes this whole thing up. Because the purpose of SEO is to get websites to the top of the search engines. You do that, among other way, by increasing their authority. But if you don't think about that for now, good quality websites probably get good quality backlinks. That's why they rank higher. That's how authority works. Higher authority websites don't necessarily mean the content is better, but you could make the argument that the content is better because it got better quality backlinks and that's why it has more authority. Anyways, okay? Next Episode Episode 110 how to track your progress in SEO this should be a very quick, straightforward discussion, but people have a lot of trouble understanding this concept. And I think it's because there's some confusion about what SEO is. SEO is the process of getting your website to the top of the search engines. That's all it is. Okay, now I'm using an example and we're going to talk about SEO again. What is the purpose of a race? The purpose of a race is to run as quickly as possible and complete the distance in the shortest amount of time possible.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

How do you keep track of your progress in a race? With a timer. All right. If you can run a mile in, I don't know, whatever amount of time, however long, and then you run the mile again later and you do it a little bit quicker, that's an improvement. That is a real measurable improvement in your performance. Okay, how do you track your progress in SEO? With a SERP chart? Serp? Serp Search engine result page. It just means your position. It means what's your rank? Is your SERP Number? Is your SERP3? Is it 10? What's your rank? Okay, that's a SERP chart. That's what SERP means. So a SERP chart is a tool that shows you where your website ranks for your keywords. Every day it creates a chart which is like a stock chart. If you look at a stock chart, you can look at it and tell, is price increasing or decreasing. Right. That's why people look at stock charts. A SERP chart tells you is your position increasing or decreasing? That's how you track your progress. It is not anything other than that. That is how you track your progress. People will say things like, oh, we track your progress with conversions. No you don't. Conversion optimization is unrelated to SEO. And we're even going to chat about that in a few minutes because that's one of the episodes we're about to talk about.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

People say, oh, it's about amount of traffic. No, it's not. Because traffic is a function of two things, one of which is your SERPs, your position, and the other one is monthly search volume. Okay, we have another episode that talks about that. The only way to measure SEO progress is with a SERP chart because the only thing that SEO does is gets you to the top of the search engines. Once you're there, then other things become important. But we're going to talk about that in a little bit. So anyways, use the SERP chart. And I need to tell you there are a few recommendations that I have. I don't care what SERP chart you use. There's tons of companies that offer this. We use one called Serp Fox S E R P F O X Serp Fox. That's serpfox.com they're great. We've been using them for over a decade. But you can use whatever you want. It doesn't matter to me. But verify that it has the following traits. 1. You need to be able to enter your own keywords. There are some SERP tracking tools that pick keywords for you, which is pointless. Don't do that. You need to be able to track the keywords that you are looking for. Number two, it needs to show you a separate chart for each keyword. There are SERP tracking tools that show you your average position, which is a pointless metric that tells you literally nothing. So if you only have the option of your average position, I would ignore it. And also, and you know, there's a couple other things you might want to think about. But I don't want this review episode to be too long. But anyways, you track your progress with SERP chart. If you're going to the top of the search engines, you're making progress. If you're going down, you're not making progress. It's all you need to know. Next episode, episode 111 how to Make a PBN Correctly a Review. Okay, PBN Private Blog Network. This episode is literally a review of three other episodes that are like two and a half hours long total. So I can't do a review of a review episode, but like I can do it. I mean, I could, but it would be really long. But let me tell you, like, the three main things that you need to think about if you're gonna build a private blog network or private blog portfolio. So there's three things that you need to do. One, you need to find and purchase the authoritative domains. Okay? That's part one. Part two is you need to purchase the correct kind of hosting. There is a correct way to do it. It's probably not what you're thinking. And my advice, my short advice in this episode right now is to stay away from anything that is called SEO hosting. K. Just.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And number three, you need to build and manage the websites a certain way. I can't simplify it any more than that for right now. So you need to listen to that episode or episodes three, four and five if you want to learn more about building your own portfolio. Next episode, episode 112 SEO is not conversion Optimization this conversation comes up fairly frequently. And I made this episode because I got tired of telling people all the time that SEO is completely unresponsible for conversion optimization and has nothing to do with conversion optimization whatsoever. So let me define these things first. Okay, conversion optimization is the process of getting more people to buy from you or to convert. Okay, SEO is search engine optimization. It's the process of getting websites to the top of the search engines. It has literally nothing to do with conversion optimization. You could rank very well with good SEO and have terrible conversion optimization. Okay, you could rank very poorly with bad SEO and have great conversion optimization. Those things are not the same. They are a different skill set. One involves getting a website to the top of a search engine. One involves writing content on your website that makes people want to buy from you. Those are different. Different. Okay, those are different. So anyways, you probably want both. You probably want good SEO and also good conversion optimization because you want to rank as high as. So you can get as many visitors as possible. And you also want high conversion optimization so you can make as many sales as possible. But they are different.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

They are not the same. SEO people do not do conversion optimization. And conversion optimization people do not do SEO. I mean, like, they could, but they're. They're not the same thing. So. Okay, so I hope that was a way of explaining them that you understood. So next episode, episode 113 doctor is not the main thing you should look at. Okay, Dr. This means domain rating. It is a metric by the tool ahrefs.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

It is an estimate of a website's authority that's all it is. People place a lot of importance on Dr. When they're buying domains and when they're getting backlinks. And neither of those things are as important as people think. So. So we're gonna talk a little bit more about this, but I just want you to be aware that if you're buying a domain, there's a lot of things you should look at besides Dr. And if you're buying backlinks, there's a lot of things you should look at besides Dr. Okay. Next episode, episode 114 good SEO backlinks versus bad backlinks a review. Look, this episode is kind of a review of episodes 37 and 39. Those episodes talk about the difference between good backlinks and bad backlinks. It's two episodes because it's a big topic. Okay, so let me. Let me just kind of. Let me just kind of give you, like, a few little points right now. Good backlinks help you. Bad backlinks do not help you. Okay, let me give you a couple examples. The following I would deem bad backlinks, okay? Forum profile backlinks are spammy and are not going to help you. Sidebar backlinks are spammy and are not going to help you. Blog comment backlinks are spammy and are not going to help you. Now, there's a lot more than this, but this is just a short summary. Okay, here's an example of a good backlink. A good backlink is contextual. And the backlink that you get the words, okay, the anchor text makes sense. Okay, so contextual means it appears in the writing somewhere, right? It's not just a link that somebody added somewhere. It literally makes sense in the words, okay? It's like it's part of the content.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

That's what contextual means. That's an example of a good backlink. Now, like I said, there is way more stuff that you need to consider besides that, but this is a review episode, so we're just going to review it very quickly. Next Episode, Episode 115 SEO, AI and LLMs TXT okay.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So a lot of posters on different forums have been talking about AI and SEO and AI is ruin, AI is destroying SEO and blah, blah, blah, and all this stuff.

[B]

Okay? Okay.

[A]

First of all, I have two things to say. Number one, calm down. Number two, AI is not taking your traffic.

[B]

Okay? Okay.

[A]

Are we. Are we clear on those things? Okay, Calm down. And AI is not taking your traffic.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

So people realize that you can get references in AI content if you're talking to an AI, for example, to direct you to a certain website and everybody wants to know how to get in there. I'm going to tell you what the easiest way is.

[B]

Ready?

[A]

Do good SEO. Regular SEO is the same as AI SEO. People give it different names. They call it A, e, O&GEO and all these things. Oh my gosh, guys, just do good SEO and you'll have a better chance of being referenced by AI programs.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

Just do good SEO. If your site ranks higher, if you rank at the top of the search engines, you are probably an authoritative website. You are probably going to get mentioned by AI. Okay, now let's talk about LLMs txt. Okay, LLMs refers to LLMs, right? Large language models like, like. Like ChatGPT, for example. Okay, everybody's heard of this one. People came up with this file that you can put on your website. It's called LLMs txt and it's supposed to tell the AI software how to, like, read your website or something. Look, what's funny, I guess, is that most of the big AI software has publicly stated that they don't even use LLMs txt, so you can put it on your website, but it's not going to do much. So I would ignore advice that's telling you that this is the answer to your problem. Because the tools actually have said they do not use LLMs txt. If you listen to this episode, there's a link in the episode to the article where the LLMs tools say they do not follow LLMs txt. So, I mean, it's up to you. You can put it on your website if you want, but it's not going to fix your problems. Your problems will be fixed by doing good SEO and ranking, and then the AI tools will be more likely to reference your website anyways. Next Episode Episode 1163 Reasons your SEO backlinks are not helping you. So when people finally learn that you need backlinks to get authority and you need authority to rank, then they just try to go out and get as many backlinks as possible because they forgot that not all backlinks are the same and some are good and some are not good. So sometimes people will buy a bunch of backlinks or create a bunch of backlinks and it doesn't do anything to their website. And this episode explains three reasons why that might be the case. I'm not going to give you all three reasons. I'm going to give you one reason. One of the reasons is because maybe there's Another problem on your site that needs to be fixed before you share authority. Okay, so let me give you an example that I actually referenced in this episode. So there's an article on Search Engine Journal. I think it's mentioned in the episode. And normally I don't reference other sources in this podcast because I think most people really fail to understand the basics of SEO. Just most SEO. The reason I made this podcast is because most SEO content was pointless and wrong.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Which is a different topic. But anyways, look, so this Search Engine Journal article was a very good article that illustrated something very useful. They gave an example of a website that was ranking well. Okay, it was ranking just fine. Then they did a migration, and then they couldn't get back to where they were ranking before. Now, normally when you do a migration, your website will eventually go back to where it was. However, in this particular case, there were problems with the website that the search engines hadn't paid attention to. And then the migration caused the search engines to pay more attention to the website. They found the problems and they couldn't rank as high as they were. Okay, so it's a very similar thing that can happen with backlinks. You can have problems with your website that are not affecting you, but when you start getting backlinks and increasing your authority, then the search engines are going to pay more attention to you because you have authority now.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

When you start gaining more authority to your website by building backlinks, then the search engines are going to pay more attention to you and they might find those problems. So if they find a problem, they might say, this website shouldn't rank because it's got some concern. Maybe you have a penalty or something that they didn't notice before, but they notice it now. So this is actually the reason that before we actually start building backlinks to a client, we do something called an assessment, which is a long process where we look into a bunch of stuff and we basically try to answer the question, why are you not ranking? Okay, we don't build backlinks before we do an assessment because in approximately 40% of cases, we find things on the website that need to be fixed before we start building backlinks. So otherwise, the other option is to just start building backlinks right now. But then what happens six months down the road when you're mad at us because you didn't get any results? Well, you didn't want to do an assessment. So of course we were not able to find those problems. We don't like to take that chance so we do an assessment first. Yes, it takes a long time. Yes, it costs money. And then depending on the results of the assessment, maybe we will move forward with backlinks. But we will probably tell you what problems you need to fix and what you need to do with backlinks and all the stuff. It's deal a big, big thing anyways. So that's why we do it that way. Because like 40% of the time people have problems and they're not ready to start building authority yet. It's a big thing. We don't sell backlinks off a menu anyways. And I just say that because every once in a while somebody emails me and they're like, grumpy SEO guy, I want to buy backlinks. It's like, it doesn't work that way anyways. Okay, so what's next episode? Episode 117, how to increase your doctor and an update on my public challenge. Okay, people got annoyed at this episode because it's called how to increase your doctor, but I didn't actually tell you how to increase your doctor. And the reason I didn't tell you how to increase your doctor is because there is never a reason to need to increase your doctor. Why? Because doctor is an estimate of authority. Doctor is not linearly related to your ranking. In other words, just because you increase your doctor doesn't mean you will rank higher. Just because you rank higher doesn't mean your doctor will have gone up. Okay, Doctor is an estimate of your authority and has almost nothing to do with your rank.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

So the only people really who really want to increase their doctor are backlink sellers. And that's because they think that higher doctor they can sell it for higher dollar amount. Which again is wrong because Dr. Is an estimate of authority. And there is way more stuff that you have to look at besides the doctor. So anyways, I wasn't trying to mislead anybody with that episode, but there's literally no reason, I think it's even that episode. I said I want you to stop looking at like every time. Every time you enter into whatever SEO tool you're using. Like for example, Ahrefs is the one that uses doctor. I want you to not even look at doctor. I want you to not even look at it until you realize that it's not as important as you think it is.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

It's not. It's kind of like I said something similar on another episode. I said when people care about number of backlinks, which also look, backlinks are very valuable but number of backlinks is not okay. You can have one backlink that is more helpful than hundreds of bad quality backlinks. Number of backlinks is not something you need to focus on. And I told people, I want you to stop looking at number of backlinks until you realize that it's not important.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

So anyways. So anyways then later in this episode, I talk about an update to my public challenge. My public challenge was to anybody who says that content is king and anybody who says they can write content that will make your website rank higher because the content is so nice. Okay, SEO doesn't work that way. But there are a lot of people who tell you they can write content that is so good it will make you rank higher. Wrong. That is not how SEO works. Quality of content is not a ranking factor. My public challenge was for anybody to show me an example of a website they made that ranks in a medium to competitive industry with no backlinks. This was over a year ago and I have seen zero examples of this. Yet. There are lots of people that claim they can do it, but nobody actually does it. So anyway, I made a public challenge in another episode and seen zero examples of this. So the public challenge is still out there. By the way, if you have a website in a medium to competitive industry that ranks with no backlinks, please show it to me. Please show it to me. I've had some people say that they've done it, but they're not going to show me an example. That's fine. I don't believe you. So whatever. I don't know what else to say. If you claim you can do something, there has to be proof that you can do the thing. Okay, if you want to see websites that rank with backlinks, I want you to search for whatever you want and I want to check the backlinks of the websites in the first 10 results and they will probably have backlinks. Why? Because backlinks provide authority and authority is required to rank. Next Episode Episode 118The High Doctor Backlink SEO Scam Exposed okay, so we just talked about Doctor and why it's not as useful as everybody thinks it is. Look, here is a scam. I'm going to tell you how this scam works just so that you're aware of it and you don't try to purchase anything from these people. So look, people think that high doctor equals more authority. No. Okay, so what they will do is people will offer high doctor backlinks. Right? And I've even Seen them up to like Dr. 80. Okay, let me just start by saying most Dr. 80 websites are owned by businesses and corporations and they are not selling backlinks. Just FYI. Okay, most people with Dr. 80 websites are not selling backlinks. With that said, it is possible to get backlinks on some of these websites. This is how the scam works. What they will do is they will find an article on one of these high doctor websites that allows comments, and they will put a comment at the bottom of the article, right? So technically, you're getting a backlink from a high doctor website. However, it's not going to benefit you even a little bit. So that's how the scam transpires.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Next Episode Episode 119 My AI SEO Advice AI services and AI content let me say this one more time. Calm down. And AI is not taking your traffic.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

So there's a lot of people that are offering AI services. I would avoid paying any of these people any money because. Well, I should say AI SEO services. I would avoid paying any of these people any money because nobody knows how it works yet. And good SEO is the same as good AI SEO. Okay, Just do good SEO. There are no secrets when it comes to AI. No, just. Just do SEO. Just do normal SEO. The higher you rank, the more authority you have. Probably the more likely you are to be referenced by an AI tool, which is the purpose of this anyway. So stop paying people money for AI services because nobody knows what they're talking about and it's not necessary. You just need to do good SEO. Now, let's talk about AI content for a little bit. We have been talking recently with a couple clients that are having trouble getting their AI content to index.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

These are good websites with lots of authority, but for some reason, some of the AI content is not indexing. Now, I'm not saying that this is actually something the search engines are doing, but let me share something with you. So humans can tell the difference between AI content and regular content, right? Like, you know when somebody posts something on a discussion board and it's like, it's obviously written by AI and it seems a little impersonal, right?

[B]

Like.

[A]

Like you know what I'm talking about, right? You know? Or you can. You can just like tell when something is written by AI, they call it AI slop, right? It's just like. It's like content that just takes up room on a website, but it doesn't really help anything. It's not. Remember that AI was trained on the existing content on the Internet. So there's nothing new or unique that AI can write because it had to learn everything from somewhere. So when you're using AI to write content and it's not better than anything else that exists, not that that will help you rank higher anyway, but it's not better than anything else. It's just rewording things. You know, maybe it's phrasing it a little differently. You know, I'm not saying that AI can't write good content. I'm just saying it's not different enough to really matter. Right? So if humans can tell the difference, it's possible that search engines can tell the difference. And if you can easily write AI content and just take up space, just, you know, just content that doesn't even do anything. It's not. It's not like really great or anything. Why should it rank? Right? Well, you know, maybe you'd say, well, it gets good backlinks. It should rank. Okay, fine, but why should it even be indexed? It's not different from anything else. It's not. It's not contributing value. The answer to this question is probably to get more authority to those posts. Okay, but like, if it's possible that a search engine could tell the difference between AI content versus human content, it's possible they would make it more difficult for the content written by AI to rank because it's kind of. It's kind of low effort, you know, that doesn't mean it can't rank. But why should it rank? You know, why should it rank? So anyways, we have suggested that maybe you shouldn't use AI to write all your content. I'm not saying there's any problem with that, but if you are having problems getting your AI content indexed, maybe stop using AI content for a little bit and see if that makes a difference. Anyway, I hope this helps you understand the things that we talked about in the last group of episodes, and I will talk to you later. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe, and if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out. I hope this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or want to suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is Grumpy SEO Guy. You can visit the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit or you can email [e-mail] if you email me, please either whitelist my email address or check your junk folders because I've been told that my replies are going into the junk folder, and it's probably because we're talking about things like SEO and backlinks, and I think those words will classify an email as spam. And if you want to support the podcast because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet and it's free, you can do [e-mail] Grumpy Seoguy and I will talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday for another episode.