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This is Grumpy SEO Guy Episode 140 Rapid Fire Answers to Questions from Reddit. 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? So let's get started. I'm the Grumpy SEO Guy. Let me tell you why I'm grumpy today. You know what? I'm not really grumpy today, but I have a lot of questions from Reddit to get through, so I'm going to get through them right now. Let's do some reminders really quickly. If you want to email me hello grumpy seoguy.com if you have a complicated question and you want to set up a zoom advisory call, you can email me at this address and we can talk about how to do that. Just email me at that address. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can do so@patreon.com Grumpy SEO Guy if you have a question for the Grumpy SEO Guy community, you can post it at Reddit.com r grumpy seoguy and please subscribe to the podcast if you're listening to it and enjoying it. Okay, so I have a lot of questions here. I'm going to answer them very fast. And in some cases there are other episodes that answer these questions in detail. So I will mention those episodes and put a link in the notes because otherwise some of these questions would probably take me 20 minutes to answer. But if we already have episodes that answer them, you should just listen to those episodes. So rather than making this episode be really long, 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. Let's get started. First question I've been wondering this for a while, but how much, if any, traffic should your private blog portfolio have to work the best? Okay, this has been a topic recently. A lot of people are like, authoritative websites only work. They have a lot of traffic. Okay, look, here's the thing. First of all, we haven't found that to be true, so I'm just gonna leave that out there. And here's my other comment on this. Last time I checked, I think only, like, 50% of the websites on the Internet are using analytics. Okay, so if you're not using analytics, how do the search engines know how much traffic you're even getting in the first place? Right now, the argument could be made that they could figure it out based on SERP position and monthly search volume, but that's only if you're ranking for certain keywords anyway, so it's not a big deal. That's my answer. Next question. Why haven't you talked much about topical authority? Is it a hoax that we should ignore her? I have actually talked about topical authority. In fact, I have two episodes that talk about topical authority. Listen to episode 132, which is called SEO Topical Authority, Content structure, and Cannibalization, and listen to episode 30, which is called what is the difference between topical authority, relevancy, and authority. I think those will answer your question. Next question. I see posts from people saying that if you have a good topical map, that could bring in traffic without backlinks. Recently, I saw someone say the same about their local coffee place and how they got 7,000 clicks without links. Okay, so first comment is, it sounds like this is local SEO, which has different rules and guidelines. So I'm not saying it's impossible to rank in local SEO without backlinks, but the local ranking factors are different than normal SEO, so it might be possible and I don't know. Listen, we have an episode called. We have an episode that talks about local SEO. It's episode 128, and it's called Local SEO versus Regular SEO. I would encourage you to listen to that episode. And the second thing I want to say is, just because somebody tells you a thing doesn't mean it's true. Look at all the people who say they can rank with just website layout and really good content. Like, that's not the way you rank. So just because somebody mentions something doesn't mean it's true. Okay, next question. Hi, grumpy SEO guy. First of all, thank you for everything you share and taking the time to record podcasts and answer questions. I hope the community keeps growing and brings you joy. Thank you. Question. Would you treat Ymyl, that means your money or your life client differently than other clients, for example mental health or psychotherapy site? Are there extra precautions you can take when building backlinks from expired domains? Or extra tips or tactics that you avoid or recommend? Thank you. No, just don't have them be spammy. Ultimately, it's harder to rank in Ymyl, but the rules are basically the same. All right, next question. Have you ever seen Google penalize a site for having paid links? Yes, that's why we say don't do spammy SEO. In fact, this is one of the dangers of using public blog providers. Okay, so for example, we even have an episode about this. It's episode 131, the dangers of public blog Networks. So really, if so, so generally, if a backlink service is publicly available, I would avoid it. And that episode explains why. So yeah, actually, you know what, I'm just going to leave it at that. If you want to avoid getting penalized, you should probably avoid publicly available services. That episode explains what the other alternatives are and such. Okay. Oh, another question from the same person, I think. And what's the most efficient way to find reliable, decent link sellers who are not scammy? Yes, I've watched some of your episodes on this, but it seems like a huge time drain sifting out the scammers. So what's a good way to approach finding a couple of good backlink sellers? No, you're right, it is very hard. That's why we teach do it yourself or DIY on this podcast. Because it is very hard to find good backlink sellers. I'm not really sure. We don't make recommendations for many reasons that I've talked about before. And yeah, it's supposed to be hard to find a good backlink provider because most of them are not good. So if you're having trouble, that makes perfect sense. You're probably doing it the right way. All right, next question. You bought two expired domains and built two good blogs. How do you know one is working? How do you know the other isn't? Can you tell because new keyword rankings for the blogs are low rank? Or because all the old backlinks are missing inside Google search console? Carefully segregated GSC registrations? Or just wait, how do you diagnose my domain ain't working now, if you bought two domains. Okay, let me put it like this. And we just talked about this on a recent episode. You can't tell which of your domains is Making the biggest difference because when you get many links, they're all helping. Okay? So if you're buying a bunch of domains and individually trying to figure out which one is the most beneficial, that's not gonna work. You're gonna drive yourself mad because there's too many other conditions that you're gonna have to apply to figure that out. It's kind of like if you buy a pack of candy, right? Like a bunch of little pieces of candy and you're eating it and you're like, well, which one of these pieces is making me full? Well, you're eating a lot of them. They're all helping. When we build backlinks to somebody, it's all of our sites together that are promoting them. I don't know which sites of ours are more powerful or less powerful. I mean I could estimate may like the attributes of the site, but ultimately I think you're thinking about it wrong. Right? Like when you start building a lot of backlinks, they're going to help and it doesn't matter which individual backlink is doing the most work because they're all helping. Okay, I hope that answers your question. Next question from the same person, I think. Does Google reset all the domain authority of parked for three years? Darn, I was excited when I saw the clean history. Or maybe I missed a short stint with that with with somebody else putting gaming content on it. Can good new very topic aligned content resuscitate the old backlinks in Google's eyes? Would I ever know? I don't know if there's a time limit and then Google stops paying attention to the domains or not. Probably pick ones that haven't been parked for that long. But it probably also doesn't matter that much. I honestly don't know. So that's why I'm answering it like that. Ultimately, is there a rule of thumb and this is the next part of that question, ultimately is there a rule of thumb? For example, after about a year of the original content missing, Google has reset all the authority and backlinks links authority is never coming back or the converse everything is redeemable and you know it's back when those old links reappear in Google Search Console. Okay, again, I don't know. You're overthinking it. And also you shouldn't be using Google Search Console on your private blog sites anyway. So buy domains. I think a good domain history is more important than how long it has been parked. But honestly I don't know the answer to that question. I don't know if there's a time limit, unfortunately, I don't know what to tell you. Okay, next question. Your point of view on how this new update to Google tracks impressions in Google Search Console. I have to imagine all the agencies that thought they were getting great performance with inflated impression counts are now are panicking now when they see that without authority, their optimization efforts are failing. Yeah, we never pay attention to impressions anyway because it's not really an SEO metric. Impressions is a factor of your search position and monthly searches. Nobody cares about impressions. Well, I don't want to say that, but we don't care about impressions because it doesn't have anything to do with SEO. Really. The only thing you should care about is your rank. So ultimately, no, my point of view is that it doesn't matter to me. We care about SERPs and your position. We don't care about what impressions says. And we have an episode that explains this. It's episode 35. It's called if you're not tracking your SERPs, you're not doing SEO. You should listen to that episode. Okay? Oh, I'm sorry. We also have an episode, episode 59, which is called Traffic is not an SEO metric. And what you should use instead, those will, I think, explain a little bit more. Next question, which I think is from this person. How are you handling competitors that are selling the entire Alphabet, such as AEO and geo? What do you say to your prospective clients who asked you about these things? Okay, those of you who have done SEO advisory calls with me probably know this depending on what we discussed or depending on what we talked about. But we don't take clients who don't understand SEO. So if somebody thinks that, like, there's a difference between A, A, E, O and geo, or like, whatever, right? Whatever AI SEO acronym you want to use. If somebody thinks there's a difference between that and regular SEO, we don't want them as a client because they're going to be. They're. They're going to be difficult to work with. Okay. It's kind of like, look, and people disagree with me on this, and that's fine. But, you know, some clients just want SEO and they'll just buy anything. And if you sound all fancy talking about, you know, whatever, you know, dwell time and eat and other stuff that has no effect on ranking, you can still make a sale with that client, but they're probably not going to be happy with the results. And they don't understand SEO enough to even, like, you know, mess around with that. So we don't want those clients. We're actually very selective in who we work with because we only want clients who, for the most part, we only want clients who understand SEO. That's fine if that. That's limiting your. Your available number of clients. It sure is. It absolutely is. And I'm fine with that because I don't want clients who just. It's a long story. This is a. Trying to keep the answer short. So the. So the answer to your question is I'm not. I'm not bothered at all by that. Like, they're more than welcome to work with the agencies that are like, oh yeah, we're going to do AI SEO for you, blah, blah, blah, because in three or six months they're going to fire that agency anyway for not doing anything. So anyways, by the way, if you're curious about this, episode 115 is called SEO, AI and LLMs TXT Part 1. Probably this explains why there's no such thing as AI SEO, why AI SEO is exactly the same as regular SEO, and why, for example, LLMs Txt isn't necessary and doesn't have any benefit whatsoever. Hope that answers your question. Next question, which I think is from the same person from the same poster. New Google Algorithm update focusing on local that's not really a question, but I didn't know there was a new Google algorithm update that focused on local because we don't really do local SEO. But you're welcome to listen to the episode about local SEO, which is episode 128, which is called local SEO versus regular SEO. Okay, next question. Can you tell me why you think websites only have a limited amount of link juice to offer? You blew my mind when you talked about only sharing 10 outbound links per website. Which, by the way, was a misunderstanding of something that I was saying in that episode. That's fine. Never heard. Or maybe I explained it wrong. Honestly, never heard anyone else talk about that before. Not doubting you. In fact, quite the opposite. Just want to know how you came to this conclusion, what evidence you have, etc. So I'm just going to give you something to think about. Websites have a limited amount of link juice to give out. If websites did not have a limited amount of link juice to give out, then you could just rank as many websites as you wanted from the same website, couldn't you? And think about how that would, like, modify the search results. So if you were creating the algorithm, I want you to think about what every website having unlimited link juice would do. Next question. Adult I Guess this person wants me to talk about adult. I have been saying I'm going to do an episode on gambling, adult and pharmacy, but this is not the episode for that. I will say though I don't think YouTube allows those topics. So if I make this episode, it's probably only going to be on the podcast hosts, but I will mention that later if I do. I am planning on doing that. I haven't done it yet. Sorry for the delay on that one. Next question. Do backlinks to an individual page also impact the overall website? Yes. Remember, backlinks provide or share link juice. Okay. So anytime there's a backlink, it is sharing link juice. So if you backlink to a certain page on your site and then that page on your site has a link to, for example, another page on your site or the homepage, it is sharing some of that link juice. So yes, it does impact your overall website. Next question. When you say links from anchor text in the podcast, I think you should then do a two sentence definition every time. Some people don't know what that means, including me. What is it? It seems fundamental to what you're advocating. Sure. So anchor text is the words of a backlink. So if a link is text, Right. There are words in the link that you can click on. Those are the anchor text. Okay, so you've got text. Some of that text is a link. Whatever the link says, that's the anchor text. So if you say click here and click here is the words you can click on. This is your anchor text. I hope that makes sense. It's kind of difficult to understand for some reason. Like I could show you, but it's kind of like tough to explain for some reason. I don't know. I hope that answers the question. Next question. I want to learn how to do SEO. Do I have to know how to code? No. Next question. I recently bought an expired domain. I can see in Google Analytics that I'm getting visitors to non existing pages. Is there anything I can do to keep this traffic? Yes. You want to install a plugin that will redirect any 404 page to the homepage or to the page that you want it to go to. Next question. Maybe you can mention which backlink metrics seem to be most important in your experience. Like what factors move the needle. The most relevant anchor text, referring domains, authority, niche, relevancy, et cetera. That's assuming some stand out more than others. Well, you're kind of asking about backlink metrics, but then you're kind of asking about domain metrics too. Look, it's not so much about looking for certain metrics. It's about keeping away from the domains that have certain traits, right? So instead of looking for things like a certain doctor or whatever, what you want to do is not buy backlinks from or buy domains that have spammy anchor text. You want to not buy backlinks from or buy domains that that have links to gambling sites or links to pharmacy or adult, or who have a lot of backlinks from sites on the same IP address or who have a high number of backlinks from a low number of referring domains. I hope that answers your question. Next question. Besides the importance of GMB profile, isn't local SEO the same as regular SEO? Does the GMB profile even influence the actual website ranking? I think you mentioned you don't take local SEO clients. Is that because it's difficult to create natural looking backlinks links for them in your pbn? So we actually have an episode that explains the difference between local SEO and regular SEO. It's episode 128, which is called Local SEO versus Regular SEO. But you're right, GMB plays a big role. So do reviews, and so does proximity. So proximity means how far away is one object from another object? So this is a local SEO ranking factor. Okay. If the person is further away from your company when they search for you, okay, they are less likely to see you. If they are closer to your business, there is a higher probability they will see you. And you can't game that. Like you can't manipulate that with SEO. So that's part of the. It's wrong to say we never take local clients, but we don't do it very often. So anyways, those, those three, like, besides those, it's kind of like local SEO and regular SEO are kind of similar, but with, with reviews, GmbH and proximity, it kind of like makes it a little bit different. Okay, next question. Is there any way to know in advance how much SEO I have to do, how many links, what strength, et cetera, to rank for given keyword in a given niche, you can kind of estimate it, but it's a really long process and I don't have time to explain it here, but ultimately what you want to do is look at your competition. And you also want to remember that that kind of precision is possible with paid search, but not with SEO. So this is why we say do some SEO and see if it's helping. And if it's helping, keep going. Because you can't really know ahead of time with like, total accuracy. Okay, next question. Why can't we ever see an actual example of a good, effective private blog portfolio? Great question. We just did an episode on this. It's episode 139. That's called why are there no good examples of PBN sites? So a couple reasons that I'll talk about now. One, if we shared a site, that site would never be able to be used for anything again because it would be labeled as a pbn, which means we couldn't use it as a pbn and no one else could ever buy it and use it for their business because it would now be associated with PBNs. Number two reason, if we revealed an actual site, people would know who our clients are. That's bad. And a third reason is if I were to reveal a PBN site, everybody would copy it and then you'd have a bunch of PBN sites that all look exactly the same. That episode that I just mentioned explains more. That's the reason. Next question. Isn't there some middle ground between showing us an example and just vaguely saying build an authoritative private blog portfolio? Like examples of topic structure, content creation process, et cetera? Yep. In fact, I would recommend you listen to episode five because we explain it in there. And episodes three, four and five will explain the entire process for creating a private blog portfolio. Next question. I bought an expired domain for its doctor and decent looking backlinks. Once I flush out a blog from a clean slate and those existing backlinks start turning into 301s, does that somehow damage the Dr. No, it shouldn't. If I'm seeing your question correctly, no. Next question. Have you ever heard of a footprint? Have you ever heard of footprint detection alarms because of reusing code? Have you ever been concerned about this? I'm hand coding and reusing a lot of stuff for layouts. That's why we say don't make your websites look the same. Next question. I'm creating my private blog portfolio and trying to index my newly created pages. I shouldn't submit any of those to Google Search Console tied to my Google account, Right? I should only create a sitemap and assume Google will scan it on their own, correct? Yes. Because if you use Google Search Console for your private blog portfolio, then Google knows that the same person owns all those sites. Next question. If you have any hacks or tips for finding valuable expired domains without having to spend $2,000, that would be awesome. Listen, episode three. It explains how to do it. It shouldn't be $2,000, but costs are getting higher because people are realizing that this is how you do SEO. Okay, next question. What would be your bare bones tech stack to try and rank without wanting to spend on a pbn? Well, you need authority to rank. Authority usually costs money. However, I would encourage you to listen to the episodes. Episode 106, there are four ways to get backlinks. Here they are. And episode 49, the four ways to get backlinks. Because if you don't want to purchase PBN links, your options are doing free backlink acquisition processes such as guest posting and link outreach. The episodes that I just mentioned describe those Next question. Keyword research for money sites. That's more of a topic than a question. Keyword research is mostly competitor research and it takes a long time. That's my short answer. Next question. Thoughts on a specific backlink method or series? And then this person mentioned a specific SEO person and a specific backlink method they have. Look, I don't know who all the people in the SEO world are. We teach how to rank. If the protocol that somebody is teaching fits what we're describing, it probably works. If it doesn't, it probably doesn't. So if they're talking about dwell time and eeat a really good content or something, it probably doesn't work. If they're talking about gaining relevancy and authority, it probably does work. Next question. How to evaluate other people's SEO methods and services? Exactly the same question. If it fits what we're talking about, it's probably good. If they're just making stuff up, it's probably not good. Next question. How to interpret traffic drops versus SEO problems. Great question. For traffic dropping, I would listen to episodes 89, which is called why your website's SEO position is dropping part one, and episode 90, which is called why your website's SEO position is dropping, part two. Okay. And for traffic, I would listen to episode 59, which is called Traffic is not an SEO metric and what you should use instead. Okay. Traffic dropping is not necessarily an SEO problem. If your position is declining, that is an SEO problem. If your traffic is dropping, your position might not be dropping. You don't have an SEO problem. Next question. How to track results properly in SEO search engine results pages. SERPs. That's how you track it. Listen episode 35. We've already talked about that. Tracking your SERPs. Your position is the way that you track your progress in SEO. Next question. Favorite or essential WordPress plugin for SEO setups. So you need to identify the problems you're having and then come up with fixes for those problems. I'm not going to give you the names of plugins because then everybody would use exactly the same ones and everybody's PBN would be copy of each other. But for example, one problem that you might have is you might have a bunch of of 404 pages. So what you need to do is come up with a plugin that will redirect all of your 404 pages to the homepage or the page that you want the traffic to go to. Next question. Using expired domains for backlinks under Google's newer rules. I'm not sure what newer rules you're talking about, but I think this question has to do with There was an article that Google posted that was talking about people reusing domains and the example was somebody bought a medical domain and reused it for a casino. Well, you're a casino, of course you're going to have problems because nothing against casinos, but casinos might be a little bit stricter with SEO. So I think that's what they were talking about. Next question. How to build private blogs or PBNs? Naturally I would listen to episode five because that explains. I think it's episode five that explains how to build and manage your site. Just make them look normal. Don't do anything spammy. Episode139 yeah, nevermind. Anyways, next question. Choosing between many weaker domains versus fewer stronger ones. I think this person was asking if you have a certain amount of money and you have to pick between a bunch of weaker domains or a couple higher authority domains, which ones should you pick? I would probably pick the lower authority domains because then you get more domains, more variety, more IP addresses if you're hosting it correctly and if you mess up, you didn't ruin an expensive domain. Next question. Recovering from algorithm or content quality updates using new domains I don't think there's any such thing as a content quality update because quality of content is not a ranking factor. So this question probably had to do with somebody who thought helpful content update had to do with how good your blog posts were. If you had hit by an update, it's probably because you did something spammy or you have some on page errors. It's probably not because you don't have good quality content. Next question. Whether a well known SEO marketplace form is legit and how to treat one time backlink offers. Well, look, a lot of SEO services are a little bit suspicious. I'd probably make sure, for example if you're buying backlinks that they meet the criteria in episodes 37 and 39, which is the difference between good backlinks and bad backlinks. And the difference between good backlinks and bad backlinks, part two. A lot of people listen to those episodes and they complain to me and they say, grumpy SEO guy. I can't find anybody that meets all that criteria. That's right, you probably can't. Because most backlink sellers aren't doing a good job. That's why we teach do it yourself on this podcast. If you can't find a good service, do it yourself. Next question. Oh, I forgot. I forgot the second half of that question. Sorry. And how to treat one time backlink offers. I think they mean one time payment. One time payment. Backlinks are always a scam. We have an episode on this. The economic model is not feasible to sell a backlink one time and make money. It doesn't work, so no one's going to do it. We have an episode on this. That is episode 10, which is called why one time backlinks or Lifetime backlinks are always a scam. A lot of people disagree with me on that too. That's fine. I would encourage you to check out that episode and see if what I say makes sense or not. It's up to you. Your money anyways. Next question. Avoiding footprints in PBNs via themes or builders. Don't use the same themes on all your sites. That's footprint. Okay, next question. Backlink decay on expired domains and whether to build links to them. So yes, so sometimes when you buy a domain, it will lose backlinks over time. But that happens to all websites. That happens to every website. Look, websites get backlinks and lose backlinks all the time. It's gonna happen. Don't worry too much about it. And that is all the questions. I hope this was helpful. Let me know what other questions you have. And I hope this was a helpful episode. 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 me@hellorumpyseoguy.com 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 so@patreon.com Grumpy SEO Guy 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.