Barry is the founder of Polemic Digital an award-winning SEO consultancy specializing in technical SEO for news publishers and ecommerce websites across the globe. He’s been building and ranking websites since 1998, and has worked with a wide range of clients from micro-businesses to the world’s largest media companies.
22:46 – How did Barry started with SEO?
Barry started getting into SEO during the days where Yahoo and Alta Vista are still the king of search engines. At first, he treated SEO as a side project only. But to his surprise, he discovered that SEO can actually be turned into a full-time career.
25:19 – Barry’s resources for learning SEO
Barry’s early days into SEO are mostly comprised of trail and error. It was then years later that he joined an SEO online community where he met SEO professionals that became his mentor.
27:11 – Reasons why Google amp is not viable for everyone
In a Twitter post, Barry said that Google amp can go to hell. For him, amp is an attack on the freedom of the open web because it basically reimagines the way how we used to build web pages. Leading to be stuck on the learning curve again based on Google’s ways.
30:00 – Do you need an amp framework in getting to a news carousel?
Google has set an amp requirement for articles if you want them to appear on a news carousel since 2021, at least for mobile. This is why Barry recommends amp framework in terms of mobile visibility even though he hates it.
31:45 – How does Google pay their publishers?
For Barry, this is probably a PR exercise for Google to compensate news publishers for the sake of legal cases. Especially since they are on a battle with compensation matters in Australia and France, which gives Google a bad image from some of its users.
33:51 – Barry’s pet peeve regarding indexations and indexing
Barry had a funny experience in using indexations and indexing during his speeches, especially when these two terms have a different meaning.
35:16 – Automated or manual sitemaps, which is which?
There’s a fine line between automated and manual sitemaps. But for Barry, both have its pros and cons especially when it come to limits and levels of indexing.
37:22 – Technical Relevancy and Authority (ART) as explained by Barry
Technical is all about crawling, while Relevancy is about the indexing system, and Authority is more about ranking.
39:55 – Reasons why clients are having a hard time implementing SEO recommendations
Having an SEO consultation is not always a walk in the park. Because for Barry, we can’t blame clients since they are facing different battles in website optimization that are sometimes cannot be tackled easily.
42:35 – How does someone get approved as a publisher for a news SEO?
Being approved as a publisher used to be a manual process back in the days. But ever since Google has done a lot of changes to its algorithmic approach, it now became a bit complicated according to Barry.
45:33 – Barry’s tips for getting into the speaking circuit
In this section, Barry shares us his experience of being into the speaking circuit. For him, it’s all about the experience and having good content that is entertaining and engaging at the same time.
47:59 – One tip of becoming an SEO professional
For Barry, it’s about taking the risk, getting your hands dirty, and being not afraid to try new things. One day, you will be surprised of what works and what doesn’t and this is the best scenario where you can hone your skills.
News:
• Google has been having issues with indexing new News content the past couple weeks
• Just recently two separate indexing issues that have impacted some URLs. One is with mobile-indexing. The other is with canonicalization
Grow with Google posted a video title: How can I help customers find & reserve my online services directly from Google? In this video they pretty much show you how to add multiple links straight on your GMB. They’re supposed to be appointment links but I was able to add a bunch of “appointment links” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgxGbEOEBzc
Speaking of links. I had trim down my news stories last week and left out a new free tool that was released by AHREFs
Have you thought about hosting your site on a shared host? Possibly in bad neighborhoods? It maybe harming your rankings.
https://www.rebootonline.com/blog/long-term-shared-hosting-experiment/
Bill Slawski posted a blog on the Featured Snippet Answer Scores Ranking Signals. It can be too technical for some so Clint on SEO this Week explains this patent so we can understand
Tips for Excelling as an In-House SEO w/ Kevin Indig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CskNFBeqKEU
Have you ever how does SEO work? As SEO’s we all have our own perception in our heads. The Hustle Fund channel had Bernard Huang the founder and CEO of ClearScope give an awesome presentation on the topic of SEO. If you’re in enterprise SEO you know that educating your Workmates is a must. Sometime we can get too technical and lose our audience. I’m guilty myself. This presentation can help enhance your presentations. https://youtu.be/WjRJ6EBzuSg?t=254
AMP for WordPress episode 1 has been posted to the AMP channel: What does it take to succeed as a web content creator
Google has been doing a lot with AMP lately. My very first guest on the show was a huge advocate for AMP. My guest today has his own view.
Google Pledges $1 Billion in Licensing Payments to News Publishers
https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-pledges-1-billion-in-licensing-payments-to-news-publishers-11601546401
Now does this change the way we do News SEO? Let’s ask my special guest today!
Google Ticker:
Google has been having issues with indexing new News content the past couple weeks
We have an issue with indexing new News content, at the moment. It began around 4pm PT. We’re working to correct and will update when this is resolved.
Two separate indexing issues that have impacted some URLs. One is with mobile-indexing. The other is with canonicalization, how we detect and handle duplicate content.
We are currently working to resolve two separate indexing issues that have impacted some URLs. One is with mobile-indexing. The other is with canonicalization, how we detect and handle duplicate content. In either case, pages might not be indexed….
Search Console Training is back, recorded from home 🏡
Tune in every two weeks as @danielwaisberg takes you on a journey to discuss Search Console in the context of different types of websites, job roles, and more!
