SEO
A Complete Guide for SEOs
URL parameters or query strings are the part of a URL that typically comes after a question mark (?) and are used to pass data along with the URL. They can be active parameters that modify page content or passive parameters that are mostly used for tracking and do not change the content.
They are made up of key-value pairs, where the key tells you what data is being passed and the value is the data you’re passing, such as an identifier. They look like ?key=value but may be separated by ampersands (&) like ?key=value&key2=value2 if there is more than one pair.
In this guide, we’ll be covering what you need to know about URL parameters.
How parameters are used
As I mentioned in the intro, parameters can be active or passive. Let’s look at some examples of each.
Active parameters
Active parameters modify the content of the page in some way.
Filter. Removes some of the content, leaving more specific content on the page that a user wants to see. An example of this is faceted navigation in e-commerce.
?color=yellow
Sort. Reorders the content in some way, such as by price or rating.
?sort=highest_rated
Paginate. Divides content into a series of related pages.
?p=2
Translate. Changes the language of the content.
?lang=de
Search. Queries a website for information that a user is looking for.
On our search engine, yep.com, we use the key “q” for the query, and the value contains info about the user query.
?q=ahrefs
Passive parameters
Passive parameters do not change the content. They are typically used for tracking. Let’s look at some examples of each.
Affiliate IDs. Passes an identifier used to track where sales and signups come from.
?id=ahrefs
Advertising tags. Tracks advertising campaigns.
?utm_source=newsletter
Session IDs. Identifies a particular user. It’s not common on modern websites to use session IDs to track users.
?sessionid=12345
Video timestamps. Jumps to the designated timestamp in a video.
?t=135
SEO implications
URL parameters can cause a number of different issues when it comes to SEO, especially in cases where multiple parameters are used. Here are some of the problems you may encounter.
Passive parameters can cause issues with duplicate content. Typically, you want them to be crawled, and each page should have a canonical set to the main version.
There may be times where you want to block these parameters from being crawled completely using robots.txt—but only in situations where you may have issues with crawl budget. We’ll cover this more later.
Google will choose a version of the page to index in a process called canonicalization, and signals such as links will consolidate to that indexed version.
Active parameters may create pages with near-duplicate content or content that is very similar to other content. They may also be completely different content. You’ll need to check what your parameters are actually used for.
Internal links
You should avoid passive parameters like those used for tracking on internal links (links from one page on your site to another).
This is still an all-too-common practice on larger sites, but I want to emphasize that this is an old and outdated practice that you should not be doing.
Most analytics systems have event tracking you can use instead that still records the data without adding parameters to your URLs.
It’s fine to use active parameters on internal links in most cases.
Crawling
Infinite URL paths with parameters or tons of different combinations can cause issues with crawling. Keep a consistent order, and don’t have paths that allow for adding additional parameters.
You can easily find potentially infinite paths using the Depth report under the Structure Explorer tool in Site Audit. It’s not common for websites to have 9+ levels, so this is a strong indicator that there may, in fact, be infinite paths or some other issue.
Google will make adjustments as it recognizes infinite paths or certain patterns when crawling. It will try to limit the crawling of URLs that it thinks won’t be useful or are repetitive.
Internationalization
URL parameters are sometimes used for international websites. These are listed as an option for locale-specific URLs. But even Google says it’s not recommended. It adds another layer of complexity where more things can go wrong. You also won’t be able to geo-target these URLs in Google Search Console.
E-commerce
Parameters are commonly used in e-commerce for everything—from tracking, to pagination, to faceted navigation. These topics can be pretty complex, so I recommend reading through the blog posts I linked to better understand them.
JavaScript
There’s a growing trend where people are using # instead of ? as the fragment identifier, especially for passive parameters like those used for tracking. This is generally not a good idea. But in specific cases, it may be OK to do this to replace unnecessary parameters. I tend to recommend against it because of all of the issues.
The problem is anything after a # is ignored by servers, and a lot of systems simply will not or cannot recognize parameters using a #.
Additionally, # already has a designated use case, which is to scroll to a part of the page. This is done on the client side, and JavaScript devs may also use it for “routing” to a page with different content.
Auditing
It’s a good idea to check what parameters are used on your site. In Site Audit’s Page Explorer tool, you can search for URLs that contain a question mark (?).
You can use the advanced filters to find pages with multiple parameters or to start excluding parameters to help you identify all the various parameters used on your website.
Once you know what parameters are used, I recommend checking a few of the pages to see what the parameters actually do.
You can also check the Duplicates report for exact or near-duplicates. The visual makes it easy to see if you have a lot of versions of the same or similar pages and whether or not they have matching canonical tags to choose a preferred version. You can click into each cluster to get more information.
There’s also an option under “Bulk export” that lets you export all of the duplicate content at once. I find this option easier to use for larger sets of data.
Controlling parameters
In the past, Google had a URL parameter tool in Google Search Console where you could choose how to treat different parameters based on whether or not it changed the page content. The tool was deprecated in early 2022. Here’s what Google had to say about it:
When the URL Parameters tool launched in 2009 in Search Console’s predecessor, Webmaster Tools, the internet was a much wilder place than it is today. SessionID parameters were very common, CMSes had trouble organizing parameters, and browsers often broke links. With the URL Parameters tool, site owners had granular control over how Google crawled their site by specifying how certain parameters affect the content on their site.
Over the years, Google became much better at guessing which parameters are useful on a site and which are —plainly put— useless. In fact, only about 1% of the parameter configurations currently specified in the URL Parameters tool are useful for crawling. Due to the low value of the tool both for Google and Search Console users, we’re deprecating the URL Parameters tool in 1 month.
While not mentioned, I suspect that some users might have been hurting themselves with the tool. I ran into this in the past where someone put in a wrong setting that said the content did not change, but it did. This knocked a few hundred thousand pages out of the index for that site. Whoops!
You can let Google crawl and figure out how to handle the parameters for you, but you also have some controls you can leverage. Let’s look at your options.
Canonical tags
A canonical tag can help consolidate signals to a chosen URL but requires each additional version of a page to be crawled. As I mentioned earlier, Google may make adjustments as it recognizes patterns, and these canonicalized URLs may be crawled less over time.
This is what I’d opt for by default. But if a site has a ton of issues and parameters are out of control, I may look at some of the other options.
Noindex
A noindex meta robots tag removes a page from the index. This requires a page to be crawled. But again, it may be crawled less over time. If you need signals to consolidate to other pages, I’ll avoid using noindex.
Blocking in robots.txt
Blocking parameters in robots.txt means that the pages may still get indexed. They’re not likely to show in normal searches.
The problem is that these pages won’t be crawled and won’t consolidate signals. If you want to consolidate signals, avoid blocking the parameters.
Site Audit
When setting up a project in Site Audit, there’s a toggle in the crawl settings called “Remove URL Parameters” that you can use to ignore any URLs with parameters.
You can also exclude parameterized URLs in the crawl setup using pattern matching.
Sidenote.
Fun fact: We only count the canonicalized version of pages toward your crawl credits.
Final thoughts
Just to summarize, URL parameters have a lot of different use cases, and they may or may not cause issues for your site. Everything is situational.
Message me on Twitter if you have any questions.
SEO
OpenAI Claims New “o1” Model Can Reason Like A Human
OpenAI has unveiled its latest language model, “o1,” touting advancements in complex reasoning capabilities.
In an announcement, the company claimed its new o1 model can match human performance on math, programming, and scientific knowledge tests.
However, the true impact remains speculative.
Extraordinary Claims
According to OpenAI, o1 can score in the 89th percentile on competitive programming challenges hosted by Codeforces.
The company insists its model can perform at a level that would place it among the top 500 students nationally on the elite American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME).
Further, OpenAI states that o1 exceeds the average performance of human subject matter experts holding PhD credentials on a combined physics, chemistry, and biology benchmark exam.
These are extraordinary claims, and it’s important to remain skeptical until we see open scrutiny and real-world testing.
Reinforcement Learning
The purported breakthrough is o1’s reinforcement learning process, designed to teach the model to break down complex problems using an approach called the “chain of thought.”
By simulating human-like step-by-step logic, correcting mistakes, and adjusting strategies before outputting a final answer, OpenAI contends that o1 has developed superior reasoning skills compared to standard language models.
Implications
It’s unclear how o1’s claimed reasoning could enhance understanding of queries—or generation of responses—across math, coding, science, and other technical topics.
From an SEO perspective, anything that improves content interpretation and the ability to answer queries directly could be impactful. However, it’s wise to be cautious until we see objective third-party testing.
OpenAI must move beyond benchmark browbeating and provide objective, reproducible evidence to support its claims. Adding o1’s capabilities to ChatGPT in planned real-world pilots should help showcase realistic use cases.
Featured Image: JarTee/Shutterstock
SEO
How to Build a Fandom by Talent-Scouting Great Content
At a time when anyone can create content, the real challenge—and opportunity—is in saying something new.
I think content curation can help with that.
Curation is all about finding undiscovered stories and repackaging ideas in ways your audience really respond to.
In this article, you’ll learn why content curation is great for growth, and how to talent scout quality underground or left-field content.
Gathering and sharing content is a popular social media tactic, but content curation extends to mediums and channels far beyond social.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
| Example | Type | What is it? |
|---|---|---|
| The Pudding | Article | A data journalism publication that curates a range of rich media (e.g. social comments, headline snippets, literature reviews) to tell compelling visual stories – like this one. |
| Ahrefs’ digest | Newsletter | Our Senior Content Marketing Manager, Si Quan Ong (SQ), curates key SEO/marketing news, accompanied by snappy annotations. |
| Near Media Memo | Podcast | Conversations at the intersection of search, social, and commerce. Hosts curate and discuss the latest industry content. |
| KFC’s “Bucket Bangers” Spotify Playlist | Playlist | A playlist curated by KFC as part of a PR campaign, containing 46 tracks that name drop the brand. |
| Campaign Inspiration | Image carousel | This LinkedIn page curates visual examples of existing PR campaigns to inspire marketers. |
Newsletters, in particular, have become the go-to platform for curation, since they’re fairly cheap to run and easy to set up.
The numbers back this up. A quick look at Site Explorer shows newsletter platform Substack experiencing a 373% leap in organic traffic from September 5th, 2023 to September 5th, 2024.
You can see some great examples of curated SEO newsletters here: I Subscribed to 72 SEO Newsletters. Here Are My 11 Favorites.
Now you know about content curation in all its forms and guises, let me tell you what’s so great about it…
From saving money, to building traffic, and cementing your authority, content curation comes with plenty of benefits.
1. Content curation saves time and money
At Ahrefs, we follow The Pareto Principle: the idea that 80% of the reward comes from 20% of the effort.
If you want to improve your effort:reward ratio, curation is a great option.
I asked SQ about the benefits of content curation, and he had this to say:
“One benefit is that I don’t have to write an essay from scratch each week (which is what most newsletters are).”
While content curation has the potential to save you time, resources, and money, I do want to add two important caveats:
- Curating niche, underground content examples can still take time – especially when you’re first finding your sources.
- If you’re doing deep-dive investigations into those examples, you may spend just as long curating as you would creating.
2. Curation helps you build links, traffic, and engagement
Marketing Examples is a goldmine of curated marketing snippets.
Founder, Harry Dry, doesn’t just gather content — he dissects real-world marketing copy, name drops the creator, and breaks down their winning formulas, making it easy for readers to replicate that success.
As a result, his site has earned fairly consistent links and traffic over time, growing organically by 88% in the last two years.
Curating content is an example of what I call “awareness you prepared earlier”. Your chances of driving traction are vastly improved when you crowdsource ideas.
Not only do your audience consume your curated content, they publicize it to their own network via social posts or reciprocal links when they get featured.
Some refer to this as “ego bait”. Obviously there’s an element of flattery involved, but in my experience, the top curators prioritize content that genuinely helped or inspired them, rather than chasing big names with the widest reach.
3. Curating content is great for EEAT
Few people have direct experience with every topic they’ve ever written about.
But, since 2022, first-hand experience has become a prerequisite for ranking in Google.
Curating others’ lived experiences and knowledge in your content is a powerful way to build your EEAT and improve your rankings.
4. You become credible by association
We tend to categorize people according to their social group memberships – this is known as social categorization.
If you’re regularly associating yourself with respected thought leaders, your audience is more likely to group you with them, and hold you in higher regard as a result.
Mixing in your own content and opinion is important for building credibility, but be careful not to overdo the self-promotion.
Back to SQ:
“I don’t tend to include all of the blog posts we publish on our blog.“
5. You get closer to your customers and community
When you curate, you consume content holistically –like your customers– and stop being so introspective.
If you’re only consuming content from your brand or brand “friends”, there’s a limit to the value you can bring to your audience.
Content curators turn to their community to source content, so curating bridges the gap in two ways: by helping them consume like their customers, and by giving them a reason to connect.
6. When you curate, your content gets better
To create is to curate. All ideas are shaped and borrowed from somewhere – that’s how knowledge is acquired.
If I don’t curate, I tend to find my own content stagnates.
Curation introduces me to new ideas, reminds me of the things I have forgotten, allows me to build deeper, more informed arguments, and ultimately helps me produce better content – with a lot more in the way of information gain.
For instance, this blog started out as a simple list of content curation benefits, thunk up by yours truly.
But as I came across cool examples of novel content curation, it evolved into a more comprehensive (and hopefully, more interesting) guide.
“Another benefit of content curation is that I get to keep abreast of anything new in SEO and marketing, which informs my own work”
7. You build your personal “brand”
Curation gives you the chance to platform your own expertise and assert yourself as a thought leader.
Take a look at the search volume for one of the most prolific curators in SEO: Aleyda Solis.
Aleyda curates SEO news and insights across her newsletter, SEOFOMO, her podcast, Crawling Mondays, her owned social media channels, and industry talks.
As a result, her name now drives ~600 monthly organic searches, according to Site Explorer.
And over 19K “in content” mentions, according to Content Explorer.
Curation is about piecing together unrelated content to reveal new ideas and information.
You’re giving someone else’s content another shot at engagement – sometimes after a “failure” to launch.
“The same core information can be made more or less valuable by changing its format. Great ideas are sometimes locked away in places that render them inaccessible to people that would benefit from them.”
Here are 9 ways you can “talent scout” novel content, and carve out your own curation USP.
1. Pay attention to lesser-known voices
In every industry there are sources that audiences defer to for information and ideas.
Look beyond them.
Scout for “rising stars” and underground sources to give your curation exclusivity.
Mark Williams-Cook, Director at Candour and Founder of AlsoAsked, does just this when curating his newsletter: Core Updates.
“I’ve made a conscious effort not just to follow the ‘big names’, as there are some truly excellent SEOs that are very quiet on social media. I’d always recommend following someone if you see them putting out solid advice, even if you’ve never heard of them. I’ve made some good friends and excellent connections that way!”
This is probably something you’ll have to do manually at first.
I try to pay close attention to people leaving savvy comments on social media posts and industry communities.
2. Build an X list of “ones to watch”
Once you’ve found the right “ones to watch”, you can start building a list to refer back to whenever it’s time to curate.
SQ uses X lists and subscribes to others’ Substacks:
“I have my own Twitter list of marketers (getting poorer these days sadly) and follow other people’s substacks/newsletters and see if there are any links they recommend.”
3. Mine niche and atypical sources of information
Nicole DeLeon, Ed Zitron, Marie Haynes and other tech curators recently mined Google’s DoJ trial documentation to investigate “buried” information on how the search engine ranks content.
Search Engine Roundtable founder, Barry Schwartz, is always extracting content from Google rep social comments, Google developer docs, and Google’s Office Hours video series to curate hot-off-the-press news.
Techemails mines leaked tech company emails from court filings and curates them across social media and their website (p.s. they are preeetty eye-opening).
Finding and teasing out obscure information is a great skill to have when it comes to content curation.
Here are some more ways you can do that:
- Track updates in company documentation (e.g. brand Ts & Cs, Google Developer Docs, Anthropic Release Notes)
- Mine Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request databases
- Monitor government data via fact finding bodies (e.g. Indeed curates content from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to inform content in their Hiring Lab)
- Study public datasets released by research institutions (e.g. Harvard Dataverse)
- Mine “hidden” or ephemeral content (e.g. podcasts, webinars, industry talks, seminars etc.) to curate quotes and promote relatively unheard information
- Monitor public announcements and press releases from organizations
4. Track down new and trending content
Be the first to break and curate news in your industry. Start by searching for industry-specific keywords in Content Explorer.
Then add filters to make sure you’re seeing the freshest and highest quality content.
In my experience, I find that:
- Adding a minimum Referring Domain of “30”
- Adding a minimum word count of “300”
- Sorting by “Date: newest first”
…shows me the newest and best SEO related content, but you should play around until you find what works in your industry.
Tip
When it comes to filtering, don’t get too prescriptive about it – remember, you want to find novel content that usually flies under the radar, so avoid being overly strict with minimum thresholds.
This next part is really important. Once you’re happy with your configuration, hit “Save filters” so that you can repeat this analysis for the next instalment of your newsletter, podcast, social post, article, or whatever else you might be curating.
With the Content Explorer, you’re searching for instances of a keyword in the title, content, URL or all of the above.
But relevant content won’t always contain the exact keywords or topics you’re searching for.
In which case, try searching for keywords in the anchor text linking to that content.
There’s a preconfigured search for this in Ahrefs’ Web Explorer. Just hit the “examples” tab, and select “Most quoted newly published pages about ChatGPT”:
This will load a full report of the most linked to pages about the topic “ChatGPT” over the last week. Then all you need to do is update the report with your chosen topic, and adjust any filters.
And hit “Save report”.
Another tip for breaking news was recently disclosed by SEO expert and founder of SEO blog Detailed, Glen Allsopp, on the Ahrefs Podcast (it’s a great episode – I highly recommend a full listen!)
He spoke about a technique that he refers to as the “iPhone Link Building” method.
“The reason I call it this, because it doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter how old your website is, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been around. If you have a photo of the iPhone 16 before anyone else and you put that on [your site], the whole tech world is going to talk about it, right? You’re going to get links from every tech website on the planet. Doesn’t matter that [your site] has nothing to do with tech and gadgets. You’ve got the first iPhone link. People are going to talk about it. So I refer to it as the iPhone link building.“
To carry out “iPhone link building”, Glen sets up an alert using Visual Ping. This sends him a notification as soon as there’s an update on one of the webpages he’s tracking. If something new or interesting has changed, he’ll work this into his next piece of content.
5. Ask your network
Turning to your social network for examples of existing content is a great way to curate.
Here’s Chris Haines, Ahrefs’ Senior SEO Specialist, doing just this on LinkedIn…
And here I am posting in Women In Tech SEO (my #1 community) for contributions to my article: So You’ve Been Asked To Humanize AI Content
Often, Slack communities will dedicate a channel to self-promotion. This is another handy way to find new content to curate.
“In the Women in Tech SEO Slack group, we have a hashtag channel (#wts-amplify-me) that serves as a space for members to promote their work, and it’s wholesome to see lots of our members use it to highlight the work of others! This channel helps me curate content for our weekly WTSNewsletter. As newsletter creators, we are responsible for amplifying diverse voices, which was the driving force behind starting WTSNewsletter. The lack of diversity in industry newsletters motivated me to create our very own weekly newsletter that showcases the brilliant work of underrepresented individuals.”
Community content sourcing doesn’t begin and end with LinkedIn or Slack. Check out other pockets of the internet, including niche forums, Subreddits, Facebook groups, and Mastodon instances.
6. Bookmark everything
Some of my best articles have been inspired by the posts I’ve bookmarked.
Here are my top tips for bookmarking curated content:
Use web highlighters
Use a web highlighter plugin to bookmark interesting content for future curation.
Organize examples in a note taking app
Use a note taking app like Notion or Obsidian to organize your content examples.
Bookmark your saved social media content
You’ll undoubtedly have banked some great content on social media over the years, but navigating back to those archives can be a bit of a faff.
I bookmark mine to my browser so I can easily jump back in (e.g. LinkedIn “Saved”, X bookmarks, X advanced searches, TikTok saved, Instagram saved etc.)
7. Set up author notifications
Follow creators and journalists that inspire you. Subscribe to their channel, turn on notification bells on LinkedIn and X, and set up RSS feeds to get alerted whenever they push out new content.
Tip
When you’re searching for new content in the Content Explorer, check out the Authors tab for ideas on which thought leaders to follow in your industry.
8. Set up keyword alerts
Get notified as soon as on-topic content is published, with Ahrefs “Mention” alerts.
9. Use AI to extract and annotate content
AI broadly summarizes outdated content, and has a habit of forgoing (or entirely fabricating) references. In other words, it’s pretty terrible for curating unique content.
Instead, use it to extract, summarize, and investigate the content you’ve selectively curated.
Extract nuggets from “hidden” content
I used AI to extract quotes and insights from webinars, interviews, and YouTube videos. The post I wrote for SpinSucks was inspired by content mined from interview transcripts and bookmarked social media content, using Claude AI.
Reverse-engineer successful content formulas
I fed ChatGPT examples of top-performing blogs to understand patterns of success, and inform my opinion of what “good” content looks like, while updating the post: 6 Simple Blog Post Templates (Download & Edit Along.
We’ve covered a lot of ground, but there are a few extra details worth mentioning before you jump into curation.
Make sure you have a clear theme
Curation isn’t just about sourcing and presenting the most unique content you can find.
Value also comes from carefully selecting content that fits a central concept or theme.
“[Content curation] helps build my taste, which in my opinion, is the hardest part of curation, because most people don’t seem to understand the concept of “curation”, i.e. selecting the best, or what fits a theme. They just seem to shoehorn every article on the internet.”
Build your exclude list
Be discerning about the content you create. Set out rules as to the content or people you will/won’t include, using your brand guidelines for inspiration.
Repurpose your knowledge
Content curation is usually cheaper and easier to produce, but don’t treat it as a “one and done” activity. Repurpose the things you learn both internally and externally.
“We actually use the news – that Jack (Chambers-Ward) and I curate for the Core Updates newsletter – internally at Candour during one of our weekly meetings when we are discussing changes in the industry. So it’s been a helpful task to make sure the agency is always up to date!”
Final thoughts
Content curation isn’t a “set it and forget it” tactic. It’s an ongoing process that demands a reasonable amount of effort, but the payoff is worth it. That’s because:
- It’s a traffic magnet: Curated content can outperform original content in terms of organic traffic, because you’re cherry-picking the best ideas.
- It builds your E-E-A-T: By sharing valuable experiences, you’re signaling to users and search engines that you know your stuff. This can boost your rankings across the board.
- It’s a networking opportunity: When you share others’ content, they notice. We’ve built relationships with industry giants simply by featuring their work on our blog or weekly digest.
Great curation is about adding value. You can just reshare content verbatim, but you’re missing out on a valuable opportunity to add your own insight, and explain why the content you’ve painstakingly curated matters to your audience.
In a world where 70 million blog posts are published every month, skilled curators stand out. They don’t just share content – they build communities, spark discussions, and become go-to resources in their niches.
If you’re giving content curation a try, experiment with different formats and track what resonates (our Content Explorer can help with that too), then watch your influence grow.
SEO
Stop Overcomplicating Things. Entity SEO is Just SEO
“Entity SEO”.
Sounds scary, doesn’t it? Not only does the word “entity” sound foreign, it feels like yet another thing to add to your never-ending SEO to-do list. You’re barely afloat when it comes to SEO, but ohgawd here comes one more new thing to dedicate your scarce resources.
I have good news for you though: You don’t have to do entity SEO.
Why? Because you’re probably already doing it.
Let’s start from the beginning.
In 2012, Google announced the Knowledge Graph. The Knowledge Graph is a knowledge base of entities and the relationships between them.
An entity is any object or concept that can be distinctly identified. This includes tangibles like people, places, and organizations, and intangibles like colors, concepts, and feelings.
For example, the footballer Federico Chiesa is an entity:
So is the famous British-Indian restaurant Dishoom:
Entities are connected by edges, which describe the relationships between them.
Introducing the Knowledge Graph helped improve Google’s search results because:
- Google could better understand search intent — People search for the same thing but describe it in different ways. Google can now understand this and serve the same results.
- It reduced reliance on keyword matching — Matching the number of keywords on a page doesn’t guarantee relevance; also it prevents crafty SEOs from keyword stuffing.
- It reduced Google’s computational load — The Internet is virtually infinite and Google simply cannot understand the meaning of every word, paragraph, webpage, and website. Entities provide a structure where Google can improve understanding while minimizing load.
For example, even though we didn’t mention the actor’s name, Google can understand we’re looking for Harrison Ford and therefore shows his filmography:
That’s because Hans Solo and Harrison Ford are closely connected entities in the Knowledge Graph. Google shows Knowledge Graph data in SERP features like Knowledge Panels and Knowledge Cards.
With this knowledge, we can then define entity SEO as optimizing your website or webpages for such entities.
If Google has moved to entity-oriented search, then entity SEO is just SEO. As my colleague Patrick Stox says, “The entity identification part is more on Google’s end than on our end.”
I mean, if you look at the ‘entity SEO’ tactics you find in blog posts, you’ll discover that they’re mostly just SEO tactics:
- Earn a Wikipedia page
- Create a Google Business Profile
- Add internal links
- Create all digital assets Google is representing on the page (e.g., videos, images, Twitter)
- Develop topical authority
- Include semantically related words on a page
- Add schema markup
Let’s be honest. If you’re serious about SEO and are investing in it, then it’s likely you’re already doing most of the above.
Regardless of entities, wouldn’t you want a Wikipedia page? After all, it confers benefits beyond “entity SEO”. Brand recognition, backlinks from one of the world’s most authoritative sites (albeit nofollow)—any company would want that.
If you’re a local business, you’ve probably created a Google Business Profile. Adding internal links is just SEO 101.
And billions of blistering barnacles, creating all digital assets Google wants to see, like images and videos, is practically marketing 101. If you’re a Korean recipe site and want to be associated with the kimchi jjigae entity, wouldn’t you already know you need to make a video and have photos of the cooking process?
When I started my breakdance site years ago, I knew nothing about SEO and content marketing but I still knew I needed to make YouTube videos. Because guess what? It’s hard to learn breakdancing from words. I don’t think I needed an entity SEO to tell me that.
Topical authority is an SEO concept where a website aims to become the go-to authority on one or more topics. Call me crazy, but it feels like blogging 101. Read most guides on how to start a blog and I’m sure you’ll find a subheading called “niche down”. And once you niche down, it’s inevitable you’ll create content surrounding that one topic.
If I start a breakdance site, what are the chances I’ll write about contemporary dance or pop art? Pretty low.
In fact, topical authority is similar to the Wiki Strategy, which Nat Eliason wrote about in 2017. There wasn’t a single mention of entities. It was just the right way to make content for the Internet.
I think the biggest problem here isn’t entities versus keywords or that topical authority is a brand-new strategy. It’s simply that many SEOs are driven by short-sightedness or the wrong incentives.
You can target a whole bunch of unrelated keywords that have high search volume, gain incredible amounts of search traffic, and brag about how successful you are as an SEO.
Some of the pages sending HubSpot the most search traffic has barely anything to do with their core product. A page on how to type the shrug emoji? The most famous quotes?
This is not to single out HubSpot—I’m sure they have their reasons, as explored by Ryan here—but to illustrate that many companies do the exact same thing. And when Google stops rewarding this behavior, all of a sudden companies realise they do need to write about their core competencies. They need to “build topical authority”.
I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater because I do see value in the last two ‘entity SEO tactics’. But again, if you’re doing something similar to the Wiki Strategy for your site, chances are you would have naturally included entities or semantically relevant words without thinking too much about it. It’s difficult to create content about kimchi jjigae without mentioning kimchi, pork, or gochujang.
However, to prevent the curse of knowledge or simply to avoid blindspots, checking for important subtopics you might have missed is useful. At Ahrefs, we run a page-level content gap analysis and look out for subtopics:
For example, if we ran a content gap analysis on “inbound marketing” for the top three ranking pages, we see that we might need to include these subtopics:
- What is inbound marketing
- Inbound marketing strategy
- Inbound marketing examples
- Inbound marketing tools
Finally, adding schema markup makes the most sense because it’s how Google recognizes entities and better understands the content of web pages. But if it’s just one new tactic—which I believe is already part of ‘standard’ SEO and you might already be doing it—then there’s no need to create a category to define the “new era” (voice SEO, where art thou?)
Final thoughts
Two years ago, someone on Reddit asked for an SEO workflow that utilized super advanced SEO methodologies:
The top answer: None of the above.
When our Chief Marketing Officer Tim Soulo tweeted about this Reddit thread, he got similar replies too:
And even though I don’t know him, this is a person after my own heart:
You don’t have to worry about entity SEO. If you have passion for a topic and are creating high-quality content that fulfills what people are looking for, then you’re likely already doing “entity SEO”.
Just follow this meme: Make stuff people like.
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