SEO

Why we’re hardwired to believe SEO myths (and how to spot them!)

Published

2 years ago

April 28, 2022

Why we’re hardwired to believe SEO myths (and how to spot them!)

Give someone a fish and they’ll EAT for one day. Teach someone to fish and they’ll EAT for a lifetime. Yes, that’s an SEO pun. It’s also the goal of this article.

If you pop into either of the fantastic SEO communities on Twitter or LinkedIn, you’ll inevitably encounter some common SEO myths:

“Longer dwell time means a good user experience, so it must be a ranking factor”
“A high bounce rate indicates a bad user experience, so it must be bad for SEO”

Social media posts like these get tons of engagement. As a result, they amplify the myths we try to squash through repetition, false evidence, and faulty logic. The problem isn’t limited to social media, either. There are plenty of high-profile websites that package hypotheses as facts because readers eat them up.

These myths are a huge problem because they’re red herrings. They cause marketers to prioritize projects that won’t improve the content, user experience, or Google search performance.

So how can the SEO community rally around the truth? We can start by doing two things:

SEOs must admit our personalities and professions hardwire us to believe myths. We have a deep desire for answers, control, and predictability, as well as a fierce distrust of Google.
We need to recognize the psychological and environmental factors that influence our ability to sort fact from fiction.

So rather than busting individual myths, let’s ask ourselves “why?” instead. In other words, let’s learn to fish.

Internal reasons we believe SEO myths

Let’s dig into some internal factors, such as our thoughts and feelings, that influence our beliefs.

1. SEOs need structure and control

SEO is a fascinating branch of marketing because our performance is driven by a constantly evolving algorithm that we don’t control. In fact, there were more than 5,000 Google algorithm updates in 2021 alone.

In other words, SEOs live in a world of crippling dependency. Even the top-ranking signals that we know about can fluctuate based on the industry, query, or available content within Google’s index. For example, if you manage websites in the finance or health space, E-A-T is critical. If you publish news content, then recency is very important.

To gain a sense of structure and control, we look for more ways to influence outcomes. But there are two problems with that approach:

We overestimate the impact of individual ranking factors
We falsely believe something is a Google ranking factor that is not

Our need to amplify our own level of control is supported by psychology. A 2016 study revealed an individual’s need for structure made them more likely to believe in a conspiracy theory.

“The human tendency to recognize patterns even when none exist is shown to have applications in consumer behavior. The current research demonstrates that as one’s personal need for structure (PNS) increases (that is, requiring predictability and disfavoring uncertainty), false consumer pattern perceptions emerge.”

If you find yourself waffling between fact and fiction, don’t let your desire for control dictate your final decision.

2. The primal need to recognize patterns

The human brain is excellent at recognizing patterns. Throughout history, we’ve relied on that ability to make better decisions and ensure the survival of our species. Unfortunately, we’re so good at spotting patterns that we also fabricate them.

False pattern recognition has several drawbacks –

It might influence SEO decisions that could have a sitewide impact
If you overstate the connection publicly, others might misinterpret it as fact

An excellent example surfaced on Twitter recently. Google’s John Mueller was asked if adding too many links to your site’s main navigation could impact Google Discover traffic. The individual who asked the question ran several tests and saw positive results, but Mueller said it was merely an interesting correlation.

I’d still go with “unrelated”. As mentioned in our docs at https://t.co/kkA2QTzIJs “Given the serendipitous nature of Discover, traffic from Discover is less predictable or dependable when compared to Search, and is considered supplemental to your Search traffic.”

— 🦙 johnmu.xml (personal) 🦙 (@JohnMu) April 14, 2022

“I’d still go with ’unrelated’. As mentioned in our docs: Given the serendipitous nature of Discover, traffic from Discover is less predictable or dependable when compared to Search, and is considered supplemental to your Search traffic.”

Fortunately, this individual went straight to the source for an answer instead of publishing a case study that could have had serious implications for website navigation decisions.

3. Confirmation bias

It’s well-documented that people accept information that supports their beliefs and reject information that doesn’t. It’s a primordial trait that evolved when we began to form social groups. Early humans surrounded themselves with others who thought and acted the same way to ensure their survival.

One of the most famous confirmation bias studies comes from Stanford. For the study, researchers segmented students into two opposing groups based on their beliefs about capital punishment.

One group supported capital punishment and believed it reduced crime. The other opposed it and believed it had no impact on crime.

Each group was asked to react to two studies, one which supported their views, and one which contradicted them. Both groups found the study that aligned with their beliefs much more credible, and each became more entrenched in their original beliefs.

SEO practitioners are particularly prone to confirmation bias because we’re terrified of being wrong. We hypothesize, test, build, optimize, and iterate. If we’re wrong too often, we’ll waste time and money, and we could risk our reputation and our jobs.

We need to be right so badly that we may accept myths that confirm our beliefs rather than admit failure.

4. Lack of trust in Google

It’s safe to say most SEOs don’t trust Google. That has led to some of the longest-running SEO myths I could find. For example, even after seven years of repeated rejections from Google, many SEO experts still believe engagement is a ranking signal.

Here’s John Mueller shooting down the engagement myth in 2015:

“I don’t think we even see what people are doing on your website. If they are filling out forms or not, if they are converting and actually buying something… So if we can’t see that, then that is something we cannot take into account. So from my point of view, that is not something I’d really treat as a ranking factor.”

Nearly seven years later, in March 2022, John was asked the same question again, and his response was pretty much the same:

“So I don’t think we would use engagement as a factor.”

And yet, the SEOs piled on in the comments. I encourage you to read them if you want a sense of the intense level of mistrust. Essentially, SEOs overanalyzed Mueller’s words, questioned his honesty, and claimed he was misinformed because they had contradictory insider information.

5. Impostor syndrome

Even the most seasoned SEO professionals admit they’ve felt the pain of impostor syndrome. You can easily find discussions on Reddit, Twitter, and LinkedIn about how we question our own level of knowledge. That’s especially true in public settings when we’re surrounded by our peers.

Not long ago Azeem Ahmad and Izzie Smith chatted about impostor syndrome. Here’s what Izzie said:

“It’s really hard to put yourself out there and share your learnings. We’re all really afraid. I think most of us have this impostor syndrome that’s telling us we’re not good enough.”

This contributes to SEO myths in several ways. First, it erodes self-confidence, which makes individuals more prone to believe myths. Second, it prevents folks who might want to challenge inaccurate information from speaking out publicly because they’re afraid they’ll be attacked.

Needless to say, that enables myths to spread throughout the broader community.

The best way to combat impostor syndrome is to ensure SEO communities are safe and supportive of new members and new ideas. Be respectful, open-minded, and accepting. If more folks speak out when something doesn’t feel accurate, then we can keep some troublesome myths in check.

External reasons we believe SEO myths

Now let’s explore the external forces, like peers and publishers, that cause us to believe SEO myths.

1. Peer pressure

Peer pressure is closely related to impostor syndrome, except it comes from the outside. It’s a feeling of coercion from peers, whether a large group of SEOs, a widely known expert or a close mentor or colleague.

Because humans are social creatures, our urge to fit in often overpowers our desire to be right. When something doesn’t feel right, we go with the flow anyway for fear of being ostracized. In fact, social proof can be more persuasive than purely evidence-based proof.

I asked the Twitter SEO community if anyone ever felt compelled to accept an SEO ranking factor as fact based on popular opinion. Several folks replied, and there was an interesting theme around website code.

“Back in 2014, a web developer told me he truly believed text-to-code ratio was a ranking factor. For a while, I believed him because he made convincing arguments and he was the first developer I met who had an opinion about SEO.”

— Alice Roussel

“Years and years ago I wanted code quality to be a ranking factor. Many thought it was because it made sense to reward well-written code. But it never was. Browsers had to be very forgiving because most sites were so badly built.”

— Simon Cox

Similar to combatting impostor syndrome, if we develop a more tolerable SEO community that’s willing to respectfully debate issues, we’ll all benefit from more reliable information.

2. Outdated information

If you publish content about SEO, then you’ll be guilty of spreading SEO myths at some point. Google updates its algorithms thousands of times each year, which means assumptions are disproven and once-good advice becomes outdated.

Trusted publishers have a duty to refresh or remove inaccurate content to prevent SEO misconceptions from spreading.

For example, in 2019 Google changed how it handles outbound links. It introduced two new link attributes into the nofollow family, UGC and sponsored, and began to treat all three of these as hints instead of ignoring nofollow links.

So if you wrote about link attributes prior to September 2019, your advice is probably out of date.

Unfortunately, most SEOs update content because it’s underperforming, not because it’s wrong. So perhaps publishers should put integrity above performance to strengthen our community.

3. Jumping on trends

Sometimes SEO myths explode because the facts can’t keep up with the virality of the myth. One of my favorite examples is the LSI keyword trend. This one pops up on Twitter from time to time, and thankfully Bill Slawski is quick to quash it.

Trend-based myths go viral because they tap into the fear of missing out (FOMO), and SEOs hate to miss out on the opportunity to gain a competitive advantage. They also resonate with SEOs because they appear to offer a secret glimpse into Google’s black box.

Although trends eventually fade, they will remain a thorn in our side as long as the original sources remain unchanged.

4. Correlation vs causation

The most difficult myths to bust are those backed by data. No matter how many times Google debunks them, they won’t die if folks come armed with case studies.

Take exact match domains (EMD) for example. This article lists several reasons why EMDs are good for SEO, using Hotels.com as a case study. But it’s a classic chicken and egg argument. Does the site rank number one for “hotels” because it’s an EMD? Or is it because the owner clearly understood SEO strategy and prioritized keyword research, link building, internal links, page speed, and high-quality content marketing for the last 27 years?

We also can’t discount the fact that the domain has 42 million backlinks.

But if you want to hear it directly from the horse’s mouth, Google’s John Mueller says EMDs provide no SEO bonus. Here’s what he said on Reddit:

“There’s no secret SEO bonus for having your keywords in the domain name. And for those coming with “but there are keyword domains ranking well” — of course, you can also rank well with a domain that has keywords in it. But you can rank well with other domain names too, and a domain won’t rank well just because it has keywords in it.”

This is obviously correlation, not causation.

To be clear, I fully support running SEO tests to learn more about Google’s algorithm. But it’s incredibly difficult to create a signal vacuum that prevents outside influences from skewing your results. And even if you manage to isolate one ranking factor, you have no way of knowing how strong the signal is in relation to other signals. In a total vacuum, one signal may win. But in the wilderness of Google, it may be so weak that it’s virtually nonexistent.

Furthermore, the signal may only apply to certain types of content. We’ve seen signal fluctuations before regarding product reviews and E-A-T in YMYL spaces. So even if data suggests something might improve organic rankings, how reliable is the information, and how important is the signal?

All this is to say that we should be very careful when proclaiming new ranking factors, especially if they contradict Google’s statements or stray too far from universally measuring user experience.

5. It’s plausible, but not measurable

This group of myths is rooted in logic, which makes them particularly dangerous and sticky. Usually, they follow a simple formula: if A = B, and B = C, then A = C.

Here’s an example:

Google wants to rank content that provides a good user experience
If a webpage has a high bounce rate, it must provide a bad user experience
Therefore, a high bounce rate is bad for SEO

This seems to make sense, right? Yet, Google has said many times they can’t see what users do on your website, and they don’t look at bounce rate.

I’ve seen the same argument applied to dwell time, time on page, SERP click-through rates (CTR), and so on. To be clear, Google says CTR does not drive organic search engine rankings because that would cause results to be overrun with spammy, low-quality content.

Most often these myths stem from competing views about what a good user experience looks like and how to measure it. What constitutes a good experience for one type of search query might be a terrible experience for another. This lack of consistency makes it virtually impossible to identify metrics that can be deployed universally across all websites.

In other words, if potential user experience signals depend on too many factors, Google can’t use them. That’s why they launched the page experience update in 2021 which quantifies user experience with specific, universal metrics.

Here’s your fishing pole

In many cases, SEO myths fall into more than one of the above categories which makes them even more difficult to dispel. That’s why we keep seeing social media posts falsely identifying ranking factors like keyword density, domain authority, conversions, and meta keywords.

If you understand a few basic concepts about ranking factors, you’ll be better equipped to sort fact from fiction and prioritize SEO initiatives that drive more organic traffic.

Ask yourself these five questions when you smell the stench of a myth:

Is it quantifiable and measurable?
Is it scalable?
Is it broadly or universally true, or does it depend on the user?
Does it support Google’s goals of delivering a better user experience?
Has Google confirmed or denied it publicly?

If you can check each of those boxes, then you may have a valid ranking factor on your hands. But don’t take my word for it. Run some tests, ask some friends, use logic, and confirm your theory. And if all else fails, just ask John Mueller.

Jonas Sickler is a published author and digital marketer. He writes about SEO, brand reputation, customer attention, and marketing. His advice has appeared in hundreds of publications, including Forbes, CNBC, CMI, and Search Engine Watch. He can be found on Twitter @JonasSickler.

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SEO

SEO Experts Gather for a Candid Chat About Search [Podcast]

Published

12 hours ago

September 13, 2024

Max

SEO Experts Gather for a Candid Chat About Search [Podcast]

Wix just celebrated their 100th podcast episode! Congrats, Wix. To quote Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO Brand at Wix; “we talk a lot.”

You sure do! It’s a good thing you have a lot of interesting stuff to say.

The 100th episode of “SERPs Up” was full of awesome guests. Here’s a summary of the action.

Apart from the usual faces, Oberstein and Crystal Carter, Head Of SEO Communications, it was a powerhouse guestlist:

Chima Mmeje.
Darren Shaw.
Joy Hawkins.
Eli Schwartz.
Kevin Indig.
Barry Schwartz.

Just How Broken Are The SERPs?

The first guest was Chima Mmeje from Moz. She dove into the frustrations that many SEOs have been feeling and spoke plainly about the flaws in Google’s updates.

Mordy Oberstein: “Is the SERP broken?”

Chima Mmeje: “The helpful content update, and I’m saying this here, live, is a farce. There was nothing helpful about that update. … Yes, the SERP is 1,000% broken. … How does anybody even use Google in the U.S.? … I don’t think they are going to release any update that will fix these issues.”

Mordy Oberstein: “There’s no update. … Plopping Reddit all over the SERP was because they saw the content trends … and they said ‘we don’t have any so we’re just going to throw Reddit there’.”

Chima Mmeje: “It was lazy to have Reddit there … Nobody uses their real names. Anybody can go on Reddit and answer questions and then you see these answers populating in People Also Ask, populating in featured snippets, populating all over the SERPs as correct information. It is dangerous, at worst.”

Crystal Carter: “Do you think that one of the reasons why we’ve seen so much upheaval and so much so volatility in the SERPs, which I certainly agree with in the last year … is lots and lots of variables, like lots of new features coming in, so the alignment with Reddit, the AI overviews, the SGE … Do you think it is just too many things being thrown in at the same time and it messing up lots of SERPs as a result? Or do you think it’s something else?”

Chima Mmeje: ” … releasing too many features that they did not test properly. Features that were rushed SGE [testing] did not even last a year and now they brought in Google AI Overviews. I still don’t understand why we have AI Overviews and featured snippets on the same SERP. I feel like it’s like pick one, make a choice.”

Mordy Oberstein’s next question was about what we can do. “As an SEO, how are you supposed to do this? I’ve heard things from people … Yeah, I don’t know what to do. I can’t produce the kind of results that I’ve always wanted to. Can you still be effective as an SEO in an environment like this?”

Chima Mmeje: “I’m going to be honest, we are suffering … It feels like we are trying our best with what we are seeing … because there is no clear guidance. And to be honest, a lot of us are playing a guessing game right now and that is the best that we can do. It’s all a guessing game based on what we’ve seen one or two variables work. And this is not a long-term strategy. If we’re going to be realistic, it’s not going to work in the long-term. I honestly, I don’t know what the answer is … you’re fighting against Reddit. How do you compete against Reddit? Nobody has figured that out yet.”

Crystal Carter: “Thanks for saying it out loud, Chima.” Crystal was reflecting the sentiment of the commenters, who appreciated her candor and willingness to say: we don’t know, but we’re trying our best.

Mordy Oberstein: “The most honest take I’ve heard on that in quite a long time.”

Mmeje also recounted examples of small website owners and small businesses that have had to shut down. She also talked about the pervasive feeling in the SEO community that there is no rhyme or reason to how the algorithms handle websites and content.

What’s Going On In Local SEO?

The next guests were Darren Shaw from Whitespark and Joy Hawkins, owner of Sterling Sky for a segment called “It’s New.” They talked about new developments in local SEO.

Hawkins talked about a new feature in Google Business Profile.

Joy Hawkins: “… There’s a little services section inside the Google business profile dashboard that’s easy to miss, but you can add anything you want in there. … We’ve done a lot of testing on it and they do impact ranking, but I should clarify, it’s like a small impact. So usually we see it for longer-tailed queries that maybe don’t match a category or things that are not super competitive. … So it is a small ranking factor, but still one that is worth filling out.”

Darren Shaw: “ .. this is the question that a lot of people ask. We know that if you go into the services section of your Google business profile, Google will suggest predefined services … And so Joy’s original research was focused on those predefined ones and it definitely identified that when you do put those on your profile, you now rank better for those terms depending on how competitive they’re, as Joy had mentioned. … There is a place where you can add your own custom services. Have you done any testing around that? Will you rank better with the custom services?”

Joy Hawkins: “Yes. They both work. In custom services … I’m trying to remember the keyword that Colin tested it on. It was something super niche like vampire facials. I was Googling, what the hell is that? … Really, really niche … But he just wanted to know if there was any impact whatsoever and there was. [Custom services fields are a] good way to go after longer tail keywords that don’t have crazy high search volume or aren’t super competitive.”

Darren Shaw: “You want to make sure that you’re telling Google what you do … that’s basically what the services section provides. And it’s not a huge ranking factor, but it’s just another step in the local optimization process. … a tip for custom services because custom services often get pulled into the local results as justifications. It’ll say this business provides vampire facials, right? Well, did you know there’s a vampire emoji? So if you put the vampire emoji in the title … Then in the local results you’ll see a whole panel of businesses that all provide that service, but yours has that little vampire emoji which will draw people in.”

There was tons more in this section, including questions from the audiences and some great jokes.

The Obligatory AI Section.

Eli Schwartz And Kevin indig were next up to talk about AI. Oberstein, professional rabble rouser, tried to get them to argue, but despite their very different posting habits, they found a lot to agree on about AI.

Mordy Oberstein: “It wouldn’t be an SEO podcast if we didn’t talk about AI. Where do we currently stand with AI? What can it do? What can’t it do?”

Kevin Indig: “… We’re at a stage where AI basically has the capability to create content, analyze some basic data. It still hallucinates here and there and it still makes mistakes. … If you compare that to when this AI hype started in November, 2022, so it’s almost two years now and we’ve come a really long way, these models are getting exponentially better. … It means different things based on whether you look at it as a tool for yourself to make your work more efficient. And of course, what does it mean from an SEO perspective? How does it change search, not just Google, but also how people search. And I think these are all different questions that are exciting to dive into. … So there is a lot of objective data that indicates efficiencies and benefits from AI. There’s also a lot of hype that promises a little too much about what AI can do. And so I’m generally AI bullish, but I’m not in the camp of AI is going to replace us all the next two years.”

Mordy Oberstein: “I’m setting the stage here a little bit because while your LinkedIn pros are generally like pro ai, a lot of Eli’s posts are a little more skeptical about AI. So Eli, what do you think about what Kevin just said? By the way, I’m like, for those who are listening or watching this, I’m pitting them against each other. They’re friends and they do a podcast together. So it’s cool.”

Eli Schwartz: I think AI is great. I think that there’s a lot of great things you can get out of AI. You can, again, like Kevin said, it can be your thought partner. … I’m anti AI in the way people are using it. And I don’t think people have necessarily changed their behaviors because before … they outsource [content] on Fiverr and Upwork and they bought very cheap content and now they’re getting very free content. So then that’s coming from AI. That behavior hasn’t really changed. The challenge is that now there are more people that think they can copy them.

So I talk to CMOs all the time who are like, well, I just go of my SEO team. A big company reached out to me recently. They wanted to gut check themselves after they already fired their SEO team. So I can’t really help there, but they’re like, AI can do everything. … Well, I’ll see them in a year from now when they have whatever sort of penalty. AI is a very powerful tool. Any tool we have a drill is a very powerful tool. But if you just hold it in the air and just let it go, it’s going to make holes. But if you use it appropriately, it does the thing it’s supposed to do. … We’re humans and we buy stuff and it has to come to a point where humans are talking to humans.

Crystal Carter: “… Most of the gains are coming from productivity. The stuff like Kevin was talking about with being able to write product descriptions more quickly, being able to write lots of posts more quickly and being able to finish your things more quickly, brainstorm, et cetera, in terms of the quality, the quality is still not there. It’s getting there rapidly, but it’s still not there.”

There was lots more AI talk, so you should listen to the whole episode if you want to hear the full range of opinions.

Snappy News About The Google August Update

“The Snappy News” segment featured Barry Schwartz, Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land. It also featured the dreaded SEO phrase “it depends.”

Mordy Oberstein: So the article of the day is from Search Engine Land, basically written by Barry that the core update, the August 2024 core update is done. It is complete. … The issue with Google folks who are trying to figure out, will they see a reversal of their fortunes from the 2023 helpful content update, the September, 2023 helpful content update. It’s a mouthful, to be honest with you. And my question for you, since you’re here, did that happen? Was the August updated reversal?

Barry Schwartz: “It depends on the site. I think the number, I don’t have the exact data, obviously I don’t think anybody does, but I’ve seen examples of some very few sites see complete reversals. … There are a number of sites that saw maybe a 20% bump, a 30% bump, maybe a 5% bump. But very few sites saw a complete reversal, if you want to even call it that. … I’ve been through a lot of Google updates over the years, and it’s sometimes sad to see the stories, but at the same time, if you keep at it and you are true to the content, your audience, generally, you’ll do well in the long run. Not every site, there’s plenty of sites that have been hit, went out of business, and they couldn’t come back. That’s business in general. And things change, like seasonalities and times change. You’re writing about the railroad business a hundred years ago and you keep writing about it today. There’s not many people investing a lot of money in railroads these days. So I dunno, it’s, it’s hard to read those stories, but not everybody deserves to go back to where they were. And then at the same time, Google’s not perfect either, which is why they keep on releasing new updates.”

That’s a wrap!

If you haven’t experienced a SERPs Up episode before, you should absolutely take a listen to experience the full effect of Mordy and Crystal’s banter.

The SERP’s Up podcast is brought to you by Wix Studio.

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SEO

OpenAI Claims New “o1” Model Can Reason Like A Human

Published

1 day ago

September 13, 2024

Max

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

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How to Build a Fandom by Talent-Scouting Great Content

Published

2 days ago

September 12, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

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.

A screenshot view of Harry's Marketing Examples

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.

Ahrefs Site Explorer showing 88% growth for Harry's Marketing Examples over 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.

Google's announcement of EEAT in Google Guidelines

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.

Search volume for the keyword 'Aleyda Solis' in Ahrefs Keyword Explorer

And over 19K “in content” mentions, according to Content Explorer.

In content mentions for the keyword 'Aleyda Solis' in Ahrefs 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:

Side-by-side page text changes in Ahrefs Site Audit

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.

Step 1 of an advanced search in Content Explorer to find content to curate

Then add filters to make sure you’re seeing the freshest and highest quality content.

Step 2 and 3 of an advanced search in Content Explorer to find content to curate

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.

Ahrefs Content Explorer search for new SEO content to curate

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.

'Save filter' button in Ahrefs Content Explorer

With the Content Explorer, you’re searching for instances of a keyword in the title, content, URL or all of the above.

Ahrefs Content Explorer dropdown showing where keyword will be searched (everywhere, in title, in content, in URL)

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”:

Ahrefs Web Explorer homepage highlighting preconfigured, clickable search for '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.

Ahrefs Web Explorer highlighting referring domains column for 'Most quoted newly published pages about ChatGPT'

And hit “Save report”.

Ahrefs Web Explorer 'Save report' button

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…

A shout out for SEO proposals by Ahrefs' Chris Haines 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

A shout out for AI content examples by Ahrefs' Louise Linehan on Women in Tech SEO

Often, Slack communities will dedicate a channel to self-promotion. This is another handy way to find new content to curate.

Women in Tech SEO 'Amplify Me' Slack channel

“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.

Web highlighter being used on a page to save a quote for future content 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.)

Bookmarking saved social media posts to browser

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.

An example of the configuration of Ahrefs “Mention” alerts for the keyword 'PR campaign'

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.

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