My Personal Opinions/Insights on GOOGLE + a FREE TOOL For You to Play With

Let’s start with I’M SORRY, Hahahaha!!

It’s long (20-minute read approx.), it’s complicated, it’s NOT for newbies.

However, I did allow Old Fluff to have a quick read of the first half of this blog post and her feedback was something along the lines of…

“Well, I had to turn Grammarly off as your spelling and grammar is horrific and it was giving me a headache, but I found this really interesting. But, can you try to put a more positive spin on it otherwise Kyle will dropkick you right in the Googles”.

Tad harsh!!! Hahahahahahahahaha!!

Okay, what follows is clearly just my personal opinion and some insights into the state of Google search as it currently stands.

Obviously, this is just MY OPINION, neither right nor wrong, but just an opinion.

Furthermore, as I’ve mentioned MANY times, no-one, and I mean NO-ONE, knows what is currently happening.

So, all these SEOs on YouTube, Twitter, etc. are simply doing the same, forming opinions.

Furthermore, let’s face facts, most of these SEOs have something to sell, e.g. courses, affiliate products, their own SEO agency, etc.

Therefore, a LOT of what you’re currently reading online about Google and the updates is largely CLICKBAIT.

Plus, these SEOs know the importance of regular content, so they’ll keep pumping out videos, articles, Twitter threads in order to keep their brand name in the limelight.

But still, NO-ONE actually knows what is going on.

The Google "Algorithm"

When Larry and Sergey founded Google in 1998 they created an “algorithm” with the help of other engineers.

Then Google went public in 2004 and the founders, Larry and Sergey, and all these algorithm-creating engineers received massive payouts in the form of stock options.

Let’s say that most got a $100-$200 Million payout.

Then in 2015 Google became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alphabet inc.

Sundar then took over from Larry as owner of Google, and eventually owner of Alphabet in 2015.

What does this mean?

NONE of the original founders and the ORIGINAL CREATORS OF THE GOOGLE ALGORITHM work at Google.

In other words, everyone who currently works at Google doesn’t 100% know all the ins-and-outs of the Google algorithm.

But, the algorithm is a mathematical computer-based code.

So, while it can “read” parts of our websites, it is NOT human, and therefore is unable to differentiate between what is good and what is bad (or what is helpful or what is unhelpful).

This is why there are typically “snippets”, such as Featured Snippets, in the SERPs that don’t make sense.

The Google algorithm DOESN’T KNOW whether that “answer” is right or wrong, it’s simply ranks that “answer” based on “customer feedback” (how visitors react to the articles that Google has ranked), and whether the article in question has “snippets” that PROVIDE AN ANSWER based on the intent of that search query (doesn’t matter if the answer is right or wrong, has an answer been provided to “satisfy the intention behind the search”?

Obviously, Google wants to always provide the best answers to searcher’s queries, but here we are nearly 26 years later and they still haven’t got it quite right.

You can actually get a better understanding of this by searching YouTube for Kyle Roof and his recent interviews.

I believe that there are at least two recent YouTube podcasts featuring Kyle, one is the Niche Pursuits podcast, can’t remember the other one off the top of my head.

Btw, Kyle is the guy who took a website with all the lorem ipsum rubbish on it, kept that in place, inserted keywords within the lorem ipsum text, and actually managed to rank in Google for those keywords.

So, he proved that Google doesn’t actually know the difference between right and wrong.

He had a website that basically had about 50 pages of absolute gibberish, and then strategically placed keywords in the 4 most important places (which are the main aspects of “on-page SEO” - H1 tag, meta title, meta descriptions, in the <p> tag (paragraph) on the page), and RANKED.

He did this over a decade ago.

That being said, at the recent Chiang Mau Affiliate Marketing conference in November 2023 Kyle was giving his speech and talking about ranking the gibberish lorem ipsum website.

Everyone in the audience assumed he was talking about what he did a decade ago… he finished his speech by saying something along the lines of, “Oh btw, I did it again, and the website you’re looking at, which is ranking number one for these various keywords, this is from OCTOBER 2023, so AFTER the 2023 Helpful Content Update, and it STILL WORKS!!”

Go and check out the Kyle Roof podcasts on YouTube.

Oh, and Kyle has had a LOT of his websites spanked during the current March 2024 updates.

But, let’s face facts, the Human Reviewers for the current updates, the ones who hand out Manual Penalties, probably specifically went after a few SEOs in the industry.

No doubt, they followed their “Google-owned stuff”, such as Google Seach Console, Google Analytics, Google Workplace, Google Docs, YouTube, etc. to find all their sites, spank them hard, and then perhaps even followed “followers” of these people to HUMAN REVIEW their websites too.

Just a guess, but it is weird to see how some of these SEOs have had sites hit that were “public” and the sites that aren’t public, and aren’t connected to Google-owned properties have been left untouched.

Anyway, that’s all hearsay, I have NO PROOF.

Why Have I Told You Not to Check Stats?

There are so many people currently checking stats, newbies and “experts”, trying to decipher what is going on in Google.

STOP!!!

Here’s an analogy.

The Google Spam and Core Updates are a 200-mile-per-hour hurricane.

You’ve been told that it’s going to last for a few weeks.

Every evening you go into your garden and fight against the 200mph winds in order to put your garden furniture back where it should be.

Do you honestly think that the garden furniture is going to stay in the same place?

Nope, tomorrow morning after it’s been battered by the 200mph winds it’s stuck in a tree.

You go back the following night, take it out of the tree, put it back in its original place, and go to bed.

You wake up the next morning and find the garden furniture stuck in your next-door neighbour's tree.

And the whole process starts again.

Would you not be better off just waiting for the hurricane to end, you’ve been told it will last a few weeks, and THEN putting your garden furniture back in its original place after?

So, trying to decipher what is going on AT THE MOMENT with Google is much the same as above.

Wait for the “winds” to die down, and then look at the state of the SERPs, and your website’s position in them.

Google has specifically said that it’s going to be volatile.

And if you want my opinion, the Core update, at a guess, will end towards the latter part of next week, I reckon Thursday or Friday.

BUT

We still have the specific spam stuff to be dealt with on May 5th, and I reckon that will last for another 2 weeks.

So realistically, the SERPs will probably be a complete mess until around the 19th May 2024.

SO STOP CHECKING STATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Plus, those who say that “checking stats” doesn’t affect them.

IT DOES!! (Subconsciously, and you don’t even realise it).

Something I have always said is to start a website and give it your heart and soul for AT LEAST TWO YEARS.

How many Wealthy Affiliate members who have been here LESS than 2 years are on their 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th website?

Did you give your website 2 years?

NOPE!!!

Why?

Because you were constantly checking stats for the first few months and DECIDED THAT YOU HAD GREATER EXPERIENCE than those who have been doing this for decades, and that “Google was telling you” that your website wasn't going anywhere, so you started a NEW ONE!!!

Tut tut people!!!!

Plus, how many of you are being “influenced” in what you’re doing on a daily basis by the current state of affairs with Google?

Is Affiliate Marketing and SEO Dead?

The answer is NO.

BUT

Let’s look at this from Google’s perspective for a minute.

Okay, I want you ALL to return to being normal human beings for a moment, LOL.

Take that marketing cap off, stop being “spin doctors” and “politicians”, stop feeling sorry for yourself, and STOP thinking you’ve been hard done by.

If I was a Google employee, this is what I’d think.

So, ever since Google’s inception, people have been trying to “make money online”.

Let’s take Affiliate Marketing as an example.

Approximately, 99% of people come into Affiliate Marketing with absolutely no experience whatsoever.

They are here to “make money”.

The vast majority of newcomers pick a niche, write a few articles, and then write reviews of products THEY HAVE NEVER SEEN OR TOUCHED.

However, all the “affiliate marketers” are nothing more than MIDDLEMEN.

Realistically, they are creating a website to send people from their website to another website in order to make a purchase (for those who are more experienced, could affiliate marketing realistically be considered pure “gateway pages”, something that is CURRENTLY being punished via the Google Algorithms) from the ACTUAL WEBSITE THAT SELLS THE PRODUCT.

THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A SECOND!!!!

No experience, never seen the product, acting as a middleman, trying to rank in the search results, in order to SEND PEOPLE TO WHAT THEY WERE LOOKING FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Now, I’m not having a go at newbies, I was one once!!!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahhaahhaahhahahahahahahahaaha!!!

And trust me, I manipulated the hell out of the algorithms.

In fact, sticking to what I’ve said above, do you want to know what two of the first products I sold as an affiliate were?

Okay, this was a time when anything went, and the “best products” to sell were something where people had a “desperate need”, and we really honed in on their pain points.

Find someone who is desperate, and offer them a solution.

The two products I started with were - Penis Enlargement and Vaginal Yeast Infections.

What did I know about these two subjects?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

They both had an initial commission of $33 with an upsell that paid around $69 (bit of an unfortunate number considering the topics, LOL).

Okay, here’s what I used to do (and this is something that will spark a bit of nostalgia in Kyle, Carson, Jay, Vitaliy, and Catherine)...

EzineArticles was the early 2000s version of Medium but on a much grander scale.

Furthermore, in the 2000s there wasn’t as much online competition, articles weren’t as long (I stuck to 300-500 words mainly), and you could get away with some serious spamming and underhand tactics (which I did, LOL).

Anyway, I would write 5-10 articles a day (remember only about 300-500 words), which focused on different keywords, but were quite repetitive in their content.

I would go to bed, wake up in the morning and check my Clickbank account, and on average I would say that there was $66 to $300+ EVERY SINGLE DAY WITHOUT FAIL.

I would then purchase a load of spammy backlinks, approximately 50,000-100,000, and point them to the articles that had produced the sales.

Within a week, all those articles would rank in the top 3 of Google, and that pretty much tripled my daily income from the figures I mentioned above!!!

God I miss 2008-2011, Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahaha!!!

The reason I tell you this is because the above is pure spam and attempted manipulation of the search engines.

Guess what?

It’s still happening to this day.

It may not be the same tactics, but people are still spamming and manipulating, and MAKING A FORTUNE while doing it.

Sure, the algorithms have improved since then, but the manipulation and spam have simply become more advanced.

BUT

My main point is, affiliate marketing has nearly always seen the vast majority of people trying it (unsuccessfully, there are still only around 3% of Affiliate Marketers who earn more than $200,000/year) as those who have no experience, and writing reviews of products they’ve never seen or owned, and then sending traffic to the REAL WEBSITES THAT SELL THOSE PRODUCTS.

Once more, THINK ABOUT THAT for a minute.

Don’t get all high and mighty with me, Hahahahahhahahahaha, you know the above is TRUE.

The same can be said for those producing blogs with vast amounts of informational content in order to earn lots of ad income (yep done that, manipulated the hell out of it, Hahahahaha!!! You lot are gonna start blaming me for all the Google problems!!! LOL).

Once more, no real experience in the niche, just writing loads of articles to HELP PEOPLE, even though there are experts online who’ve been doing it for years.

All of the above is POTENTIALLY how a company like Google would view “making money online”.

Right, I know this throws a bit of a negative light on this entire business, BUT, it’s here to stay.

It’s simply that we can’t get away (for more than a year or two) with some of the tactics I’ve mentioned above.

Plus, why do you think Google has brought in updates like Your Money or Your Life (stop promoting healthcare and financial products unless you have some expertise - would you rather have your diabetes dealt with by Doris from Dorset who’s been doing affiliate marketing for two months or a REAL DOCTOR? Rhetorical question).

Why do think Google has been bang on REVIEWS ALGORITHM UPDATES since April 2021 (now forms part of the Core Update)?

Why do you think E.E.A.T was introduced?

Google no longer wants “newbies” starting a website and adding “2-3 blog posts per week” and doing NOTHING ELSE.

This is the whole point of building a brand.

I guess you could call it “manipulation” once more, but “branding” is the only thing that will separate you from the “I’m here to write a couple of articles and make money online”.

And branding in it’s easiest form is simply that your website name is mentioned on a variety of online platforms.

Basically, the more your business and brand name, and your domain name is “seen” on the internet, the better.

I have mentioned this before - type your “brand name” into the Google search bar, what do you see?

If you only see results for your website YOU’RE LIKELY TOP GET SPANKED.

A “brand” would have “mentions” of a LOT of different platforms.

So, even if you never use them, open a variety of social platform accounts (go through your social media plugin’s SETTINGS, there’s about 200 social platforms mentioned there), open 1 or 2 a day with a “branded” profile bio (I explained how to do this in the my last blog post).

Whenever you type your brand name, or your name, or your website’s name into Google you want to see a WIDE VARIETY OF DIFFERENT PLATFORMS “mentioning” your name.

That is “internet branding”.

Then, you pick 2-3 of your favourite platforms and regularly publish there.

Here’s another way to look at it… How much better would life currently be if only about 15-20% of your overall traffic came from Google?

Wouldn’t be that worried about updates, would you?

Furthermore, EVERY SINGLE PLATFORM has their OWN algorithm and rules.

Medium users are “moaning” about changes to the algorithm since 7th February 2024.

Admittedly, I am “Blackhatting” Pinterest (sorry, Hahahahaha, this is why I’ve managed to get accounts to over 20,000,000 million monthly views, and over 100,000 outbound monthly clicks), but none of my accounts have grown since 28th October (still getting loads of traffic and earning very good money, but nothing’s changed in 5 months, even though I regularly post).

Facebook bans anyone?

YouTube not loving you?

WE ARE NOT ENTITLED TO “MAKE MONEY ONLINE” BY USING THESE PLATFORMS!!

They can do what they want when they want.

What is Going on With Google Rankings?

First things first, do you know what the 5 largest SEARCH ENGINES are in 2024?

In order they are:

1. Google
2. YouTube
3. Bing
4. TikTok
5. Amazon

Now, once more, really think about this.

Google can’t do anything about Bing, it’s a direct competitor.

However, if YouTube, TikTok, and Amazon are now the 2nd, 4th, and 5th largets search engines in the world this means that people are going DIRECTLY to those platforms to SEARCH FOR THINGS.

Google is a Business.

If people use their search engine they have the potential to earn money with every single search.

If people use “other search engines” that potential for earning disappears.

So, what do you do AS A BUSINESS?

Of course, you rank YOUTUBE, TIKTOK, and AMAZON for nearly Every Single Result.

“Hey online searchers, no need for you to go directly to YouTube, TikTok, or Amazon to find things, just type what you’re looking for into the Google search bar and we GUARANTEE that you’ll see results ON THE FIRST PAGE from these platforms”.

GOOGLE IS A BUSINESS.

Give the people what they want.

You could argue that people have been adding the word “Reddit” or “Quora” to the end of their search string for a few years now, perhaps because searchers feel that they would rather receive an answer from a “real person” and not simply from someone trying to “make money online”.

In fact, if you type a question-based keyword into the Google search bar nowadays you will nearly always see Autosuggest show the question with “Reddit” at the end.

Sure, Reddit may not always provide the “right answer”, but I refer to my opening few paragraphs… an “algorithm” can’t differentiate between right and wrong, helpful or unhelpful, it will simply look for “Are there parts of this article that APPEAR to answer the query”

Example:

“How much is Wealthy Affiliate Monthly Premium Plus Membership?”

“Wealthy Affiliate Premium Plus Membership is $7,000 per Month”

I’ve answered the query, haven’t I?

Hahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahha!!!

Remember, you’re dealing with an algorithm, not a human that decides whether something is right or wrong, helpful or unhelpful.

Plus, here’s a “made-up” way to look at the state of the current search results.

I am making this up, but it almost feels like there is some truth to it.

Plus, don’t forget that Domain Authority and Page Authority are MADE UP METRICS (but there is some “truth” to them as well).

Google does have a Page Ranking system, 1-10, which they used to share, but don’t any longer (people manipulated it… YES, I was one of them, Hahahaha), but it’s still there.

“So, for the March 2024 Spam and Core updates let’s initially rank everything that has a decent authority, let’s say based on MOZ metrics anything with a DA60+ rating ranks in the search results, and everything else we remove most of of it FOR NOW. Hence the loss of rankings, impressions, and clicks for what seems like the vast majority of the internet.

Next, we have HUMAN manual reviewers who go and MANUALLY CHECK all these SEOs who have been creating content on how to manipulate the algorithms. We follow all their Google-related stuff, e.g. GSC, GA, Docs, Workplace, YouTube, and hit them HARD, i.e. deindexing and manual penalties).

We then deal with the 3 things on May 5th, Mass Produced Content, webmasters who purchase a load of expired domains that have a good backlink profile, and then redirect and point all these expired domains, and their backlinks, at their money site in order to MANIPULATE “authority”, and webmasters who are using IRRELEVANT HIGH AUTHORITY websites to rank their content (manipulation aka Parasite SEO).

Once we have done all of this, let’s say by 19th May 2024, we will then rank individual posts and pages from ALL websites, regardless of “authority”, based on what the “algorithm” (it still doesn’t know what’s right or wrong, helpful or unhelpful) deems as the best content.”

As I say, the above is made up, but I still think the SERPs are going to be volatile for a month or two.

Only after the May 5th stuff has been “dealt with” will we have a better idea of what is REALLY GOING ON.

So, what do you do in the meantime?

There’s absolutely nothing you can do, Google doesn’t “owe” any of us anything.

So, you continue as “normal”, and you widen your online reach by looking at a variety of traffic generation methods.

I’ll tell you what IS DEAD?

Starting a website/blog, adding a few articles, and hoping to make a fortune.

In that respect, the small-time niche bloggers, yep, it’s over for them.

Once more, going back to my earlier example, would you rather have someone who is “trying to make money online” advising you about diabetes or a doctor?

I have mentioned numerous times that Google can’t decide between right and wrong, so the website that will currently gain the rankings for their “diabetes cure” will be the website that has been around for longer and is “popular” (backlinks and authority) with people online.

And this is why “Building Your Brand” is so important.

Sure, it’s still a form of manipulation, but it also shows that you are potentially a serious business.

Original & Unique Content

Last bit, I promise.

We all talk about “original and unique” content, but most of us don’t actually understand what this means.

Plus, if you’re writing over 50% of an article with AI YOU WILL NEVER BE ORIGINAL & UNIQUE.

Sure, you may provide some great information and even rank, get traffic, get sales, but it’s not “original and unique” as Google WANTS IT.

Most people assume “original and unique” refers to the text on a page.

NOPE!!!!!!!

In other words, most people think that if I write the same as everyone else, but put my “own spin on it”, then I have been “original and unique”.

NOPE!!!

Google does not want the top 10 results all saying the same thing, but using different words.

This in my mind is why Reddit, Quora, and Forums are currently ranking.

The “content” is NOT SEO-optimized, and it’s merely a group of people WITH NO ULTERIOR MOTIVE (“making money online”) providing opinions.

HOWEVER

In terms of “original and unique” it’s NOT the words/text on a page, but rather CONCEPTS.

Here’s an example:

How do you lose weight?

Simples!!!

You burn more calories than you consume.

The easiest way to achieve this is to eat less and move more.

That way you are burning more calories while eating fewer.

This can be written in about 10,000,000 different ways, but the CONCEPT is not original and unique.

An ORIGINAL & UNIQUE concept would be:

“I will teach you how to lose weight by eating MORE and exercising LESS”.

(plus, I can actually do this, Hahahaha!! Eat More = have smaller meals, but eat more often throughout the day, say 6-7 times. You still stick to the calories required to help you lose weight, but by eating a small meal every two hours, you’ll feel fuller so less likely to snack, and the fact that your digestive system needs to work more often means that you’ll have increased your metabolism and therefore you will burn MORE calories. Exercise less = perform 3 Tabata workouts per day. A tabata workout last 4 minutes, 20 seconds of all out exercise, 10 seconds of rest, repeated 8 times. You do this 3 times a day you have only exercises for 12 minutes, BUT, once more, the fast-paced, high intensity workouts will boost your metabolism, so the result is you burn more calories).

THIS is “original and unique”, NOT the words I’ve written on the page, but the CONCEPT I am introducing to my readers.

Got it?

Hahahahahahahahahaha!!

Finally, finally, here’s your free tool to play with… DO NOT USE the Spintax stuff unless you’re very experienced in this industry, and don’t use the keyword tool, everything else is fair game.

Old Fluff’s been playing with this for a few hours, so she may potentially write a few blog posts over the coming weeks about how to use the different stuff.

I didn’t want to add any more to this blog post with instructions (it’s long enough isn’t it? Hahaha!!)

Here you go

https://wmtools.me/

Okay, the whole point of this blog post is to provide opinions, and NO-ONE in the entire industry (and probably at Google too) knows what is CURRENTLY happening, and we won’t probably have a better idea until mid-May.

So, for now, you just carry on as “normal” and try not to let anything affect you.

Write content for your sites, share that content in various formats on multiple platforms, aim to get your “brand name” across the internet, look for original CONCEPTS within your content, REPEAT.

And that is me done for today.

If you made it this far WELL DONE!!!! LOL

Thank You For Reading

Partha