Post of the Week
How To Stand Out From AI Content
I've been a fan of Ryan Law from back in the day when he was CMO at Animalz. I continue to enjoy his work @ Ahrefs, and this article shows exactly why:
Very few blog posts create new information. Most serve to remix, curate, and copycat existing content, transferring the same core information from one website to another.
If all your content does is shuffle common knowledge around, then I have bad news: the robots will eat your lunch. Generative AI is the ultimate arbitrage machine, able to churn out thousands of copycat articles faster than you ever could.
This article lays out three ways you can help yourself AND your site--and yeah, it mostly revolves around flexing E-E-A-T in your content. Check out this great article if this is something you've been thinking about as each AI breakthrough and each subsequent Google update stirs up the SERPs.
Sponsored Link
Are Aged Domains Still Valuable In SEO?
After the March algorithm update, a lot of people are wondering if aged domains are still valuable—do they still work?
IMO, the game has changed. Using them as a quick link injection on a shit site for an easy win—those days are behind us.
But if you’ve got a REAL business doing REAL BUSINESS things (like selling products or offering a service)?
Aged domains can help big time. Check this screenshot of what I’m talking about — where at least three redirects from relevant, aged domains gradually added continuously contributed to growth for the client.
Want to get in on this yourself/for your clients? Check out this great service from Odys where they completely manage your 301 redirects for you.
(This service is NOT for everyone, and Odys reserves the right to refuse working with content sites).
News
Rank Math Plugin Vulnerability
😬😬😬
Rank Math SEO plugin with over 2+ million users recently patched a Stored Cross-Site Scripting vulnerability that makes it possible for attackers to upload malicious scripts and launch attacks.
If you've got a site that uses the Rank Math plugin ASAFP update that and give your site a quick check. Don't want to spend the next two months trying to delete garbage from your beautiful site...
Astra Theme WP Vulnerability
Damn, another huge vulnerability, potentially, to your beautiful WP site.
This time, it's the Astra theme.
Not too much to see here, just super seriously update your Astra theme right this moment if you haven't yet...
Content
Can Google Detect, And Do They Penalize, AI Content?
Really cool case study from an "AI-detection tool" called Originality.AI:
Study 1 - List of Websites That Had a Manual Action in March 2024 1,446 websites had a manual action applied to them out of 79k websites checked in March 2024. Study 2 - Was AI Content Spam to Blame for the Manual Action? 100% of the websites had some posts that were AI-generated 50% of the sites had 90%-100% of their posts as AI-generated
Whether or not you think AI detection tools are accurate, it's still a pretty solid post with some meaty takeaways, like:
100% of Websites that Had Manual Action showed signs of using AI
👀
Case Study
Analysing The SEO Playbook of Digital Goliaths In-Depth, Every Quarter
Like it says on the tin, this new quarterly report from Glen Allsopp AKA Viper Chill has come out analyzing the current crop of sites dominating the SERPs, and... those that aren't.
With headlines like:
Business News Brand Fortune.com is Currently Averaging 46.8M Monthly Pageviews, with 25% Year-Over-Year Growth
It's a must-read for SEOs.
One couldn't possibly summarize this gigantic, valuable post in a quick, curated email, so I will just encourage you to sit down with coffee or wine or whatever thing you drink (yerba mate?) and give this a read through. 10/10 work from Glen as per usual...
Hello!
Well it's been a little while since you heard from this newsletter, so let me give you a quick update as to what is up.
Last year (almost exactly a year ago) I, Sean, acquired this newsletter from Andrew Charlton--who had run it to 213 issues. I was pretty new to the newsletter space, and just figured I'd move the list to my OWN newsletter (RankTheory.com) and that was that.
But I made A LOT of mistakes.
I've been learning and getting better at the newsletter game over the past year, and when I realized I cleverly never closed the Curated platform down after acquiring the newsletter and moving most of the list to Rank Theory--instead I've been paying monthly to keep this active like a total brain genius, I thought... let's give this newsletter a try--exactly the way that Andrew successfully published 213 issues.
So here we go, back at it, your one-stop-shop for the weekly SEO stories you should totally know about, curated by a veteran SEO.
If you don't want to hear from me, the unsubscribe button is very easy to find below, but I hope you'll this newsletter another chance. I love writing about SEO and I think you'll love reading.
So let's get into it!
Sean Markey