8 SEO Practices That Are No Longer Effective by Rand Fishkin #322

Ep. 32233 min2016-06-07

Eight old-school SEO practices identified by Rand Fishkin are no longer effective, including keyword stuffing in titles, exact match domains, multiple microsites, paid directory links, and non-strategic link bait.

Cover art for 8 SEO Practices That Are No Longer Effective by Rand Fishkin #322
Key takeaways
using methods that were once tried and true can be alluring, but it can also prove dangerous to your search strategy

About this episode

This week Chris and Charles discuss "8 Old School SEO Practices That Are No Longer Effective - Whiteboard Friday", an article from Rand Fishkin at Moz.

Questions this episode answers

Can I use AdWords cost per click data to gauge how hard a keyword is to rank for organically?

No. The competition column in AdWords reflects paid ad competition, not organic SEO competition. You can use AdWords for keyword research and search volume data, but using it to estimate organic ranking difficulty is, as the hosts put it, utterly ridiculous.

In their words

If you split up your efforts a third and a third and a third, guess what would happen? These would rank about a third as well.

Chris Burris

don't go the douchey route and choose random stuff that's trending. Create content that's applicable to what you offer.

Chris Burris
Terms defined in this episode
Exact Match Domain (EMD)
A domain name built entirely from a target keyword, such as poolmaintenancehouston.com. Google has an algorithm update that devalues these domains for appearing spammy.
CVO (Search Engine Visitor Optimization)
What you do with a user after they arrive from a search engine. The hosts say CVO begins at the SERP, meaning the meta description and title are part of the conversion process.
Link Bait
Content created specifically to attract inbound links and traffic. The episode distinguishes strategic link bait, content relevant to your services, from non-strategic link bait, trending content unrelated to your site.
Anchor Text
The clickable text used in a hyperlink. Overuse of repetitive keyword-rich anchor text on internal links was discounted by a Google algorithm update and can appear spammy or manipulative.

Full transcript is being added.

This episode answers

Matthew Bertram, host of The Best SEO Podcast
Matthew Bertram
AI keynote speaker · Owner & CEO, EWR Digital · President, ModalPoint

Matthew Bertram is an AI keynote speaker, creator of DIG™ (Digital Information Governance), and owner and CEO of EWR Digital. He helps energy and industrial leaders win visibility in AI search (GEO and AEO), is President of ModalPoint and CMO of the Oil & Gas Global Network, hosts The Best SEO Podcast, and has authored eight books including LLM Visibility. More about Matthew Bertram.

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