If you’re not one of our 280,000 subscribers, you’ve been missing out on some great reads!
Here’s a quick rundown of my personal favorites from the past month:
Best of March 2024
How 16 Companies Dominate the World’s Google Search Results
Author: Glen Alsop
tl; dr
Glen’s research reveals that just 16 companies representing 588 brands receive 3.5 billion (yes, billion!) monthly clicks from Google.
My package
Glen pointed out some really actionable ideas in this report, like the fact that many of the search-dominant brands are adding mini-author bios.
This idea makes so much sense in terms of both UX and EEAT. I have already presented it to the team and we will implement it on our blog.
How Google is killing independent sites like ours
Authors: Giselle Navarro, Danny Ashton
tl; dr
Major publications have gotten into the affiliate game, publishing “best of” lists for everything under the sun. And even though they often don’t test products thoroughly, they dominate Google rankings. The result, Gisele and Danny argue, is that real review sites are suffering and Google is rapidly losing content diversity.
My package
I have a lot of sympathy for independent websites. Some of them try their best, but unfortunately, they find themselves in the company of thousands of others who are happy to send spam.
I know it’s hard to hear, but the truth is that Google benefits more from having great sites in the SERPs than from diversity. This is because results from big brands are likely what users want. In general, people prefer to shop at Walmart or ALDI than at a local store or farmers market.
That said, I agree with most people that Forbes (with its dubious affiliate model contributing to fraud and bad journalism) should not be so lavishly rewarded.
Discussion Forums Dominating 10,000 Product Review Search Results
Author: Glen Alsop
Tl? dr
Glen analyzed 10,000 “product review” keywords and found that:
- The SERP feature āDiscussions and Forumsā was present in 7,702 of them (77%).
- Reddit was present in 97.5% of them.
- 51% of Reddit’s top threads currently have spam as the top comment.
My package
After Google’s big promotion of Reddit since last year’s Core Update, to no one’s surprise, unscrupulous SEOs and marketers have already started spamming Reddit. And as you may know, Reddit is moderated by volunteers, and apparently, they can’t keep up.
I’m not sure how this second-order effect completely escaped Google’s clever minds, but from the outside it looks like Google has capitulated to some extent.
I’m not one to make predictions and have no idea what will happen next, but I agree with Glen: Google’s results are the worst I’ve seen. We can only hope that Google gets it right.
Who is sending web traffic and how much? New research from Datos & SparkToro
Author: Rand Fishin
tl; dr
63.41% of all US web traffic referrals from the top 170 sites start at Google.com.
My package
Despite all our complaints, Google is still the main platform for getting traffic. That’s why we all want Google to settle down and do well.
But you’d also be wrong to look at this post and think that Google is the only channel you should be driving traffic from. Like Rand’s The later blog post clarifies, “be careful not to give credit or credit to Google when other investments have led to real value.”
I think many affiliate marketers learned this lesson well from the previous keynote updates: It’s not a good idea to rely on a single channel to grow your traffic. You should use other platforms to increase brand awareness, interest and demand.
Do they want more?
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