How To Survive The Google Ranking Algorithm Holiday Updates

Every year Google mucks with their algorithm during the holidays causing havoc to retailers who want to get their sales in the Black/positive. Here's some tips on how to survive the changes like you survive Thanksgiving with the in-laws.

Seth Goldstein

20 Nov 2024 — 9 min read

Photo by Aaron Burden / Unsplash

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'Tis the season for merriment, family gatherings, your politically-incorrect Uncle Bob (sorry to all those Bob's out there) and the algorithm changes that Google inflicts every holiday season. Surviving Google algorithm changes, especially during the busy holiday season, requires a stiff drink and a deep breath.

To help you get through the already tumultuous holiday season with family and Google here are ten tips to help you maintain or improve your website's visibility:

Focus on Quality Content: Ensure your content is high-quality, relevant, and provides value to users. Regularly update and refresh your content to keep it current. Don't just use AI and slap it up on your site. Use AI strategically. To give you ideas and then expand upon the output to make it your own.
Optimize for User Experience: Improve site navigation, loading speeds, and mobile responsiveness. A user-friendly experience can positively impact your rankings. If you're going to use pop-ups make them easily closable and on topic/relevant/helpful to your visitors
E-E-A-T Principle: Emphasize Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness in your content and overall website structure. This is extremely important and goes hand-in-hand with focusing on quality content and not over-using AI.
Keyword Research and Optimization: Continuously research new keywords and update your content accordingly. Avoid keyword stuffing, but make sure they are naturally integrated. If you can't get a keyword in a sentence, don't get it in that sentence. Write for the user more than the search engines. Google and it's pals can figure out more than you think.
Backlink Strategy: Build a strong backlink profile by earning links from reputable and relevant websites. It never hurts to ask for link in blog posts and articles that your content provides relevant and excellent value. ALWAYS avoid low-quality or spammy link practices. For example, just getting your link on a site to get your link there without any value add.
Technical SEO: Regularly audit your website for technical SEO issues. This includes things like broken links, schema markup, and XML sitemaps. You'd be surprised how much the under-the-hood structure matters.
Use Structured Data: Implement structured data markup to help search engines understand your content better and enhance SERP visibility with rich results. Structured data can be a pain to implement but in the end it's well worth it.
Engage on Social Media: While social media signals are not direct ranking factors, active engagement can drive traffic and improve your visibility indirectly. But, as you've heard me rant about, put your content first on your blog and site, then share it to the social media sites.
Monitor Analytics and Updates: Keep a close eye on Google Analytics 4 and Search Console for any changes in traffic patterns or indexing issues. Also consider using tools like Koko Analytics (a WordPress Plugin), Fathom Analytics, and Plausible Analytics as good alternatives/additions to GA4.
Adapt to Voice Search: Optimize for voice search by focusing on longer, conversational keywords and ensuring your website is mobile-friendly. This is often overlooked. People use smart speakers and their phones to ask questions. If you have some longtail search phrases that are more conversational then you have a better chance of appearing in those searches as well.

Ultimately, the key is to stay informed about Google's latest updates, test different strategies, and be ready to adapt as needed. And breathe deeply. The holiday season will be over in a flash.

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Web Jawn

This is a thing, especially now with Elon Musk having a role in the Trump 2.0 administration.

I totally agree. URL structure is important, but not a huge factor, IMHO. Just make it logical and not complex.

A growing trend for plugin developers to steer clear of the WordPress directory due to the ongoing WordPress/Matt Mullenweg/WP Engine Drama.

This is pretty cool. I don't think it's going to unseat any of the incumbent platforms, but if you're in the Signal ecosystem this is a major value add.

Bluesky, the Twitter-alternative, started by Jack Dorsey, is coming into its own. Including a massive uptick in users and, with that, downtime. Time for a "Fail Butterfly."

Musk is now going after Microsoft in his OpenAI lawsuit.

A good introduction to Google's knowledge graph.

This article highlights a lot of what I was talking about in my monologue above.

Part of me thinks that adding more AI to help with content creation is a cool idea. I worry about the misinformation it'll cause and other issues with teens and young adults.

Snap is staying relevant and providing some good safety tools.

It's bound to happen. As it decentralizes this will be less of an issue. And there is always Mastodon/ActivityPub services to use too.

Maybe Bluesky has “won”

November has sucked so far. One upside of the terrible nonsense is that more people are fleeing X. Many are choosing Bluesky. I’ve seen a bunch of takes about this recently, but I keep seeing things I disagree with. I figure that’s a good enough excuse to write more about this weird-assed social network.

Gavin AndereggGavin Anderegg

Good piece from Gavin on Bluesky and the road ahead.

This article is a must read. Lily Ray is one of my favorite SEO pundits!

Bing is making improvements. Worth checking out!

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Web Finds & Other Random Fun Stuff

Mario meme. I have trust issues. Trusting auto save? Manually saving once or twice to make sure.

Pitbull with Yellow Duck on head looking at camera — Needed right now!

Would be funny if it wasn't so anger-inducing

Interesting. Infuriating. Sad. Needs to change.

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That's It For This Week! Keep Rocking It!

-Seth

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