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Recovering from a Google Core Algorithm Update with Lily Ray [PODCAST] – Search Engine Journal

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Lily Ray of Path Interactive talks about what to do when you’re looking to recover from a Google core update or your SEO performance is declining.
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For episode 176 of The Search Engine Journal Show, I had the opportunity to interview Lily Ray, the SEO Director of Path Interactive.
Ray, a sought-after conference speaker, talks about what to do when you’re looking to recover from a core update or a declining SEO performance.

Lily Ray (LR): Yeah, I don’t buy into that because my team and I here we help clients recover. But that being said, it’s very, very difficult so I understand why Google says that.
And another thing they always say is like, “We tell people that there’s nothing you can do because we don’t want webmasters to go out there and just frantically change a bunch of things that maybe weren’t actually problems, think more long term than that.”
So I do think recovery is possible, but I think it requires a really, really heavy investment in resources and in time and a lot of patience as well.
One thing that we see a lot of is Google rolls out these core updates several times per year, but maybe for two or three core updates after you’ve been addressing some of the problems with your website, you might not see any immediate impacts in performance or positive impacts in performance.
You might even see some negative ones, which can be really disheartening. But, over time, if you invest the right time and energy and focus on the right things, you will ultimately see a recovery.
It might not be a full recovery, it might just be partial. But we’ve seen time and time again that it’s possible to recover.
Brent Csutoras (BC): So obviously seeing a decline is concerning, for company owners and businesses themselves but also for the people who are managing those offices or those initiatives… So how do you approach [these changes]? What would you say are the beginning steps to assess why you’re seeing a change?
LR: I think the first thing we like to look at is which algorithm update affected them.
Maybe they’ve seen improvements over the last couple of ones from 2018 but then in 2019 they started to see some big negative declines on. We like to assess maybe what happened on those dates.
So we start with that and then we dig into the data and obviously look at what’s really happening with the sites.
Using Google Search Console, for example, you can get a really good glimpse of which particular pages were affected, which keywords were affected.
Google talks a lot about the fact that it really has to do with relevancy.
So it might be that your website’s perfectly fine, but they’ve kind of recalibrated something in terms of what’s relevant for that query and your website or your webpage might not be the relevant thing anymore.
So we gather data about:
So it’s very case by case, but you start with a high-level theory and then you really have to dig into the data to see what’s really happening.
LR: The thing about recovering from core updates is that it’s very multifaceted. It requires looking at a lot of different components of what’s affecting your website simultaneously.
So there’s no silver bullet, there’s no singular thing that you can do to recover, unfortunately, which makes it hard for somebody who doesn’t have a depth of experience in recovery to address some of the problems that might be affecting the website.
But what I like to tell people and what we kind of do here at my agency is we start by doing like a gut check and really asking ourselves like, “Is this truly a high quality website? Is this content truly helpful?”
Because what can happen is you get caught up in thinking your own content is great or thinking that your own SEO strategies are great – because maybe they worked for five or 10 years – and this is actually becoming more and more true in the past couple of years with the algorithm updates.
Some of these sites have been enormous in terms of their market share and how successful they’ve been with SEO. They have a whole team of writers that are writing in the style that they’ve learned works for them from an SEO standpoint.
And suddenly those strategies stop working, which is kind of terrifying. So what we do a lot of is like the clients will come to us and say, “We’ve done everything. We’ve had a great SEO strategy and a great SEO team and we’ve been doing this and it’s been working for us for years.”
And then we kind of start to get under the hood and we say, “Actually like this doesn’t work anymore or this never should have worked in the first place or your content is maybe not as good as you think it is.”
So it’s a lot of tough conversation.
LR: In my experience what happens is when you start to really dig into what’s happening with the website, maybe the technical performance, some of the history and the other strategies that they’ve used throughout the years, particularly as it relates to links.
You’ll start to uncover like, “OK, there’s a bigger problem here than maybe we realized.”
Like we’re working with a site right now where we keep having to ask them questions about their backlink profile because, from their perspective, “No, no, everything we’ve done was legitimate. We worked with the best legitimate companies to pay for links.”
Which is like the key term, right? And we’re like, “You know what? Like I think maybe Google’s getting smarter about that over time. So maybe that worked for you a couple of years ago, but it’s not going to work anymore.”
And their perspective is that everything they’re doing is great because it used to be great.
So it’s tricky, but I think it requires knowing the direction that Google’s algorithm is going in. And I think that’s made a lot of big changes and big leaps in the last couple of years.
We know from the Search Quality Raters Guidelines where they’re trying to go with the algorithm and a lot of the times the things that are in those guidelines don’t jive with the strategies that companies have been using for the last 10 or 15 years.
LR: It’s a great question, I don’t think there’s a specific number and it really depends on your industry.
I’ve seen some sites that they don’t publish very often and they just have a small handful of really meaningful and helpful evergreen pieces of content and that’s all they need. And maybe they build one new one a month or one or two new ones a month or something along those lines.
I think this notion that a lot of companies have, which is we need a new blog constantly. We need one a week or we have this kind of editorial calendar that gets you into a situation where you have a lot of content that probably isn’t performing very well and you might not be auditing that all the time.
And that’s one of the things we look at when we’re recovering from core updates is like do you have 10,000 articles that are not really doing anything?
It might even be bringing down the overall quality of your site. So I think it depends on your industry and the demand for content, but more content is not always better.
More Resources:
Visit our podcast archive to listen to other Search Engine Journal Show podcasts!
Image Credits
Featured Image: Paulo Bobita
Managing Partner / Owner at Search Engine Journal with over 18 years experience in Digital Marketing, specializing in Reddit, Search …
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Google: We Rarely Show Sitelinks Search Box, Even When Markup is Used – Search Engine Journal

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Achieving SEO excellence: insights from the Casino Rank team – Five Reasons Sports Network

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With so many casino sites competing, landing a top spot on Google feels like hitting the jackpot. Casino Rank has made great progress in search engine optimization
Casino Rank believes that transparency and trust are key to a great online casino experience. Their goal is to share accurate and useful information with you.
Their adaptability to SEO changes has also been a major factor in staying ahead of the competition. We explored their SEO approach and talked with team members to learn how they’ve become a leader in the field.
Content is a big part of Casino Rank’s strategy—not just any content, but content that’s optimized for search and truly valuable to readers. Emily Thompson, a writer for Casino Rank, believes authenticity drives their SEO success.
“We learned early that our audience wanted trustworthy and engaging info—not just keywords tossed around,” Thompson says. “Our strategy involves figuring out what people are really searching for when they type something like ‘best casino bonuses’ or ‘how to play blackjack’. Instead of just aiming to rank higher, we focus on teaching and informing. The rankings naturally follow.”
Emily highlights that Casino Rank doesn’t just produce generic articles. They also provide specific guides on how to play slots like Starburst, which has proven popular among players. They’ve invested in detailed guides, player stories, and comparison articles, helping them stand out in a crowded market. “Google rewards expertise and detail. By making the best page on a topic, we’re not just boosting our SEO; we’re also helping visitors find exactly what they want.”
SEO experts often talk a lot about keywords, but the team at Casino Rank thinks about this in a unique way.
Dave Davis, who knows a lot about poker and blackjack, gives us some tips on how they handle keyword research. “Yes, keywords matter, but it’s more about what people really want,” Davis explains. “We look at what people are searching for—and more importantly, why they’re searching. That helps us create content that answers their needs, using keywords in a natural way.”
Davis adds that instead of trying to rank for every keyword, Casino Rank picks its fights wisely. Their approach considers how users behave while betting, aiming to meet their needs naturally. “If a keyword doesn’t match what we’re offering, we skip it. We aim for organic traffic that turns into real interactions, not just numbers that look nice in reports.”
It’s not just content that matters for SEO; the technical aspects are crucial too. At Casino Rank, technical SEO, like speeding up the site and making it mobile-friendly, is key to staying at the top.
Emily Thompson shares, “We work closely with our developers to keep the website running smoothly. Great content won’t help if your site is slow or hard to use. You’ll lose visitors and rankings.”
Link building is vital for SEO, especially in competitive fields like online casinos. Keisha Bailey, a casino bonus expert, leads Casino Rank’s link-building strategy.
“To build authority, we need reputable links,” Bailey explains. “We focus on creating valuable content that others want to link to, like industry reports, bonus comparisons, and interviews with top poker players.”
SEO is more than just getting high rankings; it’s about turning visitors into leads and loyal customers. For Casino Rank, SEO is one piece of a larger strategy for generating leads.
“We think about the whole user journey,” Bailey says. “When someone visits our site, we want them to feel like we understand their needs. We guide them—whether they’re a beginner looking for tips or an experienced player comparing bonuses. By adding value at every step, we’re not just bringing in traffic; we’re building relationships.”
Casino Rank’s success shows how powerful real, user-friendly SEO can be. By mixing know-how, good content, and technical skill, they’ve found their place in a very tough market. If you want to learn from them, here’s the takeaway: focus on value, honesty, and giving users a great experience.
“In SEO, just like in poker, patience and sticking with it are key,” Davis says.
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Google Makes Audio Ads Available To All Advertisers – Search Engine Journal

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Worldigital Unveils Comprehensive SEO and Content Marketing Packages for Enhanced Online Visibility – CMSWire

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Worldigital Unveils Comprehensive SEO and Content Marketing Packages for Enhanced Online Visibility CMSWire
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SEO News: Google Core Update, Unlinked Citations and Nofollow Link Changes – Internet Marketing News

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Discover the latest news stories from the world of SEO in our latest weekly roundup. From Google’s core update for May to Google Search Console adding guided recipes support and reports, read more.

What are the latest updates from the world of SEO? In this news update I’ll be talking you through the rollout of Google’s latest core update, a new “off the search record” podcast promising undocumented information, and a discussion around whether unlinked citations help with search rankings.

According to a recent article published by Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) on SERoundtable, Google finished rolling out the May core update on the 18^th of May at 12:37pm ET. That makes for a full two week rollout, which began on the 4^th of May.
Here are the tweets from Google:

According to Schwartz, the May core update was a big one in many ways, with anyone who felt it agreeing. For example, Mozcast noticed the first two days of this update, before it began to slow:

Have you seen a positive or negative impact as a result of the new core update? Do you agree with Google’s timestamp on the rollout? Let us know your thoughts by tweeting @clickthrough.

In a recent article published on SERoundtable, Barry Schwartz explains how Google Search Console has added support for guided recipes (step by step instructions on how to complete a recipe in Google Search and on Google Assistant). There is also a new enhancement report for guided recipes in Google Search Console, and the Rich Results test also supports this format.
Search Console allows you to view a Rich Results status enhancement report with the errors, warnings and fully valid pages found among your sites’ recipes. As well as this, it also includes a check box to show trends on search impressions. What’s more is that this report not only finds the issue, but also fixes it. You can then use the report to notify Google that your page has changes and should be recrawled.
The report is as follows:

It has recently been announced that Google are launching a new podcast which, as Search Engine Journal author Matt Southern puts it, “promises to live up to its name Search Off the Record”. Google’s John Mueller (@JohnMu), Martin Splitt (@g33konaut) and Gary Illyes (@methode) are teaming up to present a “mixed bag” of content about Google Search:

In the podcast trailer, Mueller states that the team will share information that has never been documented before. The Google Search team will also be discussing upcoming projects they’re currently working on:
“This is a new podcast series that we’re trying out to try to give some behind the scenes insights into what goes on at Google when it comes to search and the communications around search. Our goal is not to be another source of documentation, but rather to just give some background information on [what’s on our minds.]”
Google has yet to publish its first full episode of Search Off the Record, but you can still subscribe now from the podcast app of your choice.

On May the 21^st 2020, a Twitter user asked John Mueller if “unlinked brand citations can help in defining trust of a website/brand?” Mueller replied:

Mueller then hinted that maybe SEOs can test it, but, as Barry Schwartz points out:
“If SEOs test it and say something, it doesn’t mean it is true. Even if Google says it is not true after SEOs say tests show it is true, no one knows what to believe. So Google can say yes here, unlinked citations do help and some SEOs would believe it and some wouldn’t. So I guess John figures, why bother?” (SERoundtable)
What do you think? Does Google use unlinked citations for rankings, or only for discovery? Tweet us @clickthrough.

Google recently made a change to the nofollow link policy, stating that as of March the 1^st 2020, Google can look at a nofollow attribute as a hint and not as a directive. Barry Schwartz tweeted Google’s Gary Illyes asking for an update on this change, with the response as follows:

To sum up, Illyes doesn’t believe anything has been launched yet, but what he is working on will indeed need to be announced – so, watch this space.

If you’d like to discuss any of the SEO news I’ve included in this update, why not get in touch with our SEO experts today. You can also tweet me @tommy_iv.

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