![The [Search Engine] Sky is Falling! Does ChatGPT Mean the Twilight of Google?](https://www.searchengineacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/google-killer-headlines-1080x675.webp)
by Ross Barefoot | Feb 18, 2023 | News, Search Trends, SEO |
A week or so ago Barry Schwartz, aka @RustyBrick, summed the current mood among many SEO’s with nice parody: “Code Red…Google’s dead…what’re we gonna do…everybody’s panicking.” (Quick tip: if you’re serious... 
by Ross Barefoot | Feb 4, 2023 | Search Engine Optimization Training |
It’s hard to miss the buzz around ChatGPT, the “AI” chatbot introduced by Open AI late last year. It has made headlines in mainstream media around the world for its ability to engage in humanlike conversation and provide insightful answers to many... 
by Ross Barefoot | Oct 15, 2021 | Content Marketing, Google Search Console, How-to, Search Engine Optimization Training |
How does Google Search Console help you find poor performing pages with no potential? One terrific tool is the Performance Report in Google Search Console, (formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools). As you are most likely aware, many of the pages on your site are not... 
by Ross Barefoot | Mar 20, 2021 | Search Engine Optimization Training, SEO Consulting, SEO Training, Workshops |
An SEO Mentor Can Make the Difference I remember the challenge I faced when learning how to program back in my early pre-internet technology days. I decided to teach myself how to code to write programs to run our family business. I didn’t know enough to know... 
by Ross Barefoot | Mar 15, 2021 | Online SEO Training, Search Engine Optimization Training, SEO Training, Subscription Based Training - SBT, Training as a Service - TaaS |
We all know the problem with digital marketing, search engine optimization, and the 1001 sub fields associated with promoting a business website online: Just when you think your knowledge is up to date, Google, Facebook, or whoever changes the rules and Bam!... 
by Ross Barefoot | Aug 11, 2019 | Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization Training, SEO |
SEO and Google: Why We are on Edge It’s been a wild year in the Google-verse. If you follow some of the most diligent SEO reports, such as Marie Haynes and Barry Schwarz, you know how hard it is to keep up. It seems as if every week Barry and Marie mention... 
by Ross Barefoot | May 22, 2019 | Misc, Online SEO Training, Search Engine Optimization Training, SEO, Workshops |
What SEO Does for Google “We as a company spend a lot of time thinking about search engine optimization, or SEO.” That telling statement is from a fairly recent blog post by Sean O’Keefe. He is a data scientist at Google and wrote about how Google markets its own... 
by Ross Barefoot | Sep 12, 2018 | News, Search Engine Optimization Training, SEO |
Updated 9/21/18 For those of you who knew John or Marlene, or who were blessed by what John did in his life, here’s your chance to honor his memory in a practical way that will, in turn, be a blessing. Please consider this prayerfully.... 
by Ross Barefoot | Apr 15, 2018 | Search Engine Optimization Training |
Those clever chaps at Google are at it again, filling our in-boxes with emails talking about General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and their own Google Analytics Data Retention. There’s a whole lot of techno-privacy babble going on, and so it was our job to... 
by Ross Barefoot | May 16, 2017 | Search Engine Optimization Training, SEO |
Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) sounds pretty niche-specific, doesn’t it? If you’re a business administration person, it might sound as specialized as it is obscure. The term SEO is like the title “front-end user interface developer”: techy and incomprehensible... 
by Ross Barefoot | Jan 25, 2017 | Google Analytics |
Google Analytics is the most common tool available to measure your website’s Key Performance Indicators (KPI), something we always urge our workshop students to pay close attention to. No wonder. GA is free, powerful, and, at a basic level, easy to use. As a... 
by Ross Barefoot | Dec 28, 2016 | Search Engine Optimization Training, SEO Training, Workshops |
SEO is Challenging Enough, Try it When Things are Always Changing Changes are constantly occurring in the world of SEO and digital marketing. Moz publishes a widely watched list of known Google SEO algorithm updates here, and they show 10 announced or suspected... 
by Ross Barefoot | Dec 1, 2016 | News, SEO Consulting, Technical SEO, Workshops |
Who better to consult with you on your digital marketing than the folks who’ve been teaching SEO to students around the world for more than a decade? We’re coming up hard on 2017. Time doesn’t just fly, it’s supersonic! Here I am starting my... 
by Ross Barefoot | Nov 11, 2016 | Adwords, Keyword Research, Technical SEO |
Update: Google AdWords has since been rebranded as Google Ads. How Google Stripped Away Search Volume Data for Thousands of Users – And How You Can Get it Back “Oh Google, what have you done now?” – Google Forum Comment As you can see from the sampling of user... 
by Ross Barefoot | Sep 6, 2016 | Technical SEO |
Google Wants Us to Jump Through Hoops. Again. Sneak Peak: What this post will cover Why 150 million AMP pages is not that big of a deal 2 Examples where it would have been smart NOT to be an early adopter of a Google initiative A possible course of action in a world... 
by Ross Barefoot | Aug 30, 2016 | Technical SEO |
Digital Marketers: Get Ready for Yet Another TLA* in Your Lexicon: AMP (*TLA: Three Letter Acronym) Sneak Peak: What You’ll Find in this Post What Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Are Who is Behind the AMP Project How AMP Pages Affect Search Results Development... 
by Ross Barefoot | Apr 11, 2016 | Events, Search Engine Optimization Training |
Stay Current With SEO Training or Risk Becoming Hopelessly Out of Touch Stop and answer this simple question: Do you have an interest in how Google’s changes affect your website’s success? If your answer is “no,” don’t bother with the... 
by Ross Barefoot | Mar 15, 2016 | Rant, Search Engine Optimization Training |
Bloggers Pay Attention: New “Should-ing” and Finger Wagging from Google Google has now given bloggers more guidance on how to treat backlinks to sites that have sent them any merchandise for free. According to Google, the “best practice” to... 
by Ross Barefoot | Feb 22, 2016 | Adwords |
A Quick SERPs Definition For those who may be new, SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page. They’re what show up whenever you search for a phrase using the Google engine. The bulk of the page is made up of sites Google believes are relevant (organic search... 
by Ross Barefoot | Feb 12, 2016 | Search Engine Optimization Training, SEO |
Get used to working within a team, because SEO has become a multi-disciplinary field Ah, for the good old days of SEO! Those days when you could stuff some titles, tweak some keyword density, build a bunch of directory links, and wait for the rankings to climb.... 
by Ross Barefoot | Feb 5, 2016 | Local Search, Rant |
Always be doubtful of academic papers with names like: “Knowledge Vault: A Web-Scale Approach to Probabilistic Knowledge Fusion.” Be even more suspicious if the paper lists 9 – yes 9 – authors. That paper had to do with Google’s... 
by Ross Barefoot | Nov 20, 2015 | Content Marketing, Insights for Search, News, Search Engine Optimization Training, SEO |
If you know what my headline is talking about I’m going to save you the suspense. This post links to the recently released, hush-hush, spiffy new, 2015 Google Quality Rating Guidelines in PDF format, with extra chrome. Except Google is no longer trying to keep... 
by Ross Barefoot | Sep 16, 2015 | Search Engine Optimization Training |
Hiding in the Shadows of Penguin Let me start out this post by saying that I am about to describe what I believe to be a case study in negative SEO. However I don’t have the “proof in the pudding,” “the smoking gun.” In other words I... 
by Ross Barefoot | May 5, 2015 | Search Engine Optimization Training |
If you’re a regular visitor to SearchEngineAcademy.com you’ve probably already noticed our new look. Our web design and development team has been working long and hard on giving the Search Engine Academy website a badly overdue update. Our priorities in... by Ross Barefoot | Feb 13, 2014 | Content Marketing, Duplicate Content, News, SEO |
Google Update off the Port Bow! Ahoy, SEO mateys, but today we have a twisted pirate’s tale to tell; thar be a story of a ship that went off the edge of the world and came back to tell ye about it. Arghhh. (Why the pirate accent? I don’t know…too... by Ross Barefoot | Nov 25, 2013 | Rant |
Why Was My (Google) Account Disabled? You have entered a birthday indicating you are not old enough to have a Google Account. The above snippet is from a Google help document. You can find it here. I say it’s a “help” document, but when you’re... by Ross Barefoot | Oct 4, 2013 | Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, News, SEO |
The Keywords Have Fallen! The Keywords Have Fallen! Or is That an Acorn on My Head? Chicken Little must have worked in Search Engine Optimization. While the real world is heavily focused on the typical fiscal squabbles of government and the prospect of (heavens,... by Ross Barefoot | Jul 19, 2013 | Misc, SEO |
A Hundred Ways to See a SERP Internet marketing is becoming bewildering. I just reviewed a very interesting slideshare presentation by Peter Meyers over at Moz called “Beyond 10 Blue Links: The Future of Organic Ranking.” Unless you’re an SEO... by Ross Barefoot | May 29, 2013 | Misc, Rant, SEO |
I recently read a very good article by Jayson DeMers over at Search Engine Land (How Much Should You Spend on SEO Services? May 13, 2013). I think he gave a good and comprehensive set of tips about shopping for SEO consultants. The part of that equation I’d... by Ross Barefoot | Apr 23, 2013 | Local Search, SEO |
Local Search Can be a Frightening Place “But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” Local Search is a... by Ross Barefoot | Apr 19, 2013 | Local Search, Misc, SEO |
Google Local Gets Confused Just like the Rest of Us Google Local Search is a strange place, but one thing seems to be clear: One of the single most important factors in Local SEO is something you might hear cryptically called “NAP Match” or “NAP consistency.” NAP... by Ross Barefoot | Jan 25, 2013 | Google Webmaster Tools, Misc |
This Search Engine Optimization Utility can Sometimes be Read Incorrectly Intended audience for this post: Beginning users of Google Webmaster Tools Main Takeaways: Google Webmaster Tools can sometimes give warnings that can be ignored You sometimes have to be patient... by Ross Barefoot | Dec 31, 2012 | Insights for Search, Local Search, News, Press Releases, SEO, Workshops |
Our Search Engine Academy SEO workshops are going to be reflecting as much change next year as the world of search did this year. 2012 is almost wrapped up and put away, and once again it’s been a year of dramatic change in the world of search. Google’s “Penguin”... by Ross Barefoot | Aug 21, 2012 | SEO, SEO Blogging |
SEO Content Creation: It Ain’t Literature, That’s for Sure (By the way, when I use the acronym “SEO” with content, you should probably read it like this: “Search Engine Optimized Content.”) During our SEO workshops one of the... by Ross Barefoot | Aug 10, 2012 | Google Analytics, SEO |
Google Analytics data is wonderful; Google Analytics account management is maddening. (If reading is not your thing, I’ll be covering these topics in an upcoming webinar (unless you’re reading this after August 22, 2012, in which case a recording of the Webinar should... by Ross Barefoot | Jul 6, 2012 | Local Search, Mobile Marketing, SEO |
Have you noticed? Mobile Search Optimization is becoming increasingly critical in the online world. In case any of you have been wondering about the impact and importance of Mobile Search, and what to do about it, this article should bring you to some very clear... by Ross Barefoot | Jun 29, 2012 | Google Analytics, SEO |
Sometimes I feel like I’m having a stroke. OK, so Website analysis perhaps doesn’t deserve that kind of melodrama. After all, I can’t really know what it feels like to have a stroke, since I have never had one (wait…I don’t think... by Ross Barefoot | May 8, 2012 | Misc, SEO |
Web analysis is an area of tremendous frustration for me. I’m definitely a left-brain kind of guy. I’m not proud of it, I’ve sought counseling and intervention, but try as I may to dwell in the nirvana of warm and fuzzy I prefer a world of concrete... by Ross Barefoot | Mar 2, 2012 | Misc, Online SEO Training |
SEO training is a topic that my friend Bill V. knows absolutely nothing about. As a facilitator with The Alternative Board, however, he knows what works in business. One of the adages he always hammered into my head was “hire for character, train for... by Ross Barefoot | Feb 3, 2012 | News |
Search Engine Academy training is expanding into the Rocky Mountain West. That’s where I come in, since I run the newly christened Rocky Mountain Search Engine Academy. I first encountered the Search Engine Academy in its original incarnation as Search Engine... 