# SEO Rockstars 2026: Day 3 - Charles Taylor

**Video URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKNTwBWLh54

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## Transcript

**[00:04]** I appreciate you inviting me here to

**[00:05]** speak and uh should give a shout out.

**[00:08]** Dory was actually I think Dory 23 was

**[00:11]** the first um uh conference I spoke at

**[00:14]** for for any of these conferences for for

**[00:17]** you or spring training or anything like

**[00:18]** that. And and actually so

**[00:21]** >> email

**[00:24]** Yeah, why not?

**[00:25]** >> Okay, come on.

**[00:26]** >> Yeah, why not? I'll try speaking. I had

**[00:28]** never done it before and and uh it went

**[00:31]** over pretty well, I think. And actually,

**[00:32]** it went over so well after I spoke, Lee

**[00:35]** and uh Ted kind of cornered me at lunch

**[00:37]** and said, "Hey, do you want to join us

**[00:39]** on uh on Fight Club?" I'm like, "Yeah,

**[00:40]** why not? I'll give that a shot, you

**[00:41]** know, give that, you know, and then

**[00:43]** that's kind of gone from there." Uh so,

**[00:45]** a little uh postcript on um what Marina

**[00:48]** was talking about with brand traffic and

**[00:50]** whatnot. We were chatting at one of

**[00:52]** Holly's events and we were talking about

**[00:54]** local listings or the GBPs and he was

**[00:58]** you know he was I I had first heard

**[01:00]** about Mike CTR geeks I think it was

**[01:02]** years ago and he was talking about brand

**[01:06]** he's talking about you know people

**[01:07]** aren't searching you know keywords are

**[01:08]** searching brand so I went to the Fox GBP

**[01:10]** and it's like well let's see how are

**[01:12]** people finding it people are typing in

**[01:14]** the name people are typing in the

**[01:15]** address people are not typing in news or

**[01:19]** news station or anything like that. Uh,

**[01:22]** at some time at lunch, someone come and

**[01:24]** ask me about news in New York City on

**[01:26]** GBP. I think I stumbled into

**[01:30]** something fishy. Uh,

**[01:33]** I'll leave it at that. So, for those of

**[01:35]** you who don't know anything about me,

**[01:36]** who the heck is Charles Tyler? Keep this

**[01:38]** super fast. Um, I spent most of my life

**[01:40]** in enterprise SEO. I started doing SEO

**[01:43]** in around 2004. I did the standard

**[01:46]** affiliate sites, churn and burn. After a

**[01:48]** year or two, I said, "Okay, let me, you

**[01:50]** know, not kind of be a big boy. Let me

**[01:51]** get a real job." Because that's what I

**[01:52]** figured. Okay, I just go get a job at

**[01:54]** SEO. And I worked for a company called

**[01:55]** Lexus Nexus. We did a lot of uh lawyers,

**[01:58]** uh, small mediumsiz law firms. I was

**[02:00]** there for several years. And I went to

**[02:01]** an e-commerce site for four or five

**[02:03]** years. I only last about four or five

**[02:04]** years in a large corporation because I

**[02:06]** can only take the BS for so long and

**[02:09]** then I'm like, "All right, I got to go

**[02:10]** someplace else." I had an interesting

**[02:12]** philosophy handed to me years and years

**[02:14]** ago, decades ago, when I was first

**[02:16]** getting a job, and I didn't like my very

**[02:18]** first job out of college, and one of the

**[02:19]** guys I was talking to said, "Well, then

**[02:21]** just quit and go get another job." And

**[02:23]** I'm like, "What do you mean?" He's like,

**[02:23]** "Well, you can always get another job

**[02:25]** you hate." And I'm like, "That is a

**[02:26]** really good point." So, I've always

**[02:28]** lived with that philosophy that you can

**[02:30]** always get another job you hate. Um, so

**[02:32]** I worked for Verizon for about five and

**[02:34]** a half years. Uh, my big thing I did

**[02:36]** there was we migrated from Verizon

**[02:39]** Wireless over to Verizon. talk about

**[02:41]** data, talk about a lot of stuff. I

**[02:42]** really, you know, cut my teeth on that.

**[02:44]** And then Fox poached me from from

**[02:46]** Verizon and I was there for about three

**[02:48]** and a half years. Now I'm on my own. So,

**[02:50]** we'll talk about that in a little bit.

**[02:52]** Favorite subjects here. I'm not sure

**[02:53]** what to talk to me about. SEO,

**[02:55]** obviously. Star Wars pre- prequels.

**[02:59]** Don't talk to me about any crap. And uh

**[03:01]** Dungeons and Dragons, but only if you

**[03:03]** know what a 20-side die looks like.

**[03:06]** All right. So, I'm going to talk about

**[03:08]** little some tricks. You're going to see

**[03:09]** some weird stuff today. Um, note, ignore

**[03:13]** the tricks. Understand the implication.

**[03:16]** It's all in the implication. And if

**[03:18]** you're familiar with uh the show and uh

**[03:20]** and this character, I did not intend to

**[03:22]** wear the same shirt as him today.

**[03:25]** All right. So, I realized as I'm coming

**[03:27]** down in the elevator, I really thought

**[03:29]** about going back up and changing my

**[03:30]** shirt. I'm like, it's too late.

**[03:33]** >> Own it. Um, all right. So, I'm gonna

**[03:35]** take you on an epic adventure. We're

**[03:37]** gonna look at data. So, you know,

**[03:39]** Marino, just don't get too excited. Um,

**[03:42]** while I'm at Fox, I'm always looking for

**[03:44]** ways to improve crawl budget. And that's

**[03:46]** the big thing with a really big website

**[03:49]** is it's all about crawl budget. And

**[03:50]** honestly, since I've started doing

**[03:52]** consulting and helping out mediumsiz,

**[03:53]** even some smaller companies, I realized,

**[03:55]** no, crawl budget's important for

**[03:56]** everybody, not just the really big guys.

**[03:59]** But with the big guys, you could, you

**[04:00]** know, there's a lot of data happening.

**[04:02]** So, I'm in Google Search Console. I'm

**[04:04]** hitting the pages report and I see

**[04:06]** something weird at the bottom of my

**[04:08]** pages report. And probably some of you

**[04:09]** have seen things like this on most of

**[04:12]** your clients or on some of your clients.

**[04:14]** There's the whole index though blocked

**[04:16]** by robots.txt.

**[04:19]** Let me take a quick pause. At any point

**[04:22]** in this conversation, if anybody has a

**[04:23]** question, wants to throw something in,

**[04:25]** just do it. You're not going to insult

**[04:27]** me. You're not going to break my stride.

**[04:28]** You might bit, but I'll get myself back

**[04:31]** on. So at the bottom of the page report,

**[04:33]** you'll see this index but though blocked

**[04:35]** by robots.txt

**[04:37]** and I had never really noticed that

**[04:39]** before and I noticed that with Fox and I

**[04:42]** think this was Fox News. And just by the

**[04:44]** way, people say, "Wait, you say Fox?"

**[04:45]** Yeah, Fox News, Fox Business, Fox

**[04:47]** Sports, Fox Weather, they had a whole

**[04:49]** bunch of other things. It's actually

**[04:50]** really they and they they have new um uh

**[04:54]** New York Post and Wall Street Journal.

**[04:56]** They're all under the same. It's

**[04:58]** actually really scary how few

**[04:59]** corporations own all the media that we

**[05:02]** consume. It's really only a couple

**[05:04]** corporations and all these people just

**[05:07]** jump from company to company. So, a lot

**[05:09]** of folks like, "Wow, Fox is like we

**[05:10]** never talk politics. There wasn't a like

**[05:12]** no one cared about politics. People

**[05:14]** cared about viewers. It was selling a

**[05:17]** product." Uh, and I know that and I'm

**[05:19]** confidently can say that because a guy

**[05:21]** that used to be at Fox News with me a

**[05:23]** couple years ago, he's now with MSNBC. I

**[05:26]** mean, come on. Those are two different

**[05:27]** ends of the spectrum. And he reached out

**[05:28]** to me and said, "Hey, we need some help.

**[05:30]** We're moving over to MS now." Um, they

**[05:32]** screwed it up. That's a whole different

**[05:33]** presentation. I'll be talking about that

**[05:35]** in spring training. Little plug for the

**[05:36]** Samuels there. So, index blocked by

**[05:38]** robotics. So, I'm like, "All right, show

**[05:40]** me what you got, Google." And you can't

**[05:42]** see this. My eyesight's horrible. This

**[05:44]** is really small. Anyways, it's these

**[05:46]** search pages with a whole bunch of like

**[05:48]** Chinese characters or something. I don't

**[05:50]** know. And I'm like, "What the heck is

**[05:52]** this?

**[05:53]** This is indexed. We're blocking this,

**[05:55]** but it's indexed. This is garbage.

**[05:57]** Google, write good content. This is not

**[06:00]** good content. These are not good pages.

**[06:01]** These are thin pages. And we got tens of

**[06:04]** thousands of them indexed. So, I was a

**[06:06]** little outraged. I clutched my pearls

**[06:09]** and said, "You got to be kidding me."

**[06:10]** And so, I dug into a little bit more.

**[06:12]** And yes, it's these search pages. And

**[06:14]** so, someone was putting crap on our

**[06:15]** search pages, getting them indexed. And

**[06:18]** some of you know this stuff, know this

**[06:19]** little hack. Some of you don't know this

**[06:20]** hack. I'm going to talk a little bit

**[06:22]** more about this in a bit, but they're

**[06:23]** they're putting a domain in there.

**[06:25]** They're putting something else. I never

**[06:26]** translate that, so I don't even know

**[06:27]** what the heck it said. I I don't care.

**[06:30]** So,

**[06:36]** >> so I'm like, "All right, why are these

**[06:37]** indexed?" I started doing some digging

**[06:39]** and I learned something. I've learned a

**[06:41]** lot about indexation over the past five,

**[06:43]** six years. This is from Google and it

**[06:46]** says, "Don't use robots txt as a means

**[06:49]** to hide your web pages, including other

**[06:52]** junk, from Google search results." Wait

**[06:54]** a minute. Robots txt is supposed to stop

**[06:56]** people from coming into your site.

**[06:58]** Supposed to stop the crawler and

**[07:00]** Google's res. Don't use that.

**[07:03]** Here's the key. If other pages point to

**[07:06]** your page with your descriptive text

**[07:09]** text, Google could still index the URL

**[07:12]** without visiting the page. Really?

**[07:16]** >> Yeah.

**[07:20]** >> I think that's a lie. And I'll tell you

**[07:21]** why I think that's a lie in a few

**[07:23]** seconds. They're definitely discovering

**[07:26]** the URL and putting the URL in their

**[07:28]** index, but they may not be. So, when we

**[07:31]** think about indexing, I don't have this

**[07:32]** slide here. I talked about this maybe

**[07:35]** next if you guys have me back maybe I'll

**[07:37]** talk about crawling and indexing one if

**[07:39]** you think about crawling it there's a

**[07:40]** whole bunch of steps there's discovery

**[07:43]** there's crawl there's rendering

**[07:46]** there's ranking and this is from

**[07:48]** Google's own documentation there's

**[07:49]** ranking and then there's serving and

**[07:53]** that that ranking and serving people are

**[07:55]** saying oh do I rank you might rank but

**[07:57]** not being served it's like that's a

**[07:58]** whole different thing so there's a

**[08:00]** discovery and they're putting the URL in

**[08:02]** their index But they're claiming they're

**[08:04]** not going to the page. I don't even

**[08:05]** think that's true. But we'll talk about

**[08:07]** that in a few seconds. And it says, use

**[08:09]** another message. It's a password

**[08:10]** protection, no index. BS. Total BS. John

**[08:14]** Mueller himself said no index.

**[08:18]** Again, think about the levels. All a no

**[08:20]** index is, and this is from John, and he

**[08:23]** normally tells the truth when he's

**[08:25]** talking about something technical. A no

**[08:26]** index is a is simply a no serve. Google

**[08:30]** still goes through all the other steps.

**[08:33]** So, putting a no index on the page

**[08:35]** thinking I'm keeping Google out.

**[08:37]** No, you're not. Google's still crawling

**[08:39]** that damn page anyways. Again, let's

**[08:41]** talk about the implication.

**[08:45]** So, who's linking to these pages? Google

**[08:47]** says, "Hey, we're going to go to this

**[08:49]** page anyways if we if someone's linking

**[08:51]** to it." And so, there's the referring

**[08:53]** page down here. You can't read it.

**[08:54]** That's okay. The the actual URL doesn't

**[08:56]** isn't important. It's not it's not in

**[08:58]** Google anymore. We'll talk about that in

**[08:59]** a few seconds. So, I'm referring page.

**[09:01]** What's this page? So, I go to the page

**[09:03]** and I'm like, okay, I can't read any of

**[09:06]** this. Just in case you're curious, this

**[09:09]** was the content that that Google

**[09:10]** Translate gave me.

**[09:13]** And I started looking for the link. So,

**[09:15]** where is the link with the descriptive

**[09:17]** text? Couldn't find the link with the

**[09:20]** descriptive text. Quite honestly, I

**[09:21]** assumed it was someplace on one of these

**[09:24]** on the right or there was a text or

**[09:26]** something in there. couldn't find it.

**[09:28]** So, I looked in the code.

**[09:31]** This is the bottom of the page. Now, you

**[09:35]** again, you're not gonna be able to see

**[09:36]** it that well. By the way, you guys are

**[09:38]** all going to get that. You know, you get

**[09:39]** this deck. If if Dory doesn't give it to

**[09:41]** you for some reason, then father Marino,

**[09:43]** if he don't give it to you, then just

**[09:44]** find me. I'll give you some contact

**[09:46]** information. If you saw me speak like

**[09:48]** three years ago and want the deck, I

**[09:50]** have it someplace. I'm always happy to

**[09:52]** share it. I got really cheesed off about

**[09:55]** a year ago. was at SMX. They did so they

**[09:58]** did a new SMS advance that's owned by

**[09:59]** owned by uh SCM Rush. So it was up in

**[10:02]** Boston. I got a free ticket. So I went

**[10:04]** there. I'm like, "Yeah, it was pretty

**[10:05]** good." But a guy came and did a whole

**[10:06]** presentation and like, "Wow, this is

**[10:08]** really cool." I talked to him after the

**[10:09]** presentation and like, "Hey, can I get

**[10:11]** this deck?" Because he's like rocking

**[10:12]** through the slides. Click, click, click,

**[10:13]** click, click. And he's like, "Yeah, no

**[10:15]** problem. Just reach out to me." I

**[10:16]** reached out. He ghosted me. SMX goes to

**[10:18]** me. I got contacts. I I know people

**[10:20]** like, "Hey, can I get this stupid deck?"

**[10:22]** Bottom line is I think it was total, you

**[10:24]** know, vapor wear that he was trying to

**[10:26]** sell people. But um so the bottom for

**[10:29]** you guys, you can always reach out to

**[10:31]** me. You see me in two years like

**[10:32]** Charles, you talked about something like

**[10:34]** two years ago. I got the deck. I'll give

**[10:35]** it to you. Anyways, so at the end of

**[10:38]** this as I'm finding there are about 40

**[10:40]** or 50 links at the end of the URL. They

**[10:44]** didn't have descriptive text. So going

**[10:46]** back,

**[10:48]** oh, if it has descriptive text, nope.

**[10:50]** Not only did these links not have

**[10:52]** descriptive text, they didn't even close

**[10:56]** the ahref tag. It was an open a tag to a

**[11:00]** URL. All of these URLs were search

**[11:04]** pages. So, they were doing this to

**[11:06]** people. At first, I thought this was an

**[11:08]** attack on us because I'm like, "All

**[11:09]** right, we got somebody that doesn't like

**[11:11]** us. Fox is evil. Whatever. They're

**[11:12]** trying to hurt us." Nope. They couldn't

**[11:14]** care less. There was no politics or

**[11:15]** anything involved. This is just someone

**[11:17]** doing some mass injection.

**[11:21]** Very lazy about it. And it worked.

**[11:26]** >> Yeah. So Simon's like, you know, I'm,

**[11:29]** you know, I'm lazy and I'm cheap. Well,

**[11:30]** there you go. Maybe it was Simon. I

**[11:31]** don't know. But

**[11:34]** and then at the footer of their page,

**[11:37]** there was hidden cross-linking to other

**[11:39]** pages in the network. So, I did a little

**[11:42]** bit of digging, and by a little bit of

**[11:44]** digging, I mean I did the bare minimum

**[11:46]** of copy and pasting and found a whole

**[11:48]** darn network. So, I was outraged.

**[11:51]** Absolutely outraged.

**[11:54]** And all the sites appeared legitish. You

**[11:57]** know, I was like, okay, this didn't look

**[11:58]** like a spam site. There was nothing

**[12:00]** about it when you looked at all the

**[12:01]** different sites that said this is spam.

**[12:04]** Um, it looked like it might be just

**[12:06]** someone trying to do their own news

**[12:07]** networks or maybe something. didn't

**[12:09]** really have much in the way of affiliate

**[12:10]** links or anything like that. So, it

**[12:12]** didn't really ring any bells to me when

**[12:14]** I was originally when I was looking at

**[12:15]** the pages.

**[12:18]** So, I talked to Google. Now, let me

**[12:20]** explain something. When you work at So,

**[12:22]** all of us, if we've ever had PPC before,

**[12:26]** how many different PPC

**[12:28]** account reps do you get contacted from

**[12:31]** in a week or a month or a year? And

**[12:34]** they're all different and they all have

**[12:36]** varying degrees of of of command of the

**[12:39]** English language. And it's really a bad

**[12:41]** look for the company, I would say,

**[12:43]** that's trying to get money from people.

**[12:44]** When you are Lexus, Verizon, Fox, you

**[12:49]** get one rep. That rep doesn't change.

**[12:52]** That rep for me was six blocks away. We

**[12:54]** got invited to the office a couple

**[12:55]** times. They were very helpful. And when

**[12:59]** I was with Fox, especially, this was

**[13:01]** around the time, so it's several years

**[13:02]** ago. This is around the time Google

**[13:04]** started actually laying people off. So

**[13:06]** all these project managers who had

**[13:09]** specific features in the search engine,

**[13:12]** they needed large companies to start

**[13:15]** doing things that would benefit these

**[13:17]** features. So I started talking to all

**[13:19]** these people came and started talking to

**[13:21]** me and say, "Hey, you should do this and

**[13:22]** you should do that." And I learned

**[13:25]** something years ago. Most of the

**[13:27]** enterprise SEOs I've worked with,

**[13:31]** they're not SEOs. And it's not like me.

**[13:33]** It's like, oh, they, you know, oh, he

**[13:34]** doesn't know SEO, she doesn't know SEO.

**[13:36]** They're just not SEOs. They're managers.

**[13:38]** They're managers that are given SEO is

**[13:40]** their thing that they have to manage.

**[13:42]** They deal, and I don't know how you

**[13:43]** manage something without knowing

**[13:44]** anything about it, but corporate America

**[13:46]** is full of people managing things they

**[13:49]** know nothing about and they have no

**[13:51]** skills. And the excuse they'll tell you

**[13:53]** is like, well, I'm a professional

**[13:54]** manager. It is terrifying.

**[13:57]** You want to know why these companies end

**[13:59]** up laying off 13,000 people after a

**[14:01]** couple years? It's because of like

**[14:03]** negligent mismanagement. So anyways, uh

**[14:07]** they would come and talk to us and I

**[14:08]** learned that smart is dumb, dumb is

**[14:13]** smart. I do not want to be a

**[14:16]** sophisticated SEO when these people from

**[14:18]** Google come and talk to me. I start

**[14:19]** talking canonical tags and this like

**[14:21]** they're going to lock down. They're

**[14:23]** going to be quiet.

**[14:25]** So, I'm just a manager. And so, when

**[14:27]** someone came to me and started talking,

**[14:28]** it's funny, uh, Marlene was talking

**[14:30]** about, you know, video search. I had the

**[14:33]** people that were in charge of putting

**[14:34]** video into the Google Surf come and talk

**[14:36]** to me. And they're trying to convince us

**[14:38]** to do Google uh to do video. And so, I

**[14:40]** asked them some questions and they're

**[14:42]** like, "Okay, you have to do this." Like,

**[14:43]** what do you mean by that? Well, you want

**[14:44]** to make sure you have a site map. Oh, we

**[14:46]** have a sitemap. I I know what they were

**[14:48]** going to say. They're talking about a

**[14:49]** video sitemap. And I know we have a site

**[14:51]** map. Oh no, you need a video sitemap. A

**[14:52]** video sitemap. I actually like I don't

**[14:54]** know why I I didn't I couldn't say the

**[14:57]** word video. So because I because again

**[14:59]** dumb is smart. And so now I'm just

**[15:01]** another dumb SEO manager and they've got

**[15:03]** to explain things to me and they're

**[15:05]** like, "Oh." And oh yeah, yeah. You know

**[15:07]** what? I do remember seeing that. I was

**[15:08]** looking in some Google documentation and

**[15:11]** it says I can embed the player or put

**[15:13]** the or put a link to the video. And

**[15:15]** immediately the person says, "No, don't

**[15:17]** embed the player." So there you go. If

**[15:19]** you're doing video, the documentation,

**[15:22]** Google documentation says you can embed

**[15:23]** the player or you can put a link to the

**[15:25]** video file. Put a link to the video

**[15:28]** file. Now, why? Because they have AI

**[15:30]** that wants to crawl the video files. I

**[15:33]** know this because we own Tuby. And I use

**[15:36]** that as a little bit of a carrot. I'm I

**[15:38]** can be a bit of a bastard. I'm a really

**[15:39]** nice guy, but I can be a little sneaky

**[15:41]** if I need to be. And I use Tuby as a

**[15:43]** carrot for these guys for months. I

**[15:45]** dragged them on and because they wanted

**[15:47]** to crawl all of our Tuby assets. That's

**[15:50]** all of our movies and videos. So yeah,

**[15:52]** so Fox owns Tuvi by the way. So if you

**[15:53]** watch Tuby, it's it's again one there's

**[15:56]** only like three or four companies that

**[15:57]** own all media in this in this country in

**[15:59]** the world probably. But anyways, um so I

**[16:02]** use that as a as a little bit of a a

**[16:03]** little bit of a stick. And then the guy

**[16:04]** that was over there, he's like, "What do

**[16:05]** I do? We can't give them access to all

**[16:07]** of our movie data." I'm like, "Just make

**[16:10]** a file and put, you know, put the

**[16:11]** previews and the trailers and stuff in

**[16:13]** there." the bot doesn't freaking know

**[16:14]** what it's what it's looking at and the

**[16:16]** people aren't checking the data. So

**[16:18]** anyways, so they I so that was kind of

**[16:20]** cool. So I told them all about this hole

**[16:22]** I found and I'm like, "Hey, I found this

**[16:24]** weird thing." And I showed them and they

**[16:28]** couldn't have cared less. I tried to

**[16:30]** make the guy in the AI picture look like

**[16:31]** he cared less. This guy cares more than

**[16:34]** Google cared when I told him about a

**[16:36]** problem with their algorithm. They

**[16:38]** couldn't have. So everyone who thinks,

**[16:40]** "Oh, I found this hole and Google's

**[16:42]** looking for these holes." Google ain't

**[16:43]** looking for holes. Google could care

**[16:45]** less. They just don't care.

**[16:49]** All they did

**[16:51]** is the one site that I gave them as I

**[16:54]** put together I probably put together a

**[16:56]** little too much information. I put

**[16:57]** together a little package to explain

**[16:58]** them. All they did is they took the one

**[17:00]** site. It got knocked out of the index.

**[17:02]** The rest of the the rest of the network

**[17:05]** still there to this day. Still index,

**[17:08]** still working just fine. So I did knock

**[17:10]** one page out of the index. So I narked

**[17:12]** on them and and I got it. So if it was

**[17:13]** your site anyone out there, I apologize.

**[17:15]** Um

**[17:17]** I thought I was doing right by the

**[17:19]** world. So um doesn't matter because no

**[17:22]** one cares. Uh where was I? D

**[17:26]** Google doesn't care. I got them. The

**[17:27]** only thing that happened though is I

**[17:29]** think I flew too close to the sun. Um

**[17:31]** and I'm going to blame Dory for this

**[17:33]** one. Uh because I did a presentation. I

**[17:36]** met up with Ted and Lee and they asked

**[17:38]** me to get on Fight Club. I think someone

**[17:40]** from Google somehow somebody found me on

**[17:43]** Fight Club and said, "Hey, that guy

**[17:44]** you're talking to." Uh he's not an

**[17:47]** idiot. He's on Fight Club and he talks

**[17:49]** he's always talking about SEO because

**[17:51]** about six months after I joined Fight

**[17:53]** Club, they changed Google reps on us.

**[17:57]** And the girl they gave us was the she's

**[18:01]** not she was not very clever

**[18:04]** and she was useless and nobody ever

**[18:06]** talked to me ever again after they

**[18:08]** changed rents. So I'm like all right I

**[18:10]** got busted.

**[18:13]** This tickled my memory though. So people

**[18:15]** injecting things into our into our uh

**[18:17]** into our site onto our search pages. It

**[18:20]** kind of I I'm like why there was I like

**[18:23]** puzzles. I love doing physical puzzles

**[18:26]** because I like putting different pieces

**[18:28]** together. And I think that's maybe why

**[18:31]** I've kind of been, you know, reasonably

**[18:33]** successful in SEO is I'll I'll hear I

**[18:35]** know I'll hear Chad say something. I'll

**[18:37]** hear Brian say something. I'll hear Jose

**[18:39]** say something. I'll hear somebody

**[18:41]** everybody will say something and I'll

**[18:42]** take like a piece and be like, "Huh?"

**[18:45]** Like there were so many little things

**[18:46]** like Brian W. like he said a whole bunch

**[18:48]** of little things yesterday. I was like,

**[18:50]** "Huh, I wonder how that fits into this

**[18:52]** other thing that I saw or this other

**[18:54]** thing I've seen in my past." So, this

**[18:57]** tickled my memory and it reminded me one

**[18:59]** of the first things I did when I I So,

**[19:02]** this is a log file. So, Marina talked

**[19:04]** about big data and I don't I don't This

**[19:07]** was back when I was still editing stuff.

**[19:09]** This is Wednesday the 20th 12. So this

**[19:12]** is like an entire day and this was for

**[19:16]** our in an index that an XML file and

**[19:19]** these were 301's. I know they are 301's

**[19:21]** because of the color. This came out of a

**[19:23]** tool that was uh data dog I think was

**[19:25]** name of tool. If you got a big site,

**[19:27]** data dog is an amazing tool to bring

**[19:29]** data in and it is not easy to work with,

**[19:32]** but it's amazing the data you can get.

**[19:35]** See, so this is all the log file. was

**[19:36]** just Google hitting our XML file or

**[19:39]** these XML files that were old, pounding

**[19:42]** the crap out of it. When I showed my

**[19:43]** network guys this because one of the

**[19:45]** guys, we got along really well and I was

**[19:46]** showing him like this is almost like a

**[19:48]** denial of service attack on us. It's

**[19:49]** like Google's hitting our page so damn

**[19:52]** hard. This is a 301

**[19:54]** on a page that hasn't existed for years.

**[19:58]** Years that page has Google keeps hitting

**[20:00]** it over and over and over again.

**[20:03]** And when I look at it, you can see it

**[20:05]** was a it was a news index. And there

**[20:07]** were actually two index XMLs. And again,

**[20:10]** you probably can't see it, but if you

**[20:11]** look here, the bottom here is 105153.

**[20:14]** The top is 10353.

**[20:17]** So in two minutes, whatever that is, 20

**[20:18]** hits to our server on a file that's

**[20:21]** 301ing.

**[20:22]** Remember, if it 301's, we're going to

**[20:24]** stop following it eventually. Now, you

**[20:26]** know, you follow it forever.

**[20:28]** But why why are they following it

**[20:30]** forever?

**[20:32]** Well, so I did a little searching. How

**[20:33]** did Google find this file? And there

**[20:35]** were two files. How did you know where

**[20:37]** did Google find this file? And you you

**[20:39]** can't see it, but that's okay. I'm happy

**[20:41]** to share. Search engine.com did an

**[20:43]** article in 2009. This I found all this

**[20:47]** stuff. I worked at Fox. I got I I

**[20:49]** started working there in 2021. So I

**[20:52]** can't remember the exact year I found

**[20:53]** this. It was probably 21, maybe the

**[20:55]** beginning of 22 at the most. That was a

**[20:58]** long time. 2009 to 2021.

**[21:01]** So 10 years later and in this article so

**[21:05]** going back in time 2029 2009 I mean uh

**[21:09]** was it what's the guy Rubert Barack was

**[21:11]** whining Google's you know doesn't like

**[21:13]** us and is you know banning us or shadow

**[21:15]** whatever he was I don't but and then

**[21:18]** search engine land did an article and

**[21:20]** said oh no Fox News has a robots.txt txt

**[21:25]** and they point to a sitemap. And it's

**[21:27]** funny if you read this part in here says

**[21:29]** therefore they're doing SEO, which I

**[21:31]** just found amazing that search engine

**[21:33]** land thinks having a robust.txt and

**[21:35]** pointing to a sitemap.xml makes you an

**[21:37]** SEO, which I stopped trusting their

**[21:39]** advice once I read that. Um, so in their

**[21:42]** article they have they just took our,

**[21:45]** you know, our old XML, put it in here,

**[21:49]** and I'm like, "All right, but this is

**[21:50]** just a text. There's a link." So, I went

**[21:54]** into the code. I'm a clever SEO. I went

**[21:56]** into the code and I searched just text.

**[22:00]** No link.

**[22:03]** So, let that sink in for a second. There

**[22:06]** was no link. Google discovered that and

**[22:09]** followed it.

**[22:14]** >> Fire away.

**[22:27]** I'll repeat your question.

**[22:29]** >> Sean said he's seeing that as well with

**[22:31]** just name, address, phone number. So the

**[22:33]** app

**[22:57]** See?

**[23:09]** >> Yeah.

**[23:18]** Yeah.

**[23:18]** >> Yeah. Just text mentions and on top. So

**[23:21]** this is not so what you're seeing is not

**[23:24]** new. This is not new. And I'll say I'll

**[23:26]** say that because like 10 years ago my

**[23:28]** brother-in-law his his boss got busted

**[23:31]** and went to jail for some stuff. My

**[23:33]** brother-in-law wasn't involved. So just

**[23:34]** full disclosure how's a good guy. Uh but

**[23:37]** so he's like now he's out of a job

**[23:38]** because his boss went to jail. And so he

**[23:41]** did his own contract. He was a

**[23:42]** contractor. He just he started doing his

**[23:44]** own work, made a little website, and my

**[23:46]** wife comes to me like, "Hey, can you

**[23:47]** help out?" You know, I'm like, "Yeah,

**[23:48]** he's a decent guy. He's never really

**[23:50]** pissed me off or anything." So, I happy

**[23:51]** to help him out. Made him a little one

**[23:52]** pager and got him into, you know, the

**[23:54]** GBP. Didn't really rank. I wasn't going

**[23:56]** to spend that much time on um and then

**[23:58]** one day I realized I said, "Let me see

**[24:00]** if I can help him out a little bit

**[24:01]** more." I went to his website and his

**[24:03]** contractor number, so he's in Rhode

**[24:04]** Island. His contractor number I found a

**[24:06]** page on the government site that had his

**[24:09]** name address. It was the road it was a

**[24:10]** Rhode Island government site and it

**[24:12]** said, "Hey, his name and address and his

**[24:14]** his contractor license number, whatever

**[24:17]** was in there." So, I put his license

**[24:18]** number on his website and I linked that

**[24:21]** to the government page. Boom. GBP ranked

**[24:24]** number one.

**[24:26]** There were no links. So to to Sean's

**[24:28]** point, you get that that just that

**[24:31]** mention, that brand and nap mention,

**[24:33]** Google understood that they found his

**[24:36]** name, address, and phone number on a

**[24:38]** government site about contractors and

**[24:40]** said, "That's important." That's all I

**[24:42]** did. I mean, that's all I did. So,

**[24:46]** stepping back, going back, hey, remember

**[24:48]** this page? This was our search page.

**[24:49]** Someone figured out how to inject some

**[24:51]** content in it. And there's a little part

**[24:54]** up here. It has uh h hot tkr.com.

**[24:58]** I'm not going to say it out loud just in

**[24:59]** case it's an aneemonic. I'm not

**[25:01]** realizing what I'm saying. So, but

**[25:02]** there's a domain in there. I'm like,

**[25:03]** "Huh, are they trying to get domains?

**[25:05]** What were they trying to do?" And I'm

**[25:07]** like, "All right, well, you know, Ted

**[25:09]** talks about this all the time on if they

**[25:11]** can do it, why can't I do it?"

**[25:14]** So, I went and I scraped their site. I

**[25:16]** got all the search page. I got found all

**[25:18]** the sites. There were 40 plus sites that

**[25:20]** would allow me to do search. There's a

**[25:22]** lot more sites than that, by the way.

**[25:23]** But regardless, I found out it's 40

**[25:25]** sites

**[25:27]** and then

**[25:29]** so this is what example of what I was

**[25:30]** thinking like what if I put a domain. So

**[25:33]** just test domain.com search page. So

**[25:35]** here was one CNN.com I could do it too

**[25:37]** and Eventbrite you could do it too. I'm

**[25:39]** like okay so time to test. So I took

**[25:44]** not G sheets sorry Brian I took Excel. I

**[25:48]** know that's our original love. Yes.

**[25:50]** That's the that's our first um so I said

**[25:53]** all right let me see if I can rank the

**[25:55]** word swan baron and I was so I had a

**[25:58]** little tool that gives you these like

**[25:59]** random words and the most frustrating

**[26:01]** thing about testing was I would take a

**[26:03]** random word I plug it in and it would

**[26:05]** actually be a word and I'm like and then

**[26:08]** Leo always just put a number in there

**[26:09]** I'm like no words don't have numbers in

**[26:10]** them I can't do that. Um yeah that

**[26:13]** doesn't make any sense but I'm still in

**[26:15]** my head. So, I was sure when it gave me

**[26:17]** swan baron, I checked. I'm like, "Okay,

**[26:19]** it's going to say swanberries for sure."

**[26:20]** It didn't. Uh, that was a surprise. Um,

**[26:23]** so what I did is I I went a little

**[26:24]** overboard on this. It should have been a

**[26:26]** simple will it index test, but I'm like,

**[26:27]** "No, I got to learn something." So, I

**[26:29]** created 10 different variations of the

**[26:31]** page. I had orphan internal and then

**[26:33]** different ways of linking to the search

**[26:35]** pages. So, I had these search pages out

**[26:37]** there. I got, you know, what if I, you

**[26:39]** know, what if I just do the search

**[26:40]** pages? Will Google find them? What if I

**[26:41]** do this? What if I do that? I had search

**[26:44]** links going to search links. yada yada

**[26:45]** yada. So

**[26:47]** made the again using Excel I just made

**[26:49]** the page with a s a simple you know

**[26:51]** concatenate or whatever. Um

**[26:55]** what do you know like within a week or

**[26:57]** two page seven ranked for swan baron and

**[27:01]** actually and it was interesting the su

**[27:02]** as soon as something ranked Google

**[27:04]** started giving me a um a local pack.

**[27:10]** So there's something else there. I never

**[27:11]** went that down that rabbit hole. But

**[27:13]** that's like that's one of those things

**[27:14]** that's kind of been sitting in the back

**[27:15]** of my head that suddenly we went from

**[27:20]** I've never heard this word because

**[27:21]** there's no results to here's a page for

**[27:25]** you. Oh, and here's some local results,

**[27:26]** too. So, that's floating around back

**[27:30]** there. Someday it'll pepper back up. The

**[27:32]** the the takeaway from this test was that

**[27:35]** I think I just found a Google Fiverr gig

**[27:38]** that was, you know, decent. Sorry, it

**[27:40]** wasn't legit. I apologize. Um, so I was

**[27:43]** like, that's one of the reasons why I

**[27:44]** started using money robot. I'm like,

**[27:45]** well, if the money robot worked, you

**[27:46]** know, then all right,

**[27:48]** real scientific this decision. It's

**[27:50]** like, all right, can it push a real

**[27:52]** page? All right, that was a fake page.

**[27:54]** It was all just fun. What would happens

**[27:56]** if I do this like for real? Um, so Fox

**[28:01]** Weather had been launching and they had

**[28:03]** a bunch of weird philosophies when they

**[28:06]** launched their site. I'll tell you this.

**[28:07]** See, this is so just to tell you guys

**[28:09]** this is deck has been like two years in

**[28:11]** the making. I've been s on this for a

**[28:13]** while and I'm like I don't feel right

**[28:14]** talking about this now. I have no

**[28:16]** problem talking about all this crap. So

**[28:17]** the funny thing with Fox Weather when it

**[28:19]** first launched, I started there at

**[28:20]** launch like three months after I started

**[28:22]** and they were telling me, "Oh no, we're

**[28:24]** just going to do news about the

**[28:26]** weather." Like so wait a we're gonna

**[28:28]** have a weather site that's not going to

**[28:30]** give the weather. That doesn't make a

**[28:32]** lot of sense. I said and I'm like plus

**[28:34]** like web pages people like there's a lot

**[28:36]** of traffic in you know Dallas Fort Worth

**[28:39]** weather you know Dallas weather you know

**[28:42]** New Jersey weather like there's a lot of

**[28:43]** traffic out there why are we to know we

**[28:45]** don't want that tra I was I was actually

**[28:47]** told that's the weird thing you're going

**[28:49]** to hear in enterprise we don't want that

**[28:50]** traffic I've been told that so many

**[28:52]** times we don't want that traffic what do

**[28:55]** you mean you don't want traffic most of

**[28:56]** us like s our arms off just to get a

**[28:58]** little bit of traffic and these guys

**[29:00]** like no we don't like that traffic

**[29:01]** that's not Not good enough for us. All

**[29:03]** right, whatever. So, will it push this

**[29:06]** page? So, I did the same thing. Took my

**[29:08]** pages and you can't see it, but it's

**[29:10]** just, you know, foxware.com

**[29:12]** uh I forget what it is. Air quality map.

**[29:16]** And so, hrefs, who's talking about I

**[29:20]** think Marina was talking about, you

**[29:21]** know, boost nature

**[29:23]** that can everybody see that chart to the

**[29:25]** right hand side?

**[29:27]** >> There were no links. These were search

**[29:30]** pages. This was text.

**[29:32]** So, I manipulated hrefs.

**[29:35]** I wasn't intending to do that, but it's

**[29:37]** interesting the things you've learned

**[29:38]** when you do tests. I find when I do a

**[29:40]** test, I never or I rarely learn the

**[29:42]** thing I was trying to learn, but I learn

**[29:44]** all these weird ancillary things.

**[29:48]** Here was the really interesting, the

**[29:50]** results. So, yesterday, who said I'd

**[29:53]** rather have a consistent 20 than jumping

**[29:56]** in and out of the index? Well, look what

**[29:58]** it did. this page was jumping in and out

**[30:00]** of the index and then suddenly boom,

**[30:02]** Google's like, "All right, I'm pretty

**[30:04]** cool with this page. I'll keep it."

**[30:05]** Well, did it increase the ranking? No,

**[30:07]** it did not increase my rank, but I'd

**[30:09]** started ranking very consistently.

**[30:12]** Interesting.

**[30:14]** Pretty pretty interesting.

**[30:17]** And then they nicely asked me to leave

**[30:18]** the company. No relation to the tests I

**[30:21]** was doing. Uh

**[30:23]** so my I had a whole year-long kind of an

**[30:26]** analyze data. I was going to try

**[30:27]** something else and they and so I'll tell

**[30:29]** you everybody kind of the like the fun

**[30:31]** little backstory to this. So one of the

**[30:33]** things I did not know when I started

**[30:35]** working there well I did know this one

**[30:36]** guy from the editorial team did not like

**[30:39]** me for some reason. I don't know how you

**[30:41]** can't like me. I'm a wonderful guy. He

**[30:43]** didn't like me. He it was like

**[30:46]** yeah he didn't like me. What I learned

**[30:48]** and this is what you learn in in uh

**[30:50]** enterprise is that there's always a

**[30:52]** million teams and I'm never the only

**[30:55]** SEO. Well, I am the only SEO, but I'm

**[30:58]** never the only SEO team. And the and

**[31:00]** it's always a battle with other teams,

**[31:02]** and that is exhausting. That's why I

**[31:04]** don't last more than four or five years

**[31:06]** in any larger organization because I can

**[31:08]** only handle the interfighting so much. I

**[31:11]** love working with other SEOs. I love

**[31:12]** collaborating. You show me something

**[31:14]** that I don't know or you tell me how I'm

**[31:17]** wrong about something. So, for example,

**[31:19]** I

**[31:20]** happily went on Fight Club and say,

**[31:22]** "Yeah, lms.txt. I couldn't get it to

**[31:24]** crawl. they're worthless. Brian comes

**[31:26]** out and dropped some knowledge on me

**[31:28]** yesterday. I'm like, "All right, I'm

**[31:30]** going back to the drawing board and I'm

**[31:31]** going to look at this again because I

**[31:32]** might have been totally wrong about

**[31:34]** that." And that's exciting to me.

**[31:36]** Finding out, not just learning something

**[31:37]** new, but finding when you're like

**[31:39]** totally wrong about something. I like

**[31:41]** that because it messes with my paradigm

**[31:43]** a little bit and I kind of like that.

**[31:45]** So, what I learned is that the editorial

**[31:46]** team thought they should be in charge of

**[31:48]** SEO and they hated me from day one. And

**[31:51]** here was really the death. Now what

**[31:54]** ended up happening in the organization

**[31:56]** this was you know pretty large

**[31:58]** organization is before any technical

**[32:02]** thing was done before any new anything

**[32:04]** was changed on the website before the

**[32:07]** systems guys changed anything and then

**[32:10]** what eventually happened is before the

**[32:12]** editorial team changed one of their

**[32:13]** practices everybody would ask have you

**[32:16]** spoken with Charles first that is not

**[32:20]** what you like that sounds like oh that's

**[32:21]** really cool No, that's not good in a

**[32:23]** large organization because you paint a a

**[32:26]** target on your back. And I was the first

**[32:28]** in the in the product team to get let

**[32:29]** go. Uh they gave me actually they gave

**[32:31]** me a nice little package. So it wasn't

**[32:32]** too bad, but it still annoys me. And

**[32:35]** then the the icing on the cake is the

**[32:37]** guy who my boss who actually g who

**[32:40]** actually gave me the the good news. Uh

**[32:42]** like six months later, he got axed and

**[32:44]** like the entire organization got axed.

**[32:46]** So a little bit of karma. So I was happy

**[32:47]** about that. So as far as I'm concerned,

**[32:49]** great freedom. I ain't got no strings on

**[32:51]** me anymore. So now I'm on my own and I

**[32:53]** don't know if I'm going to go back.

**[32:54]** Maybe I will. You can always get another

**[32:55]** job. Yay. Right.

**[32:58]** So that was fun, but so what? I have no

**[33:00]** idea how much time I have left. Like 20

**[33:03]** minutes, I think. Okay, cool. We got

**[33:05]** lots of time for questions that you guys

**[33:06]** have. So that was fun, but so what? Like

**[33:09]** who cares?

**[33:11]** Remember, it's the implication.

**[33:14]** So we've learned a bunch of cool things.

**[33:16]** So do you want to run out and get a

**[33:17]** bunch of search pages and you know spam

**[33:19]** sites using search pages? You can do

**[33:20]** that actually. And there's actually some

**[33:22]** fun things you can do with that that

**[33:24]** have nothing to do with links. But we've

**[33:26]** learned some things now. We understand

**[33:28]** how Google works. What do we know? We

**[33:30]** know that robots.txt does not keep

**[33:33]** Google out of parts of your website.

**[33:36]** It works, but not if there's links to

**[33:38]** it. So,

**[33:42]** fast forward to July 2025.

**[33:45]** Total FOMO on this event. Fear of

**[33:47]** missing out. Not even fear of missing

**[33:48]** out. just totally I just missed out on

**[33:50]** this one. This was in like Bangkok or

**[33:52]** Singapore or something like that. You're

**[33:53]** not getting me on a plane going over the

**[33:55]** Pacific. I've seen Lost. It Yeah, I've

**[33:58]** seen Lost. I've seen Castaway. Yeah. No,

**[34:00]** I'm not doing that.

**[34:03]** Although, I would be curious how long

**[34:05]** I'd like to how long I could survive. I

**[34:07]** like to think I'd live, but I'd probably

**[34:09]** die like in a week. Um

**[34:12]** I've seen a version. So, they had an

**[34:14]** event. They be in Google. uh search deep

**[34:18]** dive, Google search deep dive or

**[34:20]** something like that. The second they

**[34:22]** come to the US, all of you drop what

**[34:24]** you're doing and go to this darn event.

**[34:26]** It was a three-day event. I I can share

**[34:28]** the the link to I I went out and I troll

**[34:31]** I I went out and I just I scanned the

**[34:34]** internet. I found all the articles where

**[34:38]** people took all the pictures of the

**[34:40]** decks and I've even fig like a like you

**[34:43]** know I I have like it's a puzzle. I even

**[34:45]** tried to figure out which slides were

**[34:48]** first and try to order their slides. It

**[34:50]** does no one says any place, but I really

**[34:51]** wanted to figure it out. I have no

**[34:53]** context on a lot of the slides, but

**[34:55]** there were some really really

**[34:56]** interesting nuggets in their slide and

**[34:58]** it was three days and Google was like

**[35:00]** showing you under the petticoat and

**[35:01]** everything. I don't know if they're ever

**[35:02]** going to do this again. I think they

**[35:04]** realized they said too much. I don't

**[35:05]** know. But anyways,

**[35:08]** >> it was I don't remember search. It was

**[35:11]** uh it was deep dive search console deep

**[35:15]** dive.

**[35:17]** I will find it was SC CDD search console

**[35:21]** deep dive or search no search central

**[35:23]** deep dive. I'll find it. I'll send

**[35:26]** everybody a link. I'll I'll put it up

**[35:27]** and and share it in our little Rockstars

**[35:32]** app or something. Um

**[35:35]** yeah, search console deep dive. It had

**[35:37]** like a really long name. It was Google

**[35:40]** search console deep dive Bangkok 2025 or

**[35:43]** or something like that. But it was over

**[35:45]** the summer. It was really good

**[35:46]** information. I saw this deck. This was

**[35:50]** part of their presentation. I've seen

**[35:52]** something similar to this before about

**[35:54]** seven or eight years ago in a Google IO.

**[35:56]** They had a similar deck saying what

**[35:59]** links they can follow, what links they

**[36:01]** can't follow. Why would Google say this?

**[36:03]** Because they're saying, "Hey, if you

**[36:05]** want us to discover a page, this is the

**[36:06]** code you use. If you use this code,

**[36:09]** well, we can't discover the page.

**[36:11]** Interesting. So, if I do this, you can't

**[36:15]** follow my link.

**[36:18]** I learned that when I was with Verizon.

**[36:20]** So, when we did when we went from

**[36:21]** Verizon Warehouse over to Verizon.

**[36:24]** Um,

**[36:26]** I love working with other

**[36:28]** vendors.

**[36:30]** And the Adobe people came and said,

**[36:33]** "When you do your migration," and I did

**[36:34]** a whole thing on migrations. I'm not

**[36:36]** going to get into it deep here, but look

**[36:38]** up, you know, buy the by the

**[36:42]** by the whatever it is, by the thing

**[36:43]** where you can see all the decks and it's

**[36:44]** in 2023. It was a good one. Um, but

**[36:47]** anyways, when I was doing I gave I gave

**[36:50]** this story I'll give you like the very

**[36:51]** quick synopsis of it. When I was doing

**[36:53]** this, I I wanted to do a migration and

**[36:55]** that the Adobe people were like, "Oh,

**[36:57]** we're going to lose all of your there

**[36:58]** was something about losing the tracking

**[37:00]** or whatever." So, the Adobe folks said,

**[37:01]** "You need to put a parameter at URL."

**[37:04]** like what exactly do you want us to do?

**[37:06]** Oh, we're going to re we're going to 301

**[37:08]** redirect from verizon wireless.com yada

**[37:09]** yada yada to verizon.com yada yada yada

**[37:12]** parameter. I'm like uh I don't like the

**[37:14]** sound of that. I don't like the sound of

**[37:16]** that at all. Like and then they and they

**[37:18]** did my favorite thing that I love other

**[37:20]** we talked to our SEO guy and he says

**[37:23]** it's no problem. Yeah. Well, if your SEO

**[37:24]** guy even exists, he's full of It's

**[37:26]** a problem. So, I went through I said and

**[37:30]** I just that was one of and again this is

**[37:31]** why I don't last super long at these

**[37:32]** large corporations. I just put my foot

**[37:34]** down. said, "No, we're not doing that."

**[37:35]** And nobody in large corporations makes

**[37:38]** decisions. And we were just talking

**[37:39]** about it at breakfast today. There are

**[37:41]** no decision makers.

**[37:43]** Everyone's part of a team. Why? Because

**[37:45]** when you make a decision, you might be

**[37:47]** wrong. And being wrong is dangerous. You

**[37:49]** don't ever want to be wrong. Hey, who

**[37:51]** made this decision? Dory did. Well, she

**[37:53]** was wrong. Let's get her right. Like

**[37:55]** that's that's the philosophy. That's

**[37:56]** really the fear. What I found is that's

**[38:00]** not true. Nobody you've got once you get

**[38:04]** like to the senior director and or like

**[38:07]** junior VP level and higher. The problem

**[38:09]** these people have is they spend all

**[38:10]** their day literally just literally

**[38:12]** jumping from meeting to meeting. They're

**[38:14]** dropping meetings. I can't get to this

**[38:16]** meeting. I'll go to this meeting

**[38:16]** instead. They are hungry starving for

**[38:21]** people to make a damn decision because

**[38:24]** all they do is sit on these meetings or

**[38:25]** people go around in circles. So that

**[38:27]** helped me a lot until you get to a

**[38:30]** certain level and then it doesn't help

**[38:32]** so much. So anyways, um, so I said, "No,

**[38:37]** we're not going to." I talked to a dev

**[38:38]** and actually this guy is real clever.

**[38:40]** What he did is he used JavaScript to

**[38:42]** inject the parameter. I ran a test. I'm

**[38:44]** like, "Google never sees the parameter

**[38:46]** if you do it that way." Genius move.

**[38:49]** That's the way we did it. Um, and that

**[38:51]** kind of stuck in the back of my head for

**[38:53]** a while. And then I saw that slide and I

**[38:54]** saw this slide. So Google doesn't it

**[38:56]** says they can't extract basically what

**[38:59]** can Google extract href whether it's

**[39:02]** relative or not an explicit URL. Well we

**[39:05]** know that's true. Google can extract

**[39:07]** Google claims they can extract a

**[39:10]** relative.

**[39:12]** This is the first time I'm seeing him

**[39:14]** say this. I don't believe that. I had

**[39:17]** the flu and the sinus infection over the

**[39:19]** over the Christmas break. So I didn't

**[39:21]** get a chance to test it. I I started my

**[39:22]** test a week ago. I just checked my logs

**[39:25]** last night. Google still hasn't found my

**[39:27]** relative text link yet. So, I don't know

**[39:30]** if that means Google just doesn't like

**[39:32]** my site. I pinged the crap out of it

**[39:33]** with all the indexers. That's a whole

**[39:35]** different presentation on one's working.

**[39:37]** There's a lot of indexers that don't

**[39:38]** work. By the way, guys, be careful who

**[39:39]** you get the money to. Check your log

**[39:41]** files. If you don't know how to check

**[39:42]** your log files, come talk to me. I'll

**[39:43]** show you how to check your log files.

**[39:45]** But yeah, there's a lot of people that

**[39:47]** say, "Oh, this does this." Any tool you

**[39:50]** have and it says we do this. check them,

**[39:54]** make sure they're actually doing that.

**[39:55]** There's a lot of tools that don't do

**[39:57]** anything other than take your money. So,

**[40:01]** um, but this is really interesting. It's

**[40:03]** the implication

**[40:05]** and this is this is the information and

**[40:08]** this isn't really new. Google IO like

**[40:11]** eight or nine years ago talked about

**[40:12]** this. They just didn't have the relative

**[40:13]** ones.

**[40:15]** So, here's an example.

**[40:17]** So, how many how many folks in here have

**[40:19]** like an e-commerce client? And how many

**[40:22]** times have you gone into their pages

**[40:23]** report and seen something that looked

**[40:25]** like this? 57 in uh 30 I'm sorry, 53,000

**[40:30]** indexed pages. 277,000

**[40:33]** non-indexed pages. Well, wait a minute.

**[40:36]** If it's not indexed, some folks will

**[40:37]** say, "Well, we don't care. It's not

**[40:38]** indexed." Yeah, but Google knows about

**[40:40]** it. Google's crawling it. There's your

**[40:42]** crawl button. I can't do this kind of

**[40:44]** math. It's way too early. I don't wake

**[40:46]** up until about 11 o'clock. Like I'm

**[40:48]** still asleep right now. So I don't know

**[40:50]** that math, but that tells me it's like

**[40:52]** what only 20% of the URLs like 80% of

**[40:55]** the URLs Google's going to 80% of the

**[40:57]** traffic from Google bots is going to

**[40:59]** pages that we don't want indexed. That's

**[41:01]** a big problem. And so one of the things

**[41:03]** I've learned and I work with clients

**[41:04]** with this is if you have an a tag link

**[41:09]** pointing to pages that you don't want

**[41:11]** indexed, guess what's going to happen?

**[41:14]** Google's unindex, but Charles, I put

**[41:16]** them in my robots.txt. No, Google

**[41:18]** themselves says, "No, robots.txt, we're

**[41:20]** still going to crawl it if you have a

**[41:21]** link to it." With descriptive text, we

**[41:24]** know isn't true. You don't need

**[41:25]** descriptive text. You don't need to

**[41:26]** close your A tag. You just the discovery

**[41:29]** part of Google is looking for the ah

**[41:31]** ref. That's what it's looking for. It's

**[41:33]** not looking for anything else.

**[41:34]** Obviously, it looks for the the

**[41:35]** descriptive text, but it doesn't need

**[41:37]** it.

**[41:42]** If you have a page you don't want

**[41:43]** indexed, don't send an a tag link to it.

**[41:45]** What about a no index? Give two seconds.

**[41:47]** What about a no index tag? We already

**[41:49]** learned from John Mueller. It's a no

**[41:51]** sir. It's not a no index. I tested it.

**[41:53]** Google still crawl in.

**[42:15]** So, you said the magic word

**[42:16]** theoretically. So, theoretically, here's

**[42:18]** how you fix the problem. Uh, and I'll

**[42:20]** explain why I'm I'm joking and saying

**[42:22]** theoretical. I'm not joking. I'm being

**[42:23]** serious. But, so I have a client. They

**[42:26]** have a homespun CMS. They are a

**[42:29]** e-commerce medium-sized e-commerce. Got

**[42:31]** a lot of medium-sized e-commerce

**[42:32]** clients. actually um not David. Okay. Um

**[42:38]** they had this problem. This isn't from

**[42:40]** their side. This is from another guy

**[42:41]** that brought. But anyways, so what we

**[42:43]** did is the first thing we did is we got

**[42:44]** rid of all the A tags to the search

**[42:46]** pages because they had facets and search

**[42:48]** pages like crazy. They were in the

**[42:49]** millions. It was insane. So we got rid

**[42:51]** of all the A tags.

**[42:53]** Then what we did, so step one, get rid

**[42:56]** of the A tags. And then we learned after

**[42:58]** like six months, nope, there's one here.

**[42:59]** Oh, there's one in this template. And

**[43:00]** there's I did a lot of hunting. Once

**[43:02]** we've got rid of all the a tags, problem

**[43:04]** is Google still has these URLs in your

**[43:06]** index and then they go back and crawl

**[43:08]** the crawl up the URL. So even on the

**[43:11]** page you want out of the index can't

**[43:13]** have a tags pointing to links that you

**[43:14]** don't want because they're going to go

**[43:15]** back to the damn page because it's in

**[43:17]** the index and find the a tags. It's a

**[43:19]** mess. And then what you can do is go to

**[43:22]** the removal tool, say get rid of this.

**[43:24]** The removal tool is actually super

**[43:26]** powerful. Be careful. I did a test. I

**[43:28]** took a page that box put in the removal

**[43:30]** tool and see what happens. Boom. It's

**[43:32]** out. I watched the log files because I

**[43:34]** was expecting Google a Google bot to hit

**[43:36]** the page. No, Google doesn't hit the

**[43:38]** page and you put in the removal tool.

**[43:40]** It's a backend thing, I guess. So,

**[43:42]** that's just, you know, be aware. So,

**[43:45]** then you put the URL prefix into the

**[43:48]** removal tool. It'll take it out of the

**[43:50]** index. As long as Google doesn't find

**[43:52]** the link again, it shouldn't come back.

**[43:55]** Yeah. Sean.

**[43:59]** >> Yeah.

**[44:06]** I'm

**[44:08]** right now.

**[44:20]** That's right.

**[44:32]** Um, all right. So, it says website.

**[44:38]** Yeah.

**[44:40]** Business slash service. And then I have

**[44:44]** And then I have another one that says

**[44:46]** slashca

**[44:52]** whatever the hell that is.

**[44:58]** So that's a little different issue that

**[45:00]** is all right. So now I'm going to

**[45:02]** pretend that like I understand how

**[45:03]** servers work. I don't. Depending on your

**[45:06]** site, some sites and I do a little test

**[45:08]** with this with all my clients on is just

**[45:10]** start throwing stuff at the end of the

**[45:12]** URL and what does the site do? Does it

**[45:15]** give you a 404? Does a 301? Does it give

**[45:18]** you a 200 status on the page? And then

**[45:20]** what does it display?

**[45:23]** You want that's the first thing I always

**[45:24]** do with clients. I always like to say

**[45:25]** what the heck can happen if I go to the

**[45:28]** HTTP, go to the dubdubdub, non-

**[45:29]** dubdubdub, throw my favorite is fake

**[45:32]** page at the end of a URL. What does it

**[45:34]** do? If it does something like that, you

**[45:36]** have a potential, not necessarily, but

**[45:39]** you have a potential black hat exploit

**[45:41]** on your on your site, right? Because

**[45:43]** someone can mess your site up.

**[45:48]** I'm not going to say it on video, but

**[45:49]** there's ways that people can take that

**[45:51]** knowledge and hurt a site with it. I

**[45:53]** don't really want to black hat tax

**[45:55]** because that's

**[45:56]** >> the next one is the next question. Okay.

**[46:00]** >> So, what I've gathered from this from

**[46:02]** this information is that if we go out

**[46:06]** and create a bunch of pages, okay, and

**[46:10]** we link to

**[46:13]** the big sites, okay, and we say that and

**[46:16]** we we our link is referring to a search.

**[46:20]** And let's say we put something in like

**[46:23]** uh one of our clients names and their

**[46:25]** address and their phone number and we've

**[46:28]** created a whole bunch of links over to

**[46:32]** Ox News

**[46:34]** and it's referring to that, Google's

**[46:37]** going to index that and even though that

**[46:40]** page doesn't exist, does that work as a

**[46:43]** citation?

**[46:46]** >> I'm not ignoring you. I just want to go

**[46:48]** back to this slide.

**[46:49]** >> I I know this question's a little evil.

**[46:52]** >> So, I'm going to answer that. We can

**[46:54]** chat about it between sessions.

**[46:56]** >> Okay.

**[46:56]** >> But I'm going to answer that officially

**[46:58]** saying ignore the trick. Like we learn

**[47:00]** like there's an interesting trick in

**[47:01]** here, but there's an implication.

**[47:04]** >> Okay.

**[47:04]** >> And let's talk about what the

**[47:05]** implication is. And you're you're

**[47:07]** perfect segue by the way, Sean.

**[47:09]** >> Yeah.

**[47:10]** >> Perfect segue to talk about. Okay. Well,

**[47:11]** where does this

**[47:12]** >> because that was kind of my takeaway

**[47:13]** from it. I was like, man, I could go out

**[47:15]** to all I'm gonna go to Nike and then go

**[47:17]** Forge. a reason I there's a reason I sat

**[47:19]** on this deck for two years. I'm like, I

**[47:21]** don't even know if I want to ever talk

**[47:22]** about this

**[47:22]** >> because it feels like that this may be

**[47:25]** some of what I see on some of my sites,

**[47:28]** they're trying to do this approach. I

**[47:31]** >> I'll tell you what some people are

**[47:33]** trying to do with things like this.

**[47:35]** Here's the takeaway. If Google see a

**[47:38]** link or a URL, they're going to follow

**[47:40]** it and you're not going to stop it.

**[47:42]** Google has a problem actually. They got

**[47:44]** a crawling machine that will not stop

**[47:46]** crawling. That's all it does is crawl,

**[47:49]** crawl, and discover URLs. But we can

**[47:52]** learn from this indexation. Everybody

**[47:54]** talks about, "I'm having trouble getting

**[47:56]** indexation or whatnot." Well, have you

**[47:57]** ever thought about building an

**[47:58]** indexation PBN?

**[48:01]** Why fight the spammers? Just do what

**[48:03]** they do, right? Like, you know, now I've

**[48:07]** listened to to Brian Winnham a couple

**[48:09]** times, and if I built a P I wouldn't

**[48:11]** just build a indexation PBN. I would do

**[48:13]** a bunch of other stuff. There's ways to

**[48:14]** monetize that stuff. There's cool little

**[48:15]** tricks there. Again, I like putting

**[48:17]** pieces of the puzzle together, but you

**[48:19]** don't have to. There's people that talk

**[48:20]** about different ways of getting things

**[48:21]** indexed, and I've tried a lot of things.

**[48:24]** If you built a site and you built up a

**[48:27]** good-looking site, you could totally

**[48:29]** just put freaking unclosed a tags at the

**[48:32]** end and get everything you want your you

**[48:34]** want your you want your pages indexed.

**[48:35]** You want your, you know, sec primary,

**[48:38]** secondary, tertiary backlinks indexed,

**[48:40]** just put them in there. So that's one

**[48:42]** way. Link building. Don't obsess. You

**[48:44]** don't need a link. Don't obsess over the

**[48:48]** ATA tag. I learned this years ago when I

**[48:49]** was at an e-commerce site. They did

**[48:51]** party supplies and costumes. We used to

**[48:53]** always get calls from journalists

**[48:57]** asking for me to do a little bit of a

**[48:59]** they'd asking for stuff, asking for

**[49:01]** quotes or whatever right around

**[49:03]** Halloween. And the first year I made the

**[49:06]** mistake and I asked for a link. And

**[49:08]** you'd have thought that the C-word and

**[49:10]** the N-word got together and had a baby

**[49:12]** with the way this person reacted to me

**[49:14]** asking for a link. They were outraged

**[49:16]** when I asked for a link. And I'm like,

**[49:18]** "All right, I can never say the word

**[49:19]** link to a journalist." So the next time

**[49:22]** I talk to the journal to a journalist, I

**[49:24]** said, "Hey, do you mind giving me a

**[49:26]** citation?"

**[49:28]** That's the word. Sometimes it'll be

**[49:31]** clickable. Sometime don't say clickable.

**[49:33]** Just say, "Do you mind giving me a

**[49:34]** citation?" And then what I learned to do

**[49:37]** is I say, "Hey, by the way, the company

**[49:39]** was called Costume Supercenter. They

**[49:40]** don't exist anymore." That's a whole fun

**[49:42]** story about what happened in the costume

**[49:43]** business. But anyways,

**[49:46]** what I asked him, I say, "Hey, our

**[49:48]** name's Costume Super Center." People are

**[49:49]** always messing up our name. When you

**[49:51]** site us, can you make sure you say, and

**[49:54]** I gave them the exact spelling and how

**[49:55]** we like, "Not a problem." And then

**[49:57]** they'll say, "You know what? I'll

**[49:58]** mention your URL, too." Oh, great. Thank

**[50:00]** you very much. I hadn't even thought of

**[50:02]** that. Again, dumbest slumps. Um,

**[50:06]** so ask for citations. Internal pages

**[50:08]** crawl budget. If you don't want a web

**[50:09]** page found, don't link to it with a tag.

**[50:11]** And you can't even put a text URL in

**[50:13]** there. Page sculpting reborn. There are

**[50:17]** still page rank. It still exists. It's

**[50:19]** still part of the algorithm. May even be

**[50:21]** deprecated a little bit, but it's still

**[50:23]** in there. If you want to sculpt, you can

**[50:25]** still sculpt. You just can't do the no

**[50:27]** follow, do follow trick that they people

**[50:30]** used years ago. If you want to sculpt,

**[50:32]** just don't link or link using a link

**[50:35]** that Google doesn't follow. And Bob's

**[50:37]** your uncle, we got sculpting back again.

**[50:43]** That's the takeaway. By the way, not go

**[50:45]** spam people's search.

**[50:48]** That's why again, I sat on this for a

**[50:50]** while because like I don't want to teach

**[50:52]** people

**[50:54]** spamming because just build good stuff

**[50:56]** like you know this that could go away

**[50:58]** tomorrow. you know, somebody at some

**[51:00]** company, Eventbrite, wherever you spam,

**[51:02]** could not could go to their Google rep

**[51:04]** just like I did and get your page just

**[51:07]** burned to the ground. And I check every

**[51:09]** like six to eight months, I'll check

**[51:10]** that site, see if it ever came back. It

**[51:12]** has yet to come back. It's been over two

**[51:14]** years, so that site's gone. The network

**[51:16]** is still out there, but that site's

**[51:18]** gone. So, you know, don't poke the bear.

**[51:21]** If you want to contact me, LinkedIn is

**[51:23]** actually one of the better ways of

**[51:24]** getting a hold of me. Um, I am on

**[51:27]** Discord. I am on teams. You just Google

**[51:29]** Charles Taylor SEO and you'll find like

**[51:32]** a million ways to reach out to me. Uh,

**[51:33]** but you got to put the SEO part in

**[51:35]** there. If you just Google Charles

**[51:36]** Taylor, it's a different Charles Taylor.

**[51:37]** He doesn't know nearly as much about SEO

**[51:39]** as I did and he's, you know, like a war

**[51:41]** criminal or something. So, I am on

**[51:44]** Facebook. You are welcome to find me on

**[51:46]** Facebook. It's just Charles Taylor. I

**[51:47]** think it's Charles H. Taylor or maybe

**[51:49]** Charles Taylor. I am on there. I'll be

**[51:51]** honest. I don't do Facebook much. So, if

**[51:54]** you reach out to me on Facebook, you'll

**[51:55]** learn the same thing that Marina look

**[51:56]** learned. you'll hear back from me like

**[51:58]** in two days because I only check like

**[52:00]** every now and again and the only reason

**[52:02]** I check is because of Jose's wife

**[52:03]** because she puts some funny up

**[52:05]** there and so I'll read her post and

**[52:07]** that's pretty much all I do and then I

**[52:08]** leave. Um so but yeah, if you can find

**[52:12]** me, reach out to me. You know, I like I

**[52:15]** like to steal ideas from other people

**[52:17]** and I think Joy had a really good de

**[52:20]** slap there where it showed I love her

**[52:21]** thing. I was going to make it last

**[52:22]** night, but Jose and I were out having

**[52:25]** burgers, so I came back late. I'm like,

**[52:27]** I'm tired of not making that slide. But

**[52:29]** yeah, I just talk to me. I'm easy to

**[52:31]** find, easy to talk to. You can contact

**[52:33]** me in two years and say, hey, you did

**[52:35]** this thing like, yeah, sure, whatever.

**[52:37]** Who you want to? Happy to talk to.