In Rutledge Daugette's write-up from the Google Web Creator summit that got a lot of attention last week, he wrote a line that struck a chord with the SEO community. In short, some are taking it to mean that Google does not want site owners, or at least, content creators, to hire SEO agencies or have to purchase SEO audits.
He wrote:
Danny specifically said, “We don’t want you paying money for SEO audits to try and recover, we should be providing better guidance that removes the need for those outside of instances like site migrations or more complex changes.” We touched on this further in the breakout sections.As a note, I’ve spent a significant amount of money on SEO consulting since 2021.
But does Google really not want you to hire SEOs, SEO agencies, consultants or pay for SEO audits?
I doubt it, I mean, Google has said the opposite countless times. In fact, they have highlighted tons of SEOs across their social channels and their blog, over the years. They have also published documentation and videos around how to hire an SEO. They have called out SEOs as being valuable and even a partner of theirs over the years. Heck, Google even has their own internal Google SEOs, yea, Google has an SEO team. Heck, Danny Sullivan himself said SEO is not spam and "SEO isn’t some magic elixir that causes content to rank well," he added.
Google even wrote, "Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners." Plus, Google even references help documents from SEO consultants in their own core updates advice documentation.
Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, has historically called out SEO consultants as providing value:
There is great third-party advice about ranking in Google. @iPullRank @lilyraynyc @Marie_Haynes @ajkohn @MediaWyse @glenngabe are some I named in my talk & many more & in languages beyond English. Hallmark is tend to make clear when something is what they believe vs “Google says” pic.twitter.com/2uW1FtewSu
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) November 16, 2023
My take, Google is just saying they don't want anyone to feel they need to pay money to have their content rank well in Google. Google should be able to rank good, helpful and useful content without any SEO. But sadly, that is not always the case and that is where SEOs come in.
I think Google feels their documentation should be easy enough, straightforward enough, and actionable enough to help those who have the time and resources to do it themselves. For most of the rest of the world, who is busy building their businesses, sure - they should hire an SEO.
I mean, many can do their taxes on their own, but many still choose to hire a professional. This rational works across all professions, with the exception of maybe brain surgeons and really highly specialized topics.
Sure - anyone can learn to become really good at SEO but do they have the time, resources and desire to do so...
The SEO community, as you'd imagine, was buzzing on this topic late last week:
i get that they're playing to the audience a bit and that not everyone needs or can afford an in-depth audit. But for them to imply that publishers should actively avoid paying SEOs to evaluate a site unless it's a migration is laaaaaame.
— Blair MacGregor (@blairmacgregor) October 31, 2024
They're either playing really dumb rn or I welcome our new insect overlords*
— Semantic Entity (@SemanticEntity) October 31, 2024
*eg Perplexity, SearchGPT, yelling out the window aka Reddit
Yeah, because waiting around for Google to fix things has been so fruitful for these site owners. Definitely don't hire SEOs with 15+ years of following every letter in Google's guidelines and serving as Google's unpaid workforce for their entire careers.
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) October 31, 2024
Yeah ... because Google have clearly outlined what triggers the HCU (and Medic, Penguin, Panda etc.),
— Darth Autocrat (Lyndon NA) (@darth_na) October 31, 2024
and "normal" people can fully comprehend and implement ...
I've said it before,
and I'll say it again,@Google hasn't got a clue what the real world looks like.
Also @searchliaison I’ll add some of us spent the last year working for FREE on sites hit by Google’s algorithms while you comment you “should” be doing better.
— Shaun Anderson (@Hobo_Web) November 1, 2024
I do SEO audits and I never charged one penny for HCU analysis.
Why is SEO even mentioned in this context?
Barry hello my friend, I do know this - context is everything both @lilyraynyc and I got to know each other cause we were telling folk last year there was a clusterfxxx inbound.
— Shaun Anderson (@Hobo_Web) November 1, 2024
It’s disappointing to see SEO even mentioned it’s not our fault this time around.
Exactly. Just fed up SEO is the fall guy.
— Shaun Anderson (@Hobo_Web) November 1, 2024
There are many SEOs focused on good ux working with Google and seeing that comment is disappointing as some of us are just trying to do a good job within the guidelines while our blackhat mates laugh at us. 🤠
+1 It was frustrating when Google tried to say "but it's SEO that's why you got hit!!!!" early post HCU.
— Valerie Stimac 🚀 (@vstimac) November 1, 2024
No, Google. It's because you don't know how to calibrate an algorithm update to differentiate spam and real sites. Has nothing to do with SEO.
It is funny because EVERYTHING we, SEOs, have been asking Google to do for more than a year now is to PROVIDE CLEAR (HCU) GUIDELINES to those publishers who are completely lost at this point. Many of them were doing everything right, providing first-hand experience and they… https://t.co/b8xvylk8dK
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) October 31, 2024
Their one “don’t” (as in dos and don’t) was don’t pay for SEO advice, just DO make “good content” and don’t worry about the rest
— Morgan (@CharlestonCraft) November 1, 2024
Catching up on the discussions now that I'm home.
— Mic King (@iPullRank) November 1, 2024
I agree with @dannysullivan that niche sites that got false positived by the HCU don't need audits.
A few of them have come to @iPullRankAgency and we've turned them down because there is nothing wrong with their sites.
Agree. This is a non story. Takeaway should be that Google is still actively engaging with community and trying to figure it out. If their algo is better then SEO audits for these sites won't be necessary
— Brant Tedeschi (@BrantTedeschi) November 1, 2024
I think the statement was more of an attempt to say that the ideal scenario would be for Google to provide information to publishers about what to fix when a penalty or manual action happens without having to get SEO audits to do it.
— San Moreira (@Warriorne) November 1, 2024
And to be clear, not all of these creators paid for SEO consultants:
I’ve spent $0 on SEO consultants 🙈
— Kylie - Between England & Everywhere (@betweenengland) November 1, 2024
Not sure if I was the 1, but I never have paid for SEO either. I'm pretty sure there are others that haven't, too.
— Kim Snaith (@ichangedmyname) November 1, 2024
There is just a lot of chatter on this topic... I only included a few...
Forum discussion at X.
