In episode #14 of the vlog series at the Search Engine Roundtable I interviewed Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes). Before Marie got into helping site feel better in Google search, she worked with animals as a veterinarian helping animals feel better. In fact, that is how she got into SEO, when trying to figure out how to rank her veterinarian web site in Google. This was around 2008 or so but when Penguin began rolling out, she started to get requests to help others fix Google penalties. The SEO consulting business kind of fell into her lap, she said.
Marie spent a lot of time doing link audits and still does that today but how she does it has changed over the years. In addition, as Penguin became more real time and Google’s messaged changed to Google devaluing links, then EAT started to become a thing. In March 2017 when Google Fred launched (unofficially) and Gary Illyes dropped some hints about that rollout, around then she saw how the quality raters guidelines and ranking drops were kind of related. Marie said she thinks around February 2017 is when EAT became important within Google’s rankings.
Marie then spoke about what EAT is about, breaking it down for us quickly in a few minutes time. We then dived a bit into the Medic Update, where she said it was more broadly focused on the YMYL (your money and your life) category. She felt the September 27th update was more focused on the medical space.
Marie Haynes has really branded herself as the Google penalty maven, which is well deserved. She shares more specifics about Google algorithms than almost everyone in the SEO industry. She has an awesome newsletter and she is constantly sharing everything she knows about SEO.
Here is the interview:
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