Stephen Mahaney's Articles

Stephen Mahaney

CEO & Founder of Planet Ocean
Virtual Space

Stephen Mahaney founded Planet Ocean in 1990, published 'The UnFair Advantage Book on Winning The Search Engine Wars' in 1996 (the Web's *original* $97 eBook) and established SearchEngineNews.com—the longest running membership-based publication site on the Internet—in 1997.

These days he's traveling and living in virtual space.

Articles by Stephen Mahaney

1. AI-Written Text Is Getting an Invisible Fingerprint
2. The Big Publishers That Feed Google Are Now Thinking About Starving It
3. Google Sued a SERP Scraper Under Copyright Law and Lost
4. Side-by-Side Previews for Text Customization & URL Expansion — See Before You Enable
5. EU Slaps €890M Fine on Google for Rigging Results
6. Fake DMCA Takedowns "Out of Control" — Here's How to Protect Your Pages
7. A Practical Guide to Preferred Sources, Highly Cited Labels, and the New Perspectives Carousel
8. What Google's Own Users Are Telling Us About the Future of Search
9. Google's Liz Reid on Search, AI, and the Future of the Web: A Candid Review (With Receipts)
10. Google Charged $400 for a Current Client Call
11. Why You Should Care About Claude's Expanding Coding Capabilities
12. AI Chatbots & Advertising
13. Google Says Opting Out of AI Overviews Is a "Huge Engineering Project"
14. Why AI Detection Will Never Scale Universally
15. The Inevitable Pivot: Why SEO Is Becoming GEO
16. Remembering
17. Schema + LLMs: What It Means for AI Visibility
18. The Slow, Inevitable Death of Google’s Profit Model
19. AI Mode—Already Creepy, Potentially Evil?
20. ChatGPT's Politeness Problem: Sycophantic, Expensive, & Maybe All Your Fault
21. Train Your Staff to Use AI & Watch Your Sales Skyrocket
22. Google Shopping's AI Vision Match
23. Why Classic SEO is More Vital Than Ever for AI Search Optimization
24. Google's Reverses Policy Against Fingerprinting
25. DeepSeek—Interview With A Chatbot
26. 28 Years of SEN
27. The 12 Days of OpenAI: A Holiday Tech Wonderland
28. Leveraging ChatGPT for SEO
29. The Verge Is Laughing at Google's Guidelines
30. The Man Who Killed Google Search
31. The Answer Engine That Just Might Give Google A Run For Its Money!
32. Beware The Japanese Keyword Hack
33. 27 Years of SEN
34. How to Build Your Own GPT Without Any Coding
35. Bing Chat Introduces Multimodal Visual Search & Enterprise Pricing for Copilot
36. Report: Generative AI is Quickly Evolving Superpowers
37. Google Releases New AI Tools to Help Small Businesses
38. ChatGPT Development Being Challenged by Advocacy Group
39. A.I. Vaults Image Creation to a Whole New Level
40. The Algo Masters Who Pick the Winners
41. A.I. Bots Can Improve Your Work But They Cannot Critically Think
42. A Virtual Army of A.I. Tools Are Marching Us Into the Future
43. Interview with ChatGPT
44. 26 Years of SEN & Counting
45. Google Is Good! ...Very Good — but not as good as they pretend to be
46. And the Award for 'Lame Advice of the Year' goes to...
47. Lead Generation Sites Report Problems with Performance Max, and then...
48. 5 Great Keyword Discovery Tools You Can Use for FREE
49. Be Careful That AdBlockers Aren't Blocking Your Images
50. Google's Launches Helpful Content Update
51. Never Give Up!
52. John Mueller Tells Us What He Really Thinks
53. Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines
54. Google's Data Grab Masquerading as Minority Empowerment
55. Google is Picking Winners & Congress has Noticed
56. Startpage – Google Results Without Google's Crap!
57. Finally! A Secure, Encrypted Email Provider That Doesn't Exploit It's Users
58. If You Aren't Using a VPN, Maybe You Should Be
59. Local Search Update in March Corrects "Vicinity" Update
60. Never Mind Market Research, Just Pay Attention & Follow The Leader
61. It's Time to Focus Your Efforts on Collecting First Party Data
62. When Alt-Text is a Story in The NYTimes, THAT's Your Wake-Up Call
63. Be Careful Your "Stop Lines" Aren't Crippling Your Conversions
64. 25 Years of SEN & Counting
65. Beware the Graphic Artist!
66. Rare Penalty Limbo Can Last Several Years
67. November Core Update 2021
68. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for November 2021
69. Google says 'NeverMind' to Mobile-Indexing Deadline
70. Google Officially Says Mixed Reviews Are More Trustworthy
71. Google Logo Structured Data Changes
72. Why do my pages keep falling in and out of Google's index?
73. Can Googlebot crawl speed be controlled to avoid server overload?
74. GMB becomes GBP
75. High Profile Sites Slamming the Brakes on AMP Pages
76. WordPress Sites At Risk Due to Plugin Vulnerability
77. Do bold tags help SEO?
78. Bonus Bytes from John Mueller
79. Official Googlebot IP Addresses Now Available In JSON File
80. Page Experience Algorithm Coming To Desktop
81. How Key Moments Work In Videos In Search
82. Place Videos on Dedicated Pages For Maximum Exposure
83. MS Advertising Introduces Microsoft Clarity Insights
84. UPI Limited Enforcement in Google Merchant Center
85. Help Documentation Changes for October
86. Google Aligns Search Console Testing Tools with URL Inspection Tool
87. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for October 2021
88. Never "Meta" Worse Company in My Life!
89. The Google "Unannounced Updates" Buzz for October
90. Search Analytics API Now Supports Discover, Google News, and Regex
91. Manual Deep Linking No Longer Required for Google Ads App Campaigns
92. Microsoft Advertising Partners with Shopify
93. BigCommerce Merchants Can Now Sync Product Catalogs to Google
94. Job Posting Structured Data Errors Report Changes in GSC
95. Search Quality Raters Guidelines Updated
96. The One True Google Competitor Over Next 10 Years?
97. Get Faster Indexing with IndexNow
98. Google Search Adds Continuous Scrolling on Mobile
99. On ecommerce pages, should the product name be put into headline tags?
100. How can I prevent Google from showing specific content in my search result description snippet?
101. Search On '21 Reveals New Features, More Details About MUM
102. New Budget Report in Google Ads
103. Mysterious Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update?
104. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for September 2021
105. Google Adds Some Data, Drops Some Data In Search Terms Report
106. Unique Product Identifiers Now Required on Free Merchant Listings
107. New Ecommerce SEO Guide Documentation
108. Google Reveals How YouTube Recommends Videos
109. Lighthouse 8.4 Upgrades LCD, FID, PageSpeed Insights
110. Page Experience Tutorial - Improving First Input Delay
111. Google Expands 'About This Advertiser' Initiative
112. Is shared hosting ok?
113. How long should it take for a site to get re-crawled and re-ranked after cleaning out low quality pages?
114. What's the best way to redirect a short domain name to a longer one without having duplicate content issues?
115. Titlepocalypse Update
116. The SEO Impact of WordPress Themes
117. Google Shows How to Optimize for Discover's Follow Feature
118. Which page title is Google using for ranking, my original or their autogenerated one?
119. GSC Permanently Loses Performance Report Data for August 23rd and 24th
120. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for August 2021
121. Google Publishes Video on Getting a "Great" Page Experience
122. Reporting Channel for Indexing Bugs in the US Now Available in GSC
123. Titlepocalypse! Google Updates How They Generate Web Page Titles
124. Google Removes Safe Browsing and Ad Experience Widgets from Page Experience Report
125. Behind the Curtains of Google Search Console Insights
126. Large Images in Discover Improve CTR and Increase Traffic
127. 15 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Google Trends
128. Why are most of my site's pages missing in a Google site query?
129. Will changing an IP address or DNS cause us to lose our first page rankings?
130. What's the best type of website for SEO optimization purposes?
131. Why your GMB listing might be filtered out of Google Maps
132. CWVs More Than "just" A Tiebreaker
133. Google Publishes Copyright Guidelines Video
134. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for July 2021
135. Multiple Instances of Fact Check Markup Not Allowed
136. How to Succeed With Google Posts: Case Study
137. Facebook Expanding Access to AR Try On
138. Facebook Pay Extends Availability to Streamline Checkout on Your Site
139. Microsoft Advertising Now Offering Video Extensions
140. Multimedia Ads Now Available on Microsoft Advertising
141. Microsoft Ads Expands Verticals For Dynamic Remarketing
142. Link Spam Update Rolling Out Until Aug 10th
143. Showcase Product Promotions Across More Surfaces during Seasonal Shopping Moments
144. GSC Links AMP Debugging to AMP Page Experience Guide
145. AdSense Releases Faster New Embed Code
146. Google Graphs & Explains Search Traffic Drops
147. Ad Policy Violators: Three Strikes, Yer Out!
148. Google Announces New Privacy Sandbox Timeline
149. Google's Search Rankings Explained
150. How long should a 301 redirect be kept in place?
151. July 2021 Core Update
152. How can product schema be added to a page when the price of the product is variable?
153. Are Local Services Ads a good deal for service type businesses?
154. Are reciprocal links OK if they are relevant and useful?
155. Here's How Long It Takes to Get New Content Indexed
156. Core, Page Experience, & Spam Updates All Rolled-out in June
157. New Guidance - Redirects, HTTP Status Codes, Network Issues, & DNS Errors
158. WordPress 5.8 adds WebP Support
159. Facebook's Publishes Ad Review Process Guidelines
160. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for June 2021
161. AdSense Site Approvals Video Tutorial Series
162. New Tutorial Workflow Shows SMB's How to Advertise on YouTube
163. Google Expands GMB Profile Editing & Adds Pointy for FREE
164. Create A Web Story in 5 Steps in 5 Minutes
165. You Can Now Edit Robots.txt in Shopify
166. RSS-Powered Follow Button Being Tested in Chrome Canary
167. Sunsetting the Generic Rich Results Search Appearance on GSC
168. Google Updates GSC Help Docs For Robots.txt & Structured Data
169. Google Limits FAQ Rich Results to Two Max Per Snippet
170. PageSpeed Insights Showing More Field Data
171. Lighthouse 8.0 to be Released With Chrome 93 in August
172. Google Adds Negative Match Option to RegEx Filter
173. Google Launches Search Console Insights
174. Google Pauses FLoC & Extends Third Party Cookie Support Until Late 2023
175. Yelp Releases New Yelp for Business Features
176. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for May 2021
177. May 7th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
178. May14th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
179. May21st Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
180. May 28th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
181. Project Starline Brings The WOW Factor to Video Conferencing
182. MUM's The Word On Search
183. Breakthrough in Conversation Technology - LaMDA
184. Google Reveals Four Pillars of User Experience
185. Google Wants Everyone to Just Get FLoC'ed!
186. Google I/O Showcases Data-Hungry Apps & Long Overdue Privacy Controls for Android 12
187. 17 Pro-Tips You Need to Know About Core Web Vitals Going LIVE
188. Facebook Rolling Out New Ad Measurement Protocols
189. Indexing Issues Can Now Be Reported to Google
190. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for April 2021
191. Google Discover Nixes Satire
192. The Only Reasons Google Will Remove a Page
193. Algorithm Update - Google Product Reviews
194. Google Updates Cumulative Layout Shift Scoring
195. Page Experience Algorithm Launching Mid-June
196. Google Is Going All-IN on Web Stories
197. April 23rd Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
198. April 16th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
199. April 9th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
200. April 1st Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
201. March 26th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
202. March 19th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
203. March 12th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
204. March 5th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
205. WordPress Elementor Vulnerability
206. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for March 2021
207. Static Headlines Now Available for Dynamic Search Ads
208. Bing URL Submission Plugin for WordPress
209. Bing Upgrades Search to Include Visually Rich Imagery
210. Sketchy One Star "Fake" Review Ratings Win in Court
211. New GMB Review Management Tool
212. Check your Business Profile Performance in GMB
213. Best Practices For Videos
214. Mueller on Image Optimization
215. How To Get Your Products Into Search
216. HTTP/2 Magically Improves Core Web Vital Scores
217. Core Web Vitals: How Prepared Are Leading Industries Today?
218. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for February 2021
219. Facebook Breaks the News in Australia to Prove a Point
220. Facebook Knew for Years Ad Reach Estimates Were Based on 'Wrong Data' But Blocked Fixes Over Revenue Impact
221. Facebook Puff Piece Stirs Controversy For NYTimes Writer
222. GMB Auto Populating Services
223. GMB Messaging Rolling Out For Desktop
224. Years in Business Feature Added to GMB
225. GSC Changes To Web Story Performance Report
226. Search Console Discover Report Adds Chrome Data
227. Updated Metric Boundaries for Core Web Vitals
228. Use 503 To Avoid Losing Rankings While in Social Statement Mode
229. Official Google Video On Duplicate Content
230. New Manual Action Penalties for Google News and Discover Policy Violations
231. Google Expands Phrase Match To Include Broad Match Modifier Traffic
232. Google Launches Passage Ranking
233. Google Announces Price Enforcements for Merchants
234. February 26th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
235. February 19th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
236. February 12th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
237. February 5th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
238. WebSite Cleanup Tips for a faster, better-indexed site
239. How to relocate a GMB attorney listing
240. Tips for getting listed in People Also Ask
241. Does using the disavow tool indicate to Google that a site might be shady?
242. What, exactly, is Core Web Vitals?
243. DuckDuckGo Hits 100 Million Searches Per Day -- Updates Privacy Protections
244. GMB Updates Flag Review Options
245. Google to Invite Advertisers to Test Alternative to 3rd Party Cookies
246. URL Removal Tool in GSC Doesn't Actually Remove Pages
247. Price Drop Added to Google Rich Results
248. Google to Stop Collecting Ad ID's To Avoid Pop Up Warning in iOS Apps
249. Google Notifies Site Owners About New HTTP/2 Protocol Crawling
250. Google Wants Web Stories, not Web Teasers
251. Google Threatens to Leave Australia
252. WordPress Launches New Website Building Service
253. High-severity Vulnerability in WordPress Plugin Contact Form
254. Facebook Moving UK Users to US Privacy Terms & Conditions
255. Facebook Attacks Apple's Plan to Give Users a Privacy Choice
256. Twitter Relaunching Verified Accounts
257. Update on the Structured Data Testing Tool
258. Noindexed Pages Can Impact Core Web Vitals
259. Google Placing UK Users Under U.S. Jurisdiction
260. Why Ad Heavy Pages Might Still Rank Well in the SERP
261. Copied Content is Sometimes More Relevant
262. Request Indexing Tool Reenabled in GSC
263. Google Rolls Out Dec 2020 Core Algorithm Update
264. Top Google Searches for 2020
265. An Important Message from The Founder of Planet Ocean / SEN
266. Would owning a new top level domain (TLD) with keywords provide a ranking advantage?
267. Are keyword heavy titles a problem?
268. Free Online Video Converter Tools
269. Editorial: Subscribe With Google / The Google News Initiative
270. Google for Jobs is LIVE & Based on Schema Markup
271. Google Launches 'Ad Experience Report Tool' in their Fight Against "Bad" Ads
272. Google Launches Free 'Website' for GMB Participants
273. AdWords Expands Language Options for Structured Snippets Globally
274. Need to Know Details of 'Ads Added by AdWords'
275. SEO for Voice Search: Digital Assistants
276. SEN Celebrates 20 Years!
277. OMG! Here Comes A Whole New Can Of Black-Hat Whoopass!
278. Why is America so polarized? ...it's the Echo Chamber!
279. A Virtual Paradi$e of Low Hanging Fruit
280. Search Engine Book - Chapter Eleven
281. Search Engine Book - Chapter Ten
282. Search Engine Book - Chapter Nine
283. Search Engine Book - Chapter Eight
284. Search Engine Book - Chapter Seven
285. Search Engine Book - Chapter Six
286. Search Engine Book - Chapter Five
287. Search Engine Book - Chapter Four
288. Search Engine Book - Chapter Three
289. Search Engine Book - Chapter Two
290. Search Engine Book - Chapter One
291. How to track customers without hurting your Local Listings in Google
292. Once They Find Your Page How Do You Get Them to Take Action?! Common Mistakes Marketers Make.
293. Once They Find Your Page How Do You Get Them to Take Action?
294. The Missing Link To Writing Effective Ad Copy
295. The Missing Link To Writing Effective Ad Copy
296. How to Easily Analyze your Competition in Seconds Using the Site Strength Indicator Tool
297. The 'Local Search' Gold Rush Begins
298. The Top 12 Link-Offenders You Should Avoid Like A Ticking Bomb!
299. Google's Local Business Center
300. Advanced SEO Tutorials
301. Essential Title Tag Strategies for Top Ranking Pages in 2009
302. Entrepreneurial Thoughts on the so-called Financial Meltdown
303. 7 Ways to Boost Your Sales and Build More Links By Increasing Your Site's Speed!
304. 9 Critical Steps to Evaluating Incoming Link Quality
305. Proof Positive that Run-of-Site 'Paid' Links are BAD for your Website!
306. How to Use Flash in Top Ranking Pages
307. Your 4 Week Step-by-Step Link Building Task Planner
308. Wikia Search Launch
309. The Ultimate Link Building Quick-Start Guide, Part II
310. How to Legally and Instantly Download All of Your Competitor's Top-Secret PPC Keywords!!!
311. How to Leverage Your Company's Most Powerful Asset
312. How to Automatically Build an AdWords Campaign
313. How to Craft a Money Making Home Page
314. There are Some Lists You Just Don't Want to be On
315. "The Most Effective, Yet Overlooked, Marketing Strategy on the Internet"
316. Are you ignoring 350,000 potential customers?
317. Check your Popularity!
318. Guide to Infoseek's ESP Search Engine
319. How to get your pages to "Stick" in Excite
320. The Best Kept Secret on the Internet?
321. Making Money the Easy Way
322. The Best Way to Sell Products or Services On The Internet
323. Mining "Gold" from your "Back-End" Market
324. Creating Web Sites that Load Fast & Sell
325. Once they find your page how do you get them to take action?