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