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