Everyone wants to talk about advanced SEO as if it's a set of unique tactics. It's not. Advanced SEO is about recognizing Google's role in the search world, reducing abstraction, and making real fixes. In this presentation, Ian Lurie walks you through what "advanced" really looks like.

1. Advanced SEO
No more bull$h1t
Ian lurie
@portentint
Portent.com

2. This is me
Ceo & founder, Portent
@portentint
ian@portent.com

5. @portentint
“Interesting”

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I’m tired

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Advanced SEO is
Bullshit-free

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Be advancedUnderstand Google’s role
Understand: it is not a penalty
Find a source of truth
Read the fine print
Reduce abstraction
Find a way
Look at the SERPs
Get past keyword density
Do the little things

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A story in 8 parts.

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The client

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#1
Google is not an SEO company

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seos
Google’s concerns

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Google cares this much
Our worries

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Google does not care about our rankings

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Google cares about their rankings

16. Not SEO central

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Google does not
give SEO advice

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#2
IT’s not a penalty

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Part 1: The $h1tstorm

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tweahemcough years
??? Audits
5 penalties

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Yelling penalty
Is a cop-out

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SEO is not about penalties.
It is a list of little things
that are simple but not easy.

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Or big things, now and then

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Just wow

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Just wow

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huh

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Yeahhh…

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Long time coming

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Look for Trends
Site updates
Ad campaigns
Content added
Content removed

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Do not generalize

32. “small” update

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You have 1,000 pages.
Google’s index now shows 150,000
- SEO

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It. Is. Not. A. Penalty.

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It’s OK. Google’s not crawling
those pages anymore. They
said so. - Client

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#3
Find a source of truth

37. Bullshit

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A source of truth cuts through the bullshit

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Log files

40. Screaming Frog

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42. grep -h 'Googlebot*' *.log >> output.txt
Nerd level 11

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The process: portent.co/seo-logs

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Log files provide a fast look at crawler behavior. No
waiting for rankings, or search console updates.

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log files + crawl data

46. Merge ‘em

48. One big happy family

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Lookie thar…

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Lookie thar…

51. Google crawled request forms:
95% of daily total crawl

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Find a source of truth.
Use it.

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Use rel canonical.
- Client

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#4
Before you act,
read the fine print

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Robots.txt + noindex?

56. No improvement

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URL parameters?

58. Zip.

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OK, so rel=canonical, right?

60. Nada.

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Well, poo

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Javascript rendering

63. portent.co/dynrend

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2-step crawl/index

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The mobile “friendly” test

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Buh?

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redirects are finnneeee

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Redirection

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Read Google’s fine print

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OK, but still, use rel canonical.
- Client

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#5
Always reduce abstraction
(aka just fix it)

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Hey. You. Close
your email. This
one’s really
important.

75. Rel canonoical added.
Nothing improved.
Remember this?

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Rel canonical introduces abstraction

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rel=canonical
OK, this works

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This does not
rel=canonical

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What we just told google

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Let’s just fix it, shall we?

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URL Fragments

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URL Fragments

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Improvement!

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workarounds are bullshit. Stop it.

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just
fix
it

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If you deliver content using
javascript, use dynamic rendering…?
https://portent.co/dynrend-google

87. portent.co/dynrend
WTF?!!!

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Dynamic rendering is just for search engines.
A workaround. Abstraction. Ew.

89. portent.co/dynrend
Hybrid rendering is better

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Or, be completely insane:
Use javascript when it actually
enhances the user experience.
And use server-side rendering.

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abstraction:
rel canonical
url exclusions
rel next/prev
dynamic rendering
user agent detection

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Workarounds come and go

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Rel Next/Prev

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Reduce abstraction.
Stop workarounds.
Fix stuff.

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Back to our client…

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Great! What else can you do for me?
- Client

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#6
Find a way

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Still not back

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Internal PageRank

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ScreamingFrog

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Privacy is top 3?!!!

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Revamp navigation to increase
structural authority!

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Try to get my branding team
to revamp our nav? rather
have an iodine enema, thanks.

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Nobody cares

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Company
Leadership AwardsBlah blah

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Fewer links/page
Better PageRank flow

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Yaaassss...!

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Bonus: Use google to know your technology

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We can’t fix it.
It’s too hard. The cart doesn’t allow it.
- Dev

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What they really mean
Flickr / Joakim Jardenberg

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More

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Voila (OK, I cheated)

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Find a way to fix things.
Do not be a brat.

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Great, but I hear we can do better.
- Client

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#7
Look at the SERPs

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121. Transactional
Local transactional
Informational

122. Transactional
Informational

123. Informational
Informational
Transactional?

124. Transactional?
Keep scrolling

125. Informational

126. Transactional site.
informational content.
Target this.

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Ahem

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Hybrid serps? Try hybrid content.

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Informational
Transactional
Informational

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Watch the serps.
Act accordingly.

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Nice, but my cousin’s son’s daughter’s dog
walker’s bike mechanic’s doctor’s dentist’s
fifth cousin read something about TF-IDF…
- Client

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#8
Get past keyword density

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Oh, up the keyword density?
I never would have thought of that.

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Tf-idf everything! Tf-idf! Tf-idf! Idf-tf! Tee efff
ayyeee deee efff!!!!!!!

136. Added content
(seemed fine)

137. Content removed
(floggings commenced)

138. Up = bad

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Start studying.

140. Just read this 10-20 times
and you’ll be all set.

141. AJ Kohn
@ajkohn
portent.co/embeddings

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Justin Briggs
@briggsby
portent.co/briggsby

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De-duplication & near duplicates
portent.co/jroakes-shingle
By @jroakes, Adapt Partners

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Entity Salience
Showing off a little

146. No change in keyword density.

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think about keyword position,
structure, and meaning in context

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Get past keyword density

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Can we skip this week’s review? I have
pickles in the oven. Gotta go.
- Client

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Bonus
Become an advanced consultant

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Bring more value & break routine

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The Consultant’s Rut And How To Escape It
by Wil Reynolds
https://portent.co/therut

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Random check-ins

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Monitoring

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Monitoring: God-level

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Monitoring: God-level

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Monitoring: God-level

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Do the little things to gain momentum.

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Free prize! Our audit checklist:
portent.co/seo-audit-checklist
Use at your own risk we assume no responsibility for whatever hell you
unleash upon your own website this is entirely your problem you assume
all risks and will never ever blame us if we left out something important.

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OK, I’ll admit. You guys know
something about the SEO.
- Client

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Be advancedDo the little things
Get past keyword density
Look at the SERPs
Find a way to get the outcome
Reduce abstraction
Read the fine print
Find a source of truth
Understand: it is not a penalty
Understand Google’s role

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Practice
no-bullshit SEO

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No cows were harmed
This deck:
portent.co/advanced-seo
Ian lurie
ian@portent.com
@portentint