Blog
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Hidden text breaks Google’s spam policies. Tabs and accordions don’t
Google’s hidden text policy is about intent: content placed solely to manipulate search engines. Accordions, tabs and screen-reader text are named as fine. The hidden content I actually find is accidental, like headings bound to a logo or empty headings from a page builder. That is not spam. It is still a wasted slot, and…
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Penguin went into core ranking in 2016. The lift from bought links does not come back
Penguin stopped being an update in 2016 and now discounts spam links instead of demoting whole sites. Google’s own documentation says the ranking benefit of neutralised links cannot be regained. So a links-driven slide is usually the end of a lift that was never secure. The work is earning its replacement, not recovering it.
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Panda became part of core ranking in 2015. Most of the Panda problems I find now are templates
Panda has not been a separate update since 2015, and the helpful content system joined it inside core ranking in March 2024. There is no refresh to wait for and no page score to fix. On the catalogues I audit, half the index being thin is normal, and the fix is a template decision, not…
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When it really was Google, the next question is which part of Google
Most drops I’m called in for are not Google. When the tells say it was, the name people use is usually years out of date: Panda and Penguin stopped being separate updates in 2015 and 2016. What matters is which system hit you, because a core update, a spam system and a manual action each…
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How to Use AI in Marketing in 2026, Starting With SEO
Most of what gets sold as AI marketing is either a drafting shortcut or a platform automating your ad spend. Both are useful and neither replaces judgment. For SEO, AI search is still search, and Google now says so in writing. What holds up is work a model can’t summarize away, and conversion data you…
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The service page that lists towns your profile does not
The verdict A clinic service page named two towns that appeared nowhere in the site-wide service area or on the Business Profile. One site telling two stories about where it works. Nobody wrote it deliberately; a page got written in a good week and the rest of the site never caught up. It is one…
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Benchmarking your service count
The verdict Count the services on eight to ten competitors in the map pack, then count your own. The useful finding is almost never that you need more. It is the gap between what a practice actually does and what it has bothered to say, and the benchmark is what makes that gap visible to…
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Services on your profile with no page behind them
The verdict List the services on the Business Profile, then find the page on the site for each one. The ones with nothing behind them are your content brief, already prioritised, already in the practice’s own words, and already known to be things they actually do. It is the fastest brief in local SEO and…
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Predefined first, then custom
The verdict Work through Google’s suggested service options before you write a single custom one. A predefined entry maps to something Google already has a definition for. A custom entry is free text that you have asked a machine to interpret. Both belong on a profile, in that order, and most practices do it the…
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The services list on your profile should come from your sitemap
The verdict Most clinics type six services into their Business Profile from memory. The list should be generated from the site: every service page and every condition page, predefined entries first and custom ones after, then counted against the competitors in the map pack. It is a mechanical job that takes an hour and almost…
