If you’ve been active on LinkedIn or Reddit you know that SEO continues to keep digital marketers and content creators on the edge of their seats. A recent experiment we found involving parasite SEO on LinkedIn sheds some light on the potential shift Google will be making in terms of managing UCG sites like LinkedIn, Medium, Substack, and others. While we’ve hated the changes, it’s also important to consider and understand what the future holds for your entire SEO strategy.
First, let’s talk about what Parasite SEO is. It’s an SEO strategy that involves leveraging high-authority domains to rank higher in SERPs by publishing pages with targeted money keywords. This technique can provide significant advantages due to the host site’s established trust and domain authority within the search engines.
The case study in question presented some interesting results through testing on posting from three different pages on LinkedIn:
The presenter of the case study claims that Google’s next update in May could be detrimental to UGC sites. Google has not penalized the publication of content directly on these UGC sites, but the focus has been shifting to more authentic and relevant content. Once again, content written by people, for people.
With the new update, or even before hand, Google plans to clamp down on what it views as any kind of “site reputation abuse,” and the “rent and ranking,” model, where sites will exploit their high domain authority rank with unrelated low-quality content. Here’s what to watch out for:
With the push to go against any of the misuse of site reputation for SEO gain, the upcoming Google update, and the rest of them, could see a more stringent evaluation of content quality and relevance, especially for high-authority domains. What’s this mean? Pretty much just a level playing field for SEO, prioritizing content that genuinely adds value, isn’t “look at me,” and closely aligns with the site’s primary focus…
Google has already p*ssed off so many users with their most recent update. Now, as we approach their next update, it’s important for anyone still focusing heavily on SEO to adapt their strategies to focus more on content quality and relevance. Parasite SEO has been shortcut to high SERP rankings, it’s long-term benefits and sustainability seems to be something that will fizzle out sooner than later, leading to more authentic and user-focused SEO pieces.
Staying ahead means moving forward with the changes brought to us. The insights from the case study discussed not only show current trends – even if they’re a little messed up – but it also hints at the need for a strategic change in SEO practices for startups and even larger companies.