Technical SEO: How Anomalies Are Your New Best Friend."

@schachin
Kristine Schachinger #BrightonSEO
SEO: Meet Anomaly.
Your New Best Friend!
Kristine Schachinger
Sites Without Walls
Speakerdeck.com/kschachinger
@schachin

@schachin
Kristine@SitesWithoutWalls.com
“…they are prone to hallucinating, and crucially they are incapable of justifying their utterances…”
Anomalies.
Your new best friend.
(all images are Midjourney)

@schachin
https://searchengineland.com/llm-seo-disaster-429165
FOUNDER SITES WITHOUT WALLS
• CONSULTANT
• STARTED as a Front-End Dev
• ADDED ACCESSIBILITY 2002
• SEO in 2004
• SPECIALIZES IN SITE HEALTH/TECHNICAL AUDITS
• Twitter @SCHACHIN
• Email Kristine@SitesWithoutWalls.com
• Lives in Vegas !
(Cobbler has no shoes there is no website  )
Who Am I?
KRISTINE SCHACHINGER

@schachin
Some of the general parameters that are used to train language models include:
What is an anomaly?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anomaly

@schachin
The Basics.

@schachin
Some of the general parameters that are used to train language models include:
What is an anomaly?

@schachin
Outliers: Short/small anomalous patterns that appear in a non-
systematic way in data collection.
 Example: unusual traffic data like unusual keywords/queries
Change in Events: Systematic or sudden change from the previous normal
behavior.
 Example: unexpected traffic or loss of traffic.
Drifts: Slow, undirectional, long-term change in the data.
 Example: traffic slides over time
https://towardsdatascience.com/5-anomaly-detection-algorithms-every-data-scientist-should-know-b36c3605ea16
What is an anomaly?

@schachin
Happy Accidents.
You usually see
anomalies by chance
while working on
your general site
audits or analysis.
create a 3D cartoon in the Disney animation style holding a warning sign and looking frantic

@schachin
Anomalies
Most people ignore
them, but they can
be your secret
weapon.
create a 3D cartoon in the Disney animation style holding a warning sign and looking frantic

@schachin
You’re The Detective.

@schachin
You’re the Detective.

@schachin
Getting
Started…
+ Client history
+ Crawlers
+ GSC/GA
+ Visual Review

@schachin
Start With The Client.

@schachin
Client history is like a
medical history.
You are like a doctor, you
don’t care how much they
drank last night you just
need them to be honest.
Get a Site History

@schachin
Know the client
is almost always wrong
about that history…
or what is is wrong…
The client history is for
guidance, not accuracy.
Remember
you are the detective.

@schachin
And they don’t always tell you the
FULL STORY...

@schachin
Good audit work
relies on good
forensic work.
This includes
tracking down
things that do not
fit or “make sense”.

@schachin
But Be Careful.
What looks like an
anomaly can
often be easily
explained.

@schachin
Just Because It Walks Like a Duck.

@schachin
Just because it walks like
a duck & talks like a
duck…..

@schachin
This looks like an algorithm devaluation.

@schachin
Still looks like an algorithm devaluation. …

@schachin
When we check year over year.

@schachin
It is not. That client has a
seasonal business.
Do not assume!
EVER.
It may walk like a duck
& talk like a duck…
and not be a duck.

@schachin
Crawl Baby -- Crawl.

@schachin
EVERY site analysis -
starts with a crawl…
Use more than one.

@schachin
I use…
• Sitebulb
• Screaming Frog
Inexpensive & Detailed.
Crawlers are different than monitors
such as Semrush and AHREF (”audits”).

@schachin
Site Crawls, Google Search Console
Data, Google Analytics, and Eyes on
Page are you best sources for finding
anomalies.
(Eyes on page include using
Web Developer Tools.)

@schachin
After you review your
data for normal issues.
Go back and look for
data that does not fit.
The one offs.
Most people ignore
these – don’t.

@schachin
Real World Examples.

@schachin
Breadcrumbs &
Rabbit Holes.

@schachin
Anomalies: Hidden Crawl Issues.

@schachin
How to Detect Issues.
Check Site Visualizations in
Sitebulb & Screaming Frog

@schachin
Check Your Crawl Visualizations.

@schachin
How RED
is your graph?

@schachin
Anomalies: Blankity-Blanks.

@schachin
Check the
Response vs Render
Content & Links.

@schachin
Always Check Your Response vs Render Reports.

@schachin
Common Reasons
for this Issue.
- JavaScript Rendering.
- Took too long to load
- Page resources blocked
in Robots.txt

@schachin
Discovered: JavaScript Rendering.
JavaScript.
Screaming Frog

@schachin
Take screenshots
of the rendered page.
Are they fully or
partially blank?

@schachin
Take Screenshots. Always.

@schachin
BUT NONE of that was
the reason here.
Common Reasons
for this Issue.
- JavaScript Rendering.
- Took too long to load
- Page resources blocked
in Robots.txt

@schachin
Browser Console Messages: Developer Tools.

@schachin
Anomalies: 2 Billion Served.

@schachin
Check Google Search
Console Reports.

@schachin
This report was removed from GSC
Never Ignore Anomalies in GSC Data.
2,142,870,533 pages

@schachin
Faceted nav leak
causes Google’s crawler to
create pages as it crawls.

@schachin
Discovered: Faceted Navigation Leak.
https://ahrefs.com/seo/glossary/faceted-navigation
Faceted Nav
Leak:
On sites with
dynamic page
creation (Think
REACT), if certain
steps are not taken
to prevent it, Google
can crawl every
navigational item
and create a page for
it on crawl.

@schachin
Discovered: Faceted Navigation Leak.

@schachin
Never Ignore Anomalies in GSC Data.

@schachin
Huge Discovery.

@schachin
Why is this site on our pages?

@schachin
Exploited.

@schachin
What Happened?
• Dynamic REACT pages.
• Site Search box created indexable pages
• These pages allowed spammers to add their
content to the…
• Title
• Meta description
• H1
• URL
• Spammers exploit a site security issue called XSS
• Pointed 13 million porn spam links to the pages

@schachin
create a 3D cartoon character who is a digital marketer using AI for
SEO tasks
Site had 100s of
1000s
Of these kinds of
pages.
Some had been on
the site for 20 years.
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-plagiarized-content-34495.html

@schachin
We next got a Manual
Action for User
Generated Content a
few weeks before Black
Friday/Cyber Monday.
For the content created
in the site search pages.
We fixed it.
Email announcing its
removal.

@schachin
Anomalies: Ad Network Attack.

@schachin
Id Pages Redirect To Second Site.

@schachin
Why? Ad Network Hack.

@schachin
The most vulnerable
place on your site is
your ad network.

@schachin
Becoming an Anomaly Detective.

@schachin
Good Detectives share some
processes—some tips.
• Pay attention to data anomalies.
• Can’t explain it? Explore it until you can.
• One-off data anomalies can often point
to much more significant issues.
• Use
• Crawlers & Their Tools
• GA
• Eyes on the Page
Go down that rabbit hole!
Follow wherever the path takes you.
create a 3D cartoon character who is a digital marketer using AI for
SEO tasks

@schachin
ALWAYS VERIFY…
WHAT YOU CAN.
When tracking down an anomaly,
you often encounter breadcrumbs
and issues you do not understand
or are out of your expertise.
This means you need to verify what
you find as truly incorrect.
For instance, ask other SEOs, check
with your developers, search
forums, and ask your third-party
vendors -- especially with plugins
and ad networks.

@schachin
SEO: Meet Anomaly.
Your New Best Friend!
Kristine Schachinger
Sites Without Walls
Speakerdeck.com/username
@schachin

Technical SEO: How Anomalies Are Your New Best Friend."

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to Technical SEO: How Anomalies Are Your New Best Friend."

Similar to Technical SEO: How Anomalies Are Your New Best Friend." (20)

More from Kristine Schachinger SEO and Online Marketing

More from Kristine Schachinger SEO and Online Marketing (13)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Technical SEO: How Anomalies Are Your New Best Friend."