I listened to a long conversation with Shaun Anderson recently.
Not the kind you skim. The kind you sit with.
Shaun has been in SEO since 2001 or 2002. Back when ranking felt like a frontier town with no sheriff. You could build links recklessly, publish thin pages, and call it strategy. And for a while, it worked.
Until Google started remembering.
When Google Started Pushing Back
Panda. Penguin. Updates that didn’t politely suggest improvements. They erased traffic. Shaun talked about getting hit in 2012. Not as a flex. As a fact.
What helped sites recover back then wasn’t clever workarounds. It was deleting low quality pages. Removing things that never should have existed. That stood out to me.
SEO recovery didn’t begin with growth.
It began with humility.
The early 2010s were chaotic. Link building felt like a game of volume. But chaos always attracts rules eventually. Google didn’t change because it felt like it. It changed because the web was getting polluted.
E-E-A-T Isn’t a Framework. It’s a Filter.
Shaun said something that reframed E-E-A-T for me.
Trust is the number one ranking factor.
Not authority in the old sense. Not metrics you can inflate. Trust tied to who operates the site. Who benefits. Who stands behind the content.
This explains why monetization changes everything. The moment a page is designed to make money, Google evaluates it differently. Intent shifts. Scrutiny increases.
That’s also why affiliate sites that survive don’t hide behind templates. They show experience. They demonstrate use. They accept responsibility.
Trust isn’t added at the end. It’s baked in from the start.
AI Is Helpful. Strategy Is Not Its Job.
Shaun’s take on AI was calm and honest. AI often fakes confidence. It gives advice based on consensus. What most people already say.
That’s useful for execution. Dangerous for strategy.
SEO strategy is contextual. It’s about tradeoffs. Risk. Knowing what not to do. When you hand that over completely, you don’t scale intelligence. You flatten it.
AI can help write. It should never decide.
Backlinks, Creativity, and the Line Between Smart and Reckless
Some of the backlink stories sounded wild. Job pages submitted to universities. Thousands of exact match domains in a single niche. Almost controlling an entire market.
Those tactics wouldn’t survive today. But the thinking behind them still matters.
Placement. Relevance. User satisfaction. Navigation.
Even the controversial experiments were rooted in understanding behavior, not just algorithms. That’s the part people forget when they copy tactics without context.
When Traffic Drops, Start With the Basics
Shaun’s diagnostic advice was refreshingly boring.
Are pages indexed?
Is there a site-wide quality issue?
Does the site deserve trust?
Google doesn’t always judge page by page. Sometimes it samples a few URLs and applies that judgment across the entire domain. Effort gets smeared. Quality gets smeared. Neglect does too.
That’s uncomfortable. But it explains a lot.
Entity SEO Is No Longer Optional
The conversation made one thing clear. You are not just optimizing pages. You are presenting an entity.
That’s why Google Business Profiles matter. That’s why consistency across your site and social presence matters. Changes to a profile can trigger crawls across your entire website.
SEO doesn’t start with keywords anymore.
It starts with identity.
FAQ: Trust, AI, and How Google Really Evaluates Sites
What is the most important Google ranking factor today?
Trust is the most important ranking factor.
Google evaluates who operates a site, its intent, and its overall credibility, not just individual pages or keywords.
How does E-E-A-T affect rankings?
E-E-A-T helps Google assess trust and quality.
Experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness are applied across a site, not just page by page.
Can removing low-quality pages improve SEO?
Yes. Removing low-quality or thin pages can help recover rankings.
Google often evaluates site-wide quality, so reducing weak content improves overall trust signals.
Does monetization affect how Google ranks pages?
Yes. Monetized pages are evaluated differently.
When a page exists primarily to generate revenue, Google applies higher scrutiny to intent and trust.
Should SEO strategy be automated with AI?
No. SEO strategy should not be fully automated.
AI tools assist with execution, but strategy requires context, judgment, and human decision-making.
Is AI-generated content bad for SEO?
No, but generic AI content performs poorly long term.
Content must demonstrate real experience, effort, and originality to earn trust.
Are backlinks still important for SEO?
Yes. Backlinks remain a strong trust signal.
Relevant, high-quality links still influence rankings significantly.
What the Google API Leak Really Confirmed
The leak didn’t expose secrets. It confirmed patterns many of us already felt.
Google samples.
Google generalizes.
Google rewards effort and trust over time.
SEO isn’t about outsmarting systems.
It’s about building something that survives inspection.
That’s slower. Quieter. Less exciting.
But it lasts.
