Newsletter Archive
35 editions from the GrindstoneSEO email list. SEO insights, link building strategies, and industry commentary — straight from the inbox.
Is This Thing On?
Anybody still here? Hope not...that would be embarrassing for both of us. Why so long between emails? And why breaking the streak now? I suck...at writing. Or at least stopping to write. And I was ...
Happy New Year
That's what we're supposed to send out on the first of the year, right? I had a guy reach out on Telegram (link on the website) and ask me why he hadn't received any emails since he signed up. Becau...
GrindstoneSEO Cyber Monday Deals
I've been real busy trying to give the world an education while arguing with morons (my two singular talents) over on the X formerly bird app. In case you weren't paying attention and don't feel like...
Summer Of Broken Things 2.0
Yeah, I know it's late fall..almost winter. Don't care. I'm finishing this story. Read it or not, I'm writing it. But before I get into that, let me get the two things of value out of the way first....
The Summer Of Broken Things - Part 1
A more accurate Email subject line has never been written. But I'm going to have to break it up into a series because 1) time is short, things are still breaking and 2) Beserker Mail only allows me t...
Biggest SEO Leak In History?
Probably... https://ipullrank.com/google-algo-leak Stop what you're doing and read this. Obviously don't take it as verbatim because a lot of the analysis is from Mike's perspective. But, a lot of...
Down The Rabbit Hole...
Been on one, for a few weeks now. Building, learning, getting my mind blown open. I won't go into details on the latter but I'll offer this helpful tip: If you've done a disavow file + recrawl + de...
Things...SEO And Otherwise
Bunch of random things to cover today, will try to make it brief. We've all got an authoritarian monolith to defeat. I'm loath to keep talking about Disavowing as it's been beaten so hard that dead ...
That Last Email Did Numbers
Most opens, most unsubscribes. Maybe if more of you opened my emails you'd go away? Quick one, lots to get done today... 1 - Deleted all public mentions of the email archive, minus a tweet or two f...
Sorry, My Abandoned List...
I've been neglecting you for those Twitter XEO heauxs. Something like this, probably: https://imgflip.com/i/8p3e5r Or maybe you're happy not to hear from me. Reply and let me know if so. Anyway, q...
Update To The Disavow Webinar For ThatFitFriend
When you decide to launch a webinar with 20 minutes notice and no script, you miss some shit. Who knew. Made a quick video to fill in the gaps I forgot to cover + some other stuff I've learned since t...
Glimmer Of Hope
I took my own advice and have been monitoring SERPs since the update kicked off. Mostly to see shake-ups as they happen to get an idea where we're at in the rollout/rollback/panic knob twist phase of ...
What It Do
Many of you signed up today to learn about this: https://www.loom.com/share/61e77af70f204048a7c132d7c17c7d49 Most of you have seen it already. Some of you even put it into action, much to my surprise....
Been Awhile...
I've been busy...real busy. Snowboarding in pow for 5/6 days, consulting sessions, big custom link orders, helping some people with disavows and lots of shit posting on the bird app. Not sure if you n...
Monday Funday
Been on one today...no complaints. I chose this life, it didn't chose me. Question I get asked frequently: How many links will it take me to rank #1 for X? Well Harry, I'm not a wizard... But, stickin...
Two Emails In The Same Day?
Yeah, that's what I would do with a million dollars... Re-shot a section from the forever-lost webinar specifically covering disavowing bad link profiles. https://www.loom.com/share/61e77af70f204048a7...
State Of Links Email Mailbag Responses
Because I'm too busy shitposting link haters on the bird app to get creative. Diving in... Regarding the State of Links email where I encouraged you to shift your thinking on how buying links as part ...
The State of Links, 2024
It should be fairly obvious by now that the Google does not like sites that buy and sell links. So if we're going to be engaging in this behavior, there's a couple requirements that become foisted upo...
Today's Webinar
15 of you showed up. Probably bored out of your minds but thanks for coming anyway. Some idiot had the recording settings wrong, nothing got recorded. Oops. Cliffs: Seeing lots of HCU and other recent...
Failbag
Only one response of interest and I've got more work than time tonight so let's jump straight into it. Context on the question, it was asking for clarification if I meant Auction when I said Expired. ...
Slacking
On mailing this list... My bad, the goal was daily, we're down to like 2x a week. Yikes. I'd like to tell you it's because I've been hard at work but it's mostly four things that have dominated my att...
Mailbag
Because I'm behind on replying and can work on it in chunks as I do actual (hopefully) valuable things. But first... I'm a potato. All my calendars are Sunday thru Saturday, left to right. Sessions, t...
I Suppose I Should Test Deliverability
In the age of DMARC SPF DKIM actually mattering... Maybe you'll see this, maybe you won't... I had a bunch of people send me emails with topics to cover. And while I appreciate the thought, let me tel...
From The Horses Mouth
Tim Soulo says it's H-Refs. So that's what we're going with. Doubt I remember and will continue to pronounce it 4 different ways per video. That's free tier quality content for ya... This will probabl...
Anchor Text: How To/How Not To With Live Examples
Emails responses galore...let's cover some of them. Without further ado... We need to talk about your hick pronunciation of "ahrefs" Let the people decide. Is it Aw-Ref (what a shitty call, ref c'mon)...
Q&A From Yesterdays Video + Extra
Emails responses galore...let's cover some of them. Without further ado... We need to talk about your hick pronunciation of "ahrefs" Let the people decide. Is it Aw-Ref (what a shitty call, ref c'mon)...
Another Long Day...
Another day we're not going over live examples of how NOT to build anchors. But damn do we need to... The shit I see on a day to day basis that just boggles my mind. 2024 and SEOs are out here treatin...
Quick & Dirty
Saturday...I'm working on a lot of stuff. But I also got A LOT of responses asking how to better determine candidates for our Link Boost Only package. Rather than respond to them all, I shot a quick v...
Anchor Text Wanker Smecht
First... Did you miss me? Two days no inbox abuse? The silence must have been lovely... Sigh...anchor text...LFGO. I said I'd covered this ad naseum. I have. Start here: https://twitter.com/Grindstone...
Internal Anchor Text: Don't Get Rekt
Taking a step back from the plan. I know we were going to be looking at real life examples of external NATURAL ANCHOR TEXT (NAT) today but... Shit happens. I haven't best figured out how to do it with...
Value
I 'wrote' this email on the chairlift this morning, dictating it to my AI transcription app. App failed, content didn't sync to cloud. Skynet...meh. Take two: Value. It's what we provide the world. It...
Link Quality Part 2
Short and sweet today because I have a murderous schedule today. Should have addressed this yesterday but that was already WAY too many words. Received a bunch of email responses basically asking some...
Day Three...Email Three
The streak(ing) continues... 23 unsubscribes, 265 recipients that haven't opened either email yet. On day 5 I'm just going to unsubscribe all the rel = noopeners. Good riddance. Why the focus on pruni...
Let's Pareto That BFF
Content strategy using match and exceed, SERP intent buckets, the 3:3:4 ratio, and why tools like Frase and Grammarly actually matter for ranking.
Yo...member when?
The origin story. Hippie parents, chainsaws, espresso stands, and how the Pareto Principle explains everything about SEO. Meet the Big Four Factors.