The changes and upgrades we made in September.

Monthly Product Update (September)

It is hard to find keywords worth spending money on in Google Ads. You need time to test each campaign group and optimize them. But, how that campaign impacts your business, it's another thing.

How to find the best keywords in your Google Ads campaign based on your competitors?

If you struggle with finding the best keywords to start writing your articles or landing page, I recommend getting back to figure out your content map instead of that.

How to find perfect keywords using the Keyword Research tool?

If your marketing strategy against competitors is aggressive or your e-commerce depends mostly on the organic traffic, you definitely should configure Seodity to track rankings on other players' websites.

How to compare rankings with competitors in Rank Tracker?

Unfortunately, Google Analytics will not show you precisely from what keywords your organic traffic originated. Of course, we can use Google Search Console, but the results are still very general, and many marketers feel it is insufficient.

How to check organic traffic on any website?

Google keeps saying how performance is essential in SEO, but how to verify it? Seodity uses the Google lighthouse algorithm to find any performance issues.

How to check a website's performance?

There is no better way to find backlinks opportunities than your closest competitors. Seodity allows you to check any domain and go through their backlinks.

How to find the best backlink opportunities?

Backlinks could be beneficial if you want to increase your domain authority. But, how do you find the best one and increase their number?

How to find backlinks with the highest authority?

It's fascinating how tough it is to find keywords that impact business. Why is that? Because you would be surprised how people are searching for things.

How to choose the best keywords to track?

We live in a world where all human knowledge is available at our fingertips. If you want to find out what "right-clicker mentality" means or who Aristotle was you simply…
Google it.
Wait, what? Let’s rewind the tape.
I was going to say that you “type your query into

6 Best Google Alternatives & Unbiased Search Engines

Your website does not want to rank. And even when people visit it, the bounce rate turns out to be very high. You suspect that this could be because your website is simply too slow in the eyes of Google and your users.
So, you are asking yourself: How can

7 Ways to Improve Google PageSpeed Insights Score

The number of daily searches on Google is now almost 10 billion. Statistically speaking, everyone googles something once a day every day.
What does this mean for businesses?
If you can make your website #1 in Google search results, you can reach any type of customer you can possibly imagine.

How to Do Keyword Research for SEO [5 Easy Steps]

SEO seems like a fairly straightforward job, right?
You set up a website that is fast and mobile-friendly. Then, you create high-quality content to attract visitors. Finally, you collect backlinks to get more link juice and boost your positions.
Of course, the devil is in the details.
The longer you

19 SEO Tips I Wish I’d Known When I Was a Beginner

Have you ever heard of Diaclone? The Japanese toys from the early 1980s?
Probably not.
But the idea was revolutionary! They were toy robots that can turn into vehicles. Or vehicles that can turn into robots. Depending on your point of view.
It does sound familiar now, right? Duh! Transformers!

What Is Content Marketing In Simple Words? [Examples & Tips]

Looking to find the best keyword research tools? With all the many options out there, we know it can be a bit daunting. Which SEO keyword tool should you get? Which is the best value for money? Which is the easiest to use? 
If you’re looking for an answer

8 Best Keyword Research Tools in 2021 [Free Apps Included]

The Keywords gap tool gives you an unfair advantage over your competition. By finding out which keywords they ranked you are not, you can improve your keyword strategy and stay ahead of the game.

<a href="https://us18.admin.mailchimp.com/templates/preview-template?id=10555212" target="_blank">Check it now!</a>

This function allows you to see which keywords your website ranks for and those of your competitors. This can be useful to compare your website's performance against that of your competitors.&nbsp;

This new feature suggests your competitors' basis on the keywords' similarity. We compare the ranked keywords of your domain with keywords of discovered&nbsp;websites in the SERP. That's why those results are so accurate.&nbsp;You can also sort it by percent of similarity, keywords count, estimated organic traffic (whole domain), and estimated paid traffic (whole domain).

Now, you can easily select the competitors which you entered earlier.&nbsp;

Now, you can change the name of the Seodity crawler. By default Seodity's crawler looks exactly like a regular user who is using the latest Chrome. We have added the option to change the name to SeodityBot. This could be useful if you want better to recognize the crawlers' traffic to your website.&nbsp;

Seodity can show you how your most significant competitors spend money on Google Ads for what keywords. And what landing pages they have for it.

In the beginning, start by typing the domain in Paid Traffic. Then, you can choose a specified country and language or search globally.

Seodity will show you what keywords are promoted in Google Ads in a couple of seconds.

You can sort and filter those keywords by every column. Let's try to find the cheapest keywords with high search volume.

You can also click on each keyword to discover linked an advertisement.

You can then export those keywords into CSV or a .pdf file. You can add exported CSV files to your campaign in Google Ads.

Next, you can click on the Ads tab to discover a copywriting of promoted Ads.

Tip: Try to find other domains and discover their marketing.

It would be best to use Keyword Research to optimize your existing articles because much more important is to give your readers the value of reading those.

But, how to find perfect keywords for your articles that will be easy to find?

A crucial thing that many forget before doing keyword research is to choose localization. Researched keywords should look different due to the country where it is searched because people search differently depending on where they are.

So if you want to optimize your article, look where you have the most significant traffic from or where you want traffic from, which helps your business.

Seodity will help you figure out this using the Organic Traffic module.

But, If you precisely know what country would be perfect.

Use Seodity Keyword Research, and start by choosing the country and language.

After that, enter the keyword or phrase you want to optimize. Seodity has three searching methods; let's start using the keyword suggestion method.

The results you can sort and filter by each column by:

You can export those data. Just click the export button and choose the type of file.

Tip: To check the frequency of keywords used in an article, you can use On-site -&gt; keyword cloud

If you haven't configured Rank Tracker yet, you should start from this article -&gt; <a href="https://seodity.com/blog/check-organic-traffic">[How to choose the best keywords to track?]</a>

How to get the benefits from the Rank Tracker?

To add competitors, click the Competitors button

Type the domain you want to track and click on the Add Competitor button.

And, now your competitors will be monitored by Seodity every day.&nbsp;

Tip:&nbsp;You can also ‘x-ray’ your competitors in every Seodity feature. Just type in the URL section their domain/URL instead of yours.

Seodity resolves this problem with its Organic Traffic feature. The latter will show what keywords and estimated traffic lead people to your or any website. If you are sick of "not provided" keywords from Google Analytics, it is something for you.

Let's look at the Seodity's Organic Traffic feature. You can check the traffic for each country or globally.

Every found keyword has an additional data such as:

And, each one of the above columns can be sorted.

You can also go deeper by checking each URL (it can be out of your domain, just any).

One of the cool things that Seodity provides you is advanced filtering. You can also use predefined filters that we call presets.

For example, if you want to find keywords with the potential to boost their ranking quickly, use preset "keywords with great potential."

Tip: You can use the Organic Traffic feature to check your competitors' organic traffic sources.

It's effortless to find all of the suggestions in one place.

Select On-site and then click on the Performance tab.

On the header, you can see five sections with a score. You can click on each element to go to the relevant section.

In each section, you will get detailed information about possible issues and their resolution.

After a few seconds, Seodity shows you all of the domain backlinks.

Now, use a filter to find the newest backlinks with the highest domain authority.

Tip: Often, this research helps you figure out your backlink competitors' strategies.

Let's start by finding existing backlinks on your website. Seodity will do it automatically.&nbsp;

To find the best one, you can use the sort function on Domain Rank (DR).

You can also use a filter to narrow the results.

Tips: You can check any website you want, including your competitors. That's a great way to find opportunities for new backlinks with high authority.

It's fascinating how tough it is to find keywords that impact business.&nbsp;

Why is that? Because you would be surprised how people are searching for things.

That's why Seodity helps with it. We are searching through the whole internet to find keywords for you.

We name it the Organic Traffic feature.&nbsp;

You can find the keywords that Seodity found on organic results.

To choose the best keywords to track, use the presets we have prepared for you. The first choice should be "best ranked with high search volume."

Next, select keywords with a checkbox and click "Add to Rank Tracker."

Tip: You can search through any other website like your closest competitors to find more exciting keywords to track daily.

We live in a world where all human knowledge is available at our fingertips. If you want to find out what "right-clicker mentality" means or who Aristotle was you simply…

I was going to say that you “type your query into a search engine of your choice.” But googling something feels so natural and convenient, doesn’t it? It became synonymous with searching for information online. But is Google an unbiased search engine? Or the best search engine for doing academic research?

We surveyed almost 600 technology enthusiasts to find out:

Here is the list of good alternatives to Google for the impatient:

But the question of Google’s neutrality in itself deserves a deeper investigation.

You can xerox a document with a photocopier manufactured by a company other than Xerox, right? Let’s assume that you can also google something with search engines other than Google. 

Before we explore the best alternatives to Google, let’s find out what the fuss is all about.

We asked respondents to evaluate their level of satisfaction with the majority of search results offered by Google.

It turned out that Generation Z respondents are very happy with the results they get. Almost 95% of Zoomers think that “Google provides accurate and useful content—exactly what people may expect to get when they type in a specific search phrase.”

On the other end of the spectrum are respondents who identify themselves and their political views as “conservative.” Almost one in four of the self-proclaimed conservatives didn’t think that the top positions of Google result pages were accurate.

The majority of respondents do believe that Google is politically neutral. Offering results that are politically biased was one of the least common arguments for using an alternative search engine.

However, respondents who label themselves as conservative chose “political bias” as one of the main reasons for using a Google alternative. If we were to compare it with the rest of our sample group, conservatives mentioned “Google not being politically neutral” as the primary reason 15 times more often.

Is there a grain of truth in this? Does Google have a political agenda and ranks some content higher than others?

Let’s try to illustrate it with a quick experiment. We’ll compare some results from Google and a “non-liberal search engine.”

If we google “Andy Ngo,” the first result after his Wikipedia profile is an article by Rolling Stone: <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/andy-ngo-right-wing-troll-antifa-877914/">How a Right-Wing Troll Managed to Manipulate the Mainstream Media</a>.

If we use an independent search engine, such as DuckDuckGo, the first results are Ngo’s Wikipedia page, official website, and some articles from NY Post and Fox News, with titles such as: <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/06/03/another-antifa-beating-wont-silence-truth-teller-andy-ngo/">Another Antifa Beating Won’t Silence Truth-Teller Andy Ngo</a>.

Which search engine is non-partisan? Is the person of interest a right-wing troll or a truth-teller?

Google uses PageRank—an algorithm created by Larry Page to measure the importance and authority of a website—to decide which articles get better positions.

In general, pages rank higher if they are optimized for search engines and mentioned as sources by other reputable pages. It is a kind of “authority score'' that is calculated on the basis of how many pages link to your website. You can find it out by using a <a href="https://seodity.com/backlink-checker">backlink checker tool</a>.

The article from the Rolling Stone has 1,305 backlinks coming from 243 websites, many of which have a page authority score within the range of 60-70 points.

By comparison, the article about Andy Ngo from the New York Post has been linked 107 times from 23 domains, mostly pages with a lower authority score. Many links to the NY Post article have a no-follow attribute or no anchor texts which makes Google more suspicious of the quality of the content linked.

Google itself does not sabotage right-wing content. It's just that their algorithm picks out information that is:

To evaluate and measure this, Google uses a range of signals. If an article is high, it is not due to a single factor. A “liberal” content is more likely to appear higher in search results provided by Google if the general media landscape, journalists, content creators, and readers are likely to find it useful. And, according to our survey results, it seems to work the way it was supposed to.

On the other hand, some may argue that the Google Personalized Search feature may create a filter bubble effect. However, this phenomenon is more prevalent in social media. If you want to make sure that you are not getting personalized search results, you can turn it off by adding an additional search parameter (psw=0) to your query. Or simply turn it off in your Google account settings.

You can read more about getting neutral results with Google in one of our articles with <a href="https://seodity.com/blog/seo-tips-from-experts/#11-always-double-check-the-serps">SEO tips about SERP analysis</a>.

Google is not biased. If anything, it does what it is supposed to do in a specific socio-political context. It simply doesn’t boost content produced by “truth-tellers” if it is not backed by any authoritative sources (which some may perceive as a lack of neutrality).

Nevertheless, our survey respondents have many other reasons for choosing an alternative search engine. So, what are the main problems that people may still have with Google?

What are the primary reasons for using alternatives to Google?

Although many think that Google is extremely useful and they are satisfied with services the company provides, they still have some major concerns about other aspects. Over 75% of respondents agreed that Google collects too much data that invades their privacy.

Main reasons for using alternative search engines:

Apparently, the most common reason for using alternative search engines is not related to Google being biased or unbiased.

Alternative search engine usage statistics

We all know that Google is one of the most important tech giants and holds the majority of the market. The four most popular search engines in the world today are:

You can check out more detailed <a href="https://99firms.com/blog/search-engine-statistics/">search engine statistics here</a>.

Interestingly, our respondents picked different options as their favorites. Here is a visualization of what they wrote:

Over half of them mentioned DuckDuckGo as an alternative search engine they know or use.

The most popular alternative search engines named in our survey were:

We find these results extremely interesting. Let’s take a closer look at each of the solutions.

Not all of these search engines are alternatives to Google in the literal meaning of the word. Some of them have better application in specific situations or are complementary tools. Some of our survey respondents agree that Google is the best choice, but it is good to consider other solutions as additions that put Google search results in a wider context.

DuckDuckGo is a browser that addresses the most common problem users have with Google—the privacy matter. Searches are private and no data about them is stored or tracked. Search results are frequently based more on user engagement than traditional SEO techniques. You can expect more results from diverse news outlets, which makes DuckDuckGo one of the so-called conservative search engines.

Bing can do the same thing as Google and offers a very similar user experience. We can search for content, images, or maps. You get featured snippets and extracted information from sites that answer your questions. Maybe not all features are as powerful, but some people think that Bing is better than Google because of its simplicity, fewer ads, and very convenient map features.

Ecosia is not actually an independent search engine. The results are all provided by Bing. In fact, what we are dealing with here is an interesting partnership between several entities for the noble purpose of protecting the environment. The more often you use Ecosia, the more trees you plant. This is a very good image maneuver to show a more friendly face of technology companies.

Brave is a whole system of interconnected technologies that aim to revolutionize the way we use the internet. It's a browser, search engine, cryptocurrency wallet, and much more. For using Brave you get cryptocurrency rewards, for example its Basic Attention Token (BAT) that is available on popular exchanges and easy to monetize. The search engine itself is still in the beta phase but we can expect some cool developments and further integration with the crypto market and interesting ad revenue models.

Google sometimes has problems with very technical queries. If you need something more scientific or related to mathematics and engineering, WolframAlpha can be a helpful solution. It is not described as a search engine, but some of our respondents mentioned that it is very useful as an alternative to Google for scientists.

Marginalia is a really interesting tool that will take you back in time. Instead of the results that are the most SEO friendly, you can expect to see some websites that belong in a museum. Although some of the links listed by Marginalie may look amateurish, it is a very interesting engine that often provides interesting and unexpected results. You can use it to add diversity to your research.

Sometimes to find exactly what you're looking for you don't have to change technology—just combine several solutions into one. Or use advanced options of Google. You may be surprised to find out how easy it is to access high quality content with the tools that you already know.

Below we present some simple tricks on how to get more accurate results when you are searching.

Try googling [your search query] + Reddit/Quora

Google displays content based on a fixed set of rules and measurable qualities. After reading a few tutorials on <a href="https://seodity.com/blog/how-to-do-keyword-research/">how to do keyword research for search engine optimization</a>, you will be able to create content that gets featured on the first page of Google.

This means that a perfect result usually has a specific number of words, uses certain predictable phrases, and has an acceptable, user-friendly format. It is usually written by a professional journalist or a blogger.

Websites that appear on the Google search result page are not created by independent contributors or “average” people. And they are not based on votes. They are produced by professional content creators, sometimes as part of their deliberate <a href="https://seodity.com/blog/what-is-content-marketing/">content marketing strategy</a>.

But there are many websites that use voting systems. For example, people ask questions on Reddit or Quora and then the most popular and useful answers are usually the one with the highest number of positive votes. The only drawback is that these portals do not have good internal search engines.

You can have the best of both worlds. The most powerful trick for searching user-generated content is to write your search query in Google and add “Reddit” or “Quora” at the end.

The most-voted answer will usually be more straight to the point and accurate. It will also be based on personal experiences rather than theory.

This technique is similar to the previous one. Instead of searching the entire Internet, you can direct Google to specific sources or exclude unwanted results. You can freely filter or modify several search criteria.

Writing your search query and specifying sites will help you compare different viewpoints on a given issue. Just perform multiple searches and specify sources with contrasting political profiles.

Try the full-text search features in Google Books and Archive.org

This technique is the opposite of the first approach. Instead of looking for more accessible content created by average Joe, you can narrow your search to things that have appeared in print. This usually implies good quality but may require a little more time and dedication.

People are looking for alternatives to Google for a variety of reasons. Some would like an independent, conservative search engine that returns more right-wing content. Others may care about their privacy and security. &nbsp;For some people news, SEO-friendly guides, and editorials are not enough because they need more technical information.

Your website does not want to rank. And even when people visit it, the bounce rate turns out to be very high. You suspect that this could be because your website is simply too slow in the eyes of Google and your users.

So, you are asking yourself: How can I increase Google page speed?

We happen to have the answer to this question. We'll also describe the process so you get a better understanding of what the PageSpeed score is all about.

In this guide to Google PageSpeed Insights:

Buckle up and let's get right down to the burning question. What does Google think about your website and how a slow website can be a problem?

Website speed optimization is one of the essential SEO factors. Mobile page speed tests performed by Google bots directly influence your position in search result pages.

The primary mission of Google is to provide the best result that answers the user's query. It should be accurate, informative, available to everyone, and fast.

Your brand new website can look great and load fast in your browser, on your desktop PC, when you use your broadband connection. But what about that poor kid from a developing country who uses an old smartphone? And has to pay hard-earned money for every megabyte of data transfer because the infrastructure in their country is terrible?

Over <a href="https://www.sistrix.com/blog/the-proportion-of-mobile-searches-is-more-than-you-think-what-you-need-to-know/">60%</a> of all Google searches happen on mobile devices. And cellular data is not free!

Google’s developers explicitly say that they are very serious about how much mobile data is used.

Large network payloads are highly correlated with long load times. They also cost users money; for example, users may have to pay for more cellular data. So, reducing the total size of your page's network requests is good for your users' experience on your site and their wallets.

Source: Google Developers (web.dev)

Website loading time is not a vanity metric invented for web developers to brag about their performance. It is something that translates directly into saved time and money for users.

To analyze the SEO performance of your pages, you should use a <a href="https://seodity.com/seo-checker">website SEO checker</a>.

There is a strong correlation between SEO ranking positions and page speed performance.

According to Google’s mobile page speed <a href="https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-ca/marketing-strategies/app-and-mobile/mobile-page-speed-new-industry-benchmarks/">research</a>:

As page load time goes from one second to seven seconds, the probability of a mobile site visitor bouncing increases 113%

And there is some very strong <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ranking-factors/bounce-rate/">evidence</a> for bounce rate being one of the essential ranking factors. This has also been mentioned in our selection of <a href="https://seodity.com/blog/seo-tips-from-experts/">SEO tips from experts</a>.

Your mobile page speed is just one of several things that Google takes into account when determining your position. Ultimately, the quality of your keyword research, <a href="https://seodity.com/blog/what-is-content-marketing/">content marketing</a>, and backlink profile are the most important elements: <a href="https://seodity.com/backlink-checker">Website Backlink Checker</a>

The best way is to use Google's tools which give advanced and accurate reports about your desktop and mobile page speeds. There are lots of different panels, but most of the metrics overlap in all of them.

The most popular tools for testing page speed metrics are:

You can use them to run performance analysis of any page on the internet for free.

What is Google PageSpeed Insights?

PageSpeed Insights is a free tool for web developers for measuring website loading times. It allows you to test any website for specific speed metrics such as Speed Index or Time to Interactive. The overall performance score returned by the tool is measured for mobile and desktop devices separately.

The same data can also be found in third-party apps. For example, Seodity has an integrated performance panel powered by Lighthouse in addition to keyword research and <a href="https://seodity.com/seo-checker">seo audit tools</a>.

Let’s take a closer look at each metric.

PageSpeed Insights return performance data (“field data”) only while Lighthouse gives you some additional scores (“lab data”).

Performance/Field Data (Google PageSpeed Insights):

Page speed performance scores below 90 are marked as the orange zone and need improvement. However, there is no clear answer as to what page speed score is “good enough”. You can see many pages with the performance score way below 30 that still rank on top positions in Google.

In most cases, it is worth having a better page load speed than our direct competition for a given keyword.

Sometimes it turns out that the performance is not as satisfactory as we would like it to be and the website is still rated positively in terms of Core Web Vitals.

Here is a quick breakdown of the components and their corresponding benchmarks:

The page speed performance score is calculated based on the six load time metrics mentioned above. You can see how changing them influences your overall score by using the <a href="https://googlechrome.github.io/lighthouse/scorecalc/">Lighthouse Scoring Calculator</a>.

The PageSpeed score is a subset of the metrics analyzed during general website audits carried out by Google. Performance is one of the elements. 

Ultimately, your page speed score should always be analyzed in the wider context.

To check your full Lighthouse report you can open developer tools available in Google Chrome. Just press Command + Option + J (Mac) or Control + Shift + J (Windows) and click &gt;&gt; to open Lighthouse reports. You can also install it as a browser extension.

Now that you know what this is all about, let's get down to business.

How to increase page speed scores in Google PSI?

The site speed testing tools themselves will tend to enumerate the things you can do to improve your score. Whether it is PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse or Seodity, they will create detailed reports listing opportunities for reducing page loading time.

Most sites face the same problems and make the same mistakes. But there is no need to worry. You can fix them with a relatively small effort and significantly improve your performance.

The easiest and most common opportunities to improve your website speed are:

Each of these tips to increase PageSpeed score is described in detail right below. Keep on reading to find out more.

If your website is slow, there is a high probability that your hosting is of poor quality. For example, <a href="https://www.cloudways.com/blog/does-hosting-affect-seo/">shared hosting</a> is a big no-no. Good things are rarely cheap and web hosting services are no exception. For peace of mind, it is better to invest in a premium solution that has a good track record among web developers.

Slow server response times <a href="https://web.dev/time-to-first-byte/">affect performance</a> and your TTFB (Time To First Byte) should never exceed 600 ms. Otherwise it will fail Google’s performance audit.

The fastest web hosting services according to <a href="https://www.bitcatcha.com/research/fastest-web-hosting-services/">BitCatcha</a> are:

If your current hosting service is underperforming and pales in comparison to the options above, you may want to consider a migration. It may be painful at first, but it will pay off in the long run.

Now, this one is a rookie mistake but also something that can be very easily overlooked. It happens to everyone once in a while (guilty as charged). Take a look:

Here is a tiny little icon with the photo of the author.

Let’s inspect it with Google Lighthouse.

It turns out that the image is huge. If you right-click it, you can open it in full resolution too. And it is way bigger than it needs to be.

Of course, the image is styled with CSS in such a way that it only displays as a small icon. But the original source file that has to load in the user's browser is a high-resolution PNG file. It is better to use smaller sizes. An icon of this type does not have to be larger than about 200x200 px.

Setting the right sizes is only the first step in the image optimization process. It is also important to choose the right format and compression rate. The file type that is best suited for websites is PNG.

But not all PNGs are created equal. For the sake of argument, let's assume that the author's original photo is indeed in good resolution.

Is it possible to squeeze it a little bit more? And save some loading time for people browsing our site?