Let’s dive right in. If you missed part 1, be sure to read it here.
You will also find part 2 here.
Favorite Notes #8 and #9
I did a series of notes this year on some technical SEO issues I commonly see in audits or asked about in forums and other groups.
The first one covers why you should not 301 redirect 404 errors to your home page. This is something I see people recommend doing all the time and there are several reasons why you shouldn’t do it covered in this note.
Then I covered soft 404s and how to avoid them. This is a topic not well understood in the SEO community. They cause a lot more problems than people realize.
Favorite Note #10
There are a lot of snakeoil salesmen out there pushing LLMs.txt files as some sort of magic bullet to boost visibility in LLMs. Nothing could be farther from the truth (which is that they are utterly useless).
In this note I covered the myths about LLMs.txt files and what they actually are.
Favorite Note #11
The last one is a note I released just a few weeks ago covering my 3 favorite link building methods. It’s a topic I know a lot of people struggle with. I would highly recommend giving this one a read.
That’s a wrap for 2025.
