🤔 Was HCU About Branding?

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Despite the fact that niche sites are dead, I still pay attention when there’s a new theory about HCU.

And a couple of days ago there was an interesting theory making the rounds on Twitter. Though I feel like maybe I’ve seen it before?

Of course, theories are just that - theories. And we’ll never really know.

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Why Ecomm and Local Sites Are Soaring

I feel like Moz has really been not relevant for the better part of a decade now, but sometimes they produce some interesting content.

This week an article they published in September was making the rounds on Twitter.

The topic? An article on what HCU is/was really about. (I think I saw this before and maybe even talked about it?)

It’s a short article and worth a read, but the tl;dr is all about branded/navigational searches.

Essentially people gotta be looking for your brand or else.

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Nobody is gonna be searching for your site that has 429 posts on ‘can dogs eat…’ with a branded search.

What’s weird though is that sites like Retro Dodo were likely getting some branded searches.

I think though there’s something else not mentioned here. Clearly ecomm sites get an ecommerce classifier that insulates them from at least some updates.

I’ve seen this with my test sites. I’ve seen this with expired/aged domains that have an ecomm history.

Local sites get a classifier too, but in my testing it’s not as strong at what ecomm sites get.

Just food for thought if you’re still making sites for organic search.

Coming up…

Upcoming topics: more tips and ideas on Etsy and KDP, how it’s going with my chatGPT fiction ebook and the AI music thingie, and growing an ecomm site.

If you have a topic you want covered just reply and let me know.

Stay awesome,

Shawna

P.S. If you’re looking for high level discussions or tips on things like local SEO and Rank & Rent, I highly recommend Jacky Chou’s Advise community. I’ve been in it for several months and there’s tons of value in it, including a SOP for local SEO.

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