As expected, Google has finally released its updated Google SEO starter guide and it was cut down in a big way. Google said this update aimed to make it work for someone first getting into SEO and less for an advanced SEO professional.
Google made maybe four updates to this SEO starter guide, one update in 2010 and then updated in 2017 and now today, not including the first version in 2008. Here is the old version of the starter guide, if you want to compare the changes.
Google wrote this updated guide is “more pocket-sized version of the SEO Starter Guide with a better focus on a starter audience and the topics we think a person who’s just dipping their toes in SEO should focus on and why.”
Google removed a lot of content, compressed and shortened a lot of other content and added only a bit of new content. Google documented what was changed over here.
Gary Illyes posted about it also on LinkedIn and wrote:
We have a refreshed SEO Starter Guide and it’s… short. This makes me not unhappy.
If you’re an SEO professional it probably bores you to read about the basics, but there are tons of people out there who are still just thinking about dipping their toesies in the scary waters of SEO. This guide is for them and now it’s compact enough that you don’t need to have a bottle of Bunnahabhain next to you to be able to read it. Yet, it still touches on the things that we think are important when it comes to search engine optimization.
I don’t wanna tell you how to live your life, but check out the blog post for more info on this refresh.
Here is what SEOs have been saying about it:
