Do the opposite of what Google says – Egor, Co-founder of Traffic Connect

This time, we’re going to talk about SEO. The guest expert was Egor, co-founder of Traffic Connect. We’ve gathered the most important information he shared, which will be useful even if you don’t work with SEO.

The main question: what services and metrics should you use?

When it comes to global analytics services, the main ones are Ahrefs and Semrush. However, the choice of tools heavily depends on the specific task and what you want to analyze. For example, if you need to analyze backlinks, relying solely on Ahrefs isn’t enough, as many teams hide their links, making them impossible to find with just one tool. Working with content also requires additional services.

Some examples:

• For backlinks: Ahrefs, Semrush, Majestic, as well as manual services and methods for finding hidden links.
• For keyword research: I recommend Keyword Tool, which provides more accurate data than Ahrefs—something we’ve learned through experience.
• For content analysis: Surfer SEO.

There are many services and extensions we use. Again, you need to know exactly what you want to analyze. SEO has always required a very comprehensive approach. That’s why when we analyze a market, we cover all possible aspects: technical details, content, backlinks, general market insights, and more.

Do you only work with high-volume keywords, or do low-volume keywords also perform well?

It all depends on the end goal and strategy. If we’re working on a review site, we have to evaluate many more variables: how the site handles branding, whether there are other traffic sources, the structure, landing pages, conversion funnels, and much more. In short, it's a massive amount of data, and launching such sites can take months. For smaller sites, depending on the timeline, a quick analysis is possible, but if you want something bigger, you need to allocate a lot of time.

For unique brands (monobrands), we also work in a detailed manner, but the data set required for maintaining and promoting the site is smaller.

Regarding keyword strategy, as I mentioned earlier, everything depends on the approach. Often, we launch multiple sites simultaneously, meaning the development strategy for each site can be entirely different—both in terms of keyword focus and backlink strategies. We strive to be as flexible and diverse as possible, since SEO varies by niche and region. A strategy that works in one country may not work in another, and that’s completely normal.

What's the current distribution between monobrand and review sites?

There is a significant imbalance in favor of monobrands because you always create several and see which one works. Reviews are a different story. Of course, I know teams that mass-produce review sites, linking them across regions and focusing on quantity. But I don’t follow that approach—I’ve always prioritized quality.

When I started, I wanted to create a review site that could compete with Legabett, sportsbook rating platforms, and other industry giants. But that’s a huge, complex task. That’s why we have very few review sites—it’s a completely different strategy.

Right now, we have a working strategy and a strong understanding of many markets. In terms of percentage, the split is about 90% monobrand sites and 10% review sites.

What's your take on black hat SEO? Have you encountered it?

Black hat and gray hat SEO, just like white and gray hat SEO, always go hand in hand, and people interpret them differently.

For example, buying backlinks. According to Google’s policies, this is already considered gray hat SEO. But SEO professionals (including our team) who purchase high-quality backlinks don’t see it as anything forbidden. And the idea that Google claims this doesn’t work is far from the truth. In many cases, it’s best to follow this principle: "Do the opposite of what Google says."

As for black hat SEO, to me, it refers to competitor sabotage, and there are many methods for this. I believe in building rather than destroying. However, if something strange happens—like you’re ranking #1, and the #2 and #3 sites suddenly start attacking you with negative SEO tactics—it’s possible to retaliate. Fortunately, this doesn’t happen often. But we don’t support or engage in these tactics.

I always say: it’s better to invest in developing your own sites rather than destroying others. If you start doing that, it triggers a chain reaction where everyone begins using the same tactics, resulting in complete chaos in search rankings. SEO is already a difficult field to measure—adding these disruptions makes it even harder to determine the right course of action.

You mentioned buying backlinks. Do you also purchase links? Can you share your best and worst purchases?

Evaluating the effectiveness of a backlink is very difficult—whether that’s fortunate or unfortunate. Even though I love running tests under ideal conditions to make definitive conclusions, it's complicated.

Even if you do nothing to your site at a given moment, competitors are actively working... Or, as we discussed with black hat SEO, someone may be attacking your site. Additionally, Google updates its algorithm—sometimes with official announcements, sometimes without.

Because of these factors, it's nearly impossible to conduct a perfect test. Every hypothesis, even successful ones, needs to be tested multiple times.

As for a successful backlink: we have very high standards for link quality, but I wouldn’t risk evaluating the effectiveness of a specific link. The most expensive purchase we made was around $3,000 for a single link.

How do you handle backlinks? Do you adapt them for specific regions?

Yes, we strive to adapt because the location of the referring site is extremely important.

Our team analyzed Google's latest leaked documents. While some of the data was outdated, it still gave us valuable insights into how things work. SEO, in this sense, is like walking in the dark with a match—you mostly learn through experience.

From this leak, we learned more about Google’s algorithms and gained useful knowledge. For example, regional links are given higher priority. We also discovered that links from trusted news sites hold significant value, which surprised me, given how quickly some of these sites become irrelevant. As a result, we made several adjustments based on the leaked information.

Do you work only with Google, or do you also use other search engines like yandex, yahoo, bing, etc.? What are your thoughts on these platforms?

First, the second most popular search engine after Google is Baidu, but we’re not interested in it because we don’t operate in China.

Each search engine has its own specifics. We primarily work with Google, and 98–99% of our traffic comes from it. Yandex is more relevant in Russia, but we currently don’t use it—except in regions where it’s popular, like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Overall, search engine algorithms are quite similar. The difference lies in the weighting of certain factors. In some, content factors are more significant, while in others, on-page factors play a bigger role.

Speaking of on-page factors, do they influence Google rankings?

I’m certain they do. We've run tests and seen that they are becoming increasingly important.

If you’re asking about manipulation or falsification, we haven’t delved deeply into that yet. However, the SEO community is discussing it more frequently, so it’s likely that effective techniques exist—we just haven’t worked with them.

How do you handle keyword research?

We have three teams, and each works slightly differently. In some, junior specialists handle semantic research; in others, mid-level professionals do it. In terms of staff involvement, everyone except the team leads is involved in some capacity—though the leads participate at a lower level.

What About Chat GPT Generated content? Google doesn’t like that, right?

At the beginning of the AI boom, when there was a flood of news on the topic, many rushed to adopt these tools, including programmatic SEO. We approached this cautiously and realized that this "party" would be quickly shut down—and that’s exactly what happened. Our philosophy is always to think from Google’s perspective. There are smart people working there, including many SEO professionals. And it’s obvious that easy shortcuts will be blocked.

We tested AI-generated content on our sites, but never in its raw form—always with adjustments. The results were mixed. Some sites performed well with AI content and still use it, while others had the opposite results. We’re not fans of “free lunches.” Using these opportunities is like sitting on a ticking time bomb, not knowing when it will explode. However, we do use AI-generated content, just not everywhere. Our sites have a team of writers we’ve worked with for a long time.

Conclusion

This is the text version of the interview with Egor. For more information, read our article on how to work with Google Ads. In it, you’ll learn more about how Google Ads works, the key metrics, results, and of course, the answers to the most interesting questions from the followers of the 1win Partners Telegram channel. By the way, subscribe to the channel — there’s a lot more amazing content over there!