Barry Schwartz: “SEO Works Similarly to Starting a Business” & Other Interview Highlights

These are highlights from our interview with Barry Schwartz. You can learn more about Barry’s work on RustyBrick or connect with him on LinkedIn.

SEO is like a business

In business, you build a reputation so customers trust you.

SEO works similarly to starting a business. There isn't a magic bullet that instantly makes you successful in Google Search or any other search engine.

The better you treat your customers, the stronger your reputation becomes, whether locally or internationally.

As trust grows, more people visit your business and use your services.

That's what ultimately helps you perform well in search.

How has SEO changed?

20+ years ago, search algorithms were much simpler. The web itself was simpler. There were fewer websites, less content, and far less competition.

It was much easier to influence rankings by manipulating either content or links. Today, those tactics are much less effective.

Now you need to build a genuinely valuable website that naturally earns attention and engagement.

And even then, with AI becoming a bigger part of search results, getting traffic from Google is becoming more difficult for many types of keywords.

The most common SEO mistakes

If Google can't access your content, it can't rank it. That's probably the most devastating SEO mistake I still see.

Sometimes it's a robots.txt file. Sometimes, a CMS is configured incorrectly. Other times, a firewall or cloud security service blocks search engine crawlers.

There are many common SEO mistakes, but accidentally blocking search engines remains one of the biggest.

Another factor is content.

People often overestimate the quality of their own content. They assume it's the best because they wrote it. But if you objectively compare it with competing pages, you may find that other websites offer more useful, comprehensive, or better-presented information.

The biggest misconception about SEO

With SEO, you're building a reputation and trust. And that takes time. The biggest misunderstanding is expecting immediate results simply because you've hired an SEO company.

But organic search doesn't work that way.

That might happen with Google Ads because you're paying directly for visibility and traffic. But organic search is different.

SEO requires time, effort, and patience. And sometimes, despite doing everything correctly, you may never achieve the exact rankings you're hoping for.

Does user-generated content still work for SEO?

Google is pretty good at distinguishing between the primary content on a page and secondary content like comments.

Take a blog post with a comment section. Google generally understands which part is the main content and which part is supplementary.

On fully community-driven platforms like Reddit, user-generated content is the primary content. And in this case, SEO influence depends heavily on the community itself.

Reddit often succeeds because it has strong moderation. Although quality varies significantly between communities.

Whether user-generated content performs well for SEO depends on the platform, the contributors, and what Google's algorithms currently value.

How should people read Google updates today?

To properly read confirmed Google updates, it's useful to know when the rollout started and when it finished. If your rankings fluctuated during that period, you can reasonably assume the changes may be related to that update.

When Google doesn't communicate, I try to document unconfirmed updates on Search Engine Roundtable.

Even without official confirmation from Google, the SEO community can often identify patterns together. That collective observation is valuable.

Google also provides documentation explaining how to analyze website performance after the updates. There are many factors involved: the type of traffic change, the season, technical issues, content quality, and more.

Sometimes, it helps to get an outside perspective.

Hiring an SEO consultant or agency can provide an unbiased analysis. Or you can learn through Google's documentation and the broader SEO community.

AI hallucinations

AI systems can hallucinate. They make things up. And the problem is that they often do it very confidently.

It's like talking to a friend who thinks they know everything. Even when they're wrong, they still give an answer as if they're completely certain.

What people often miss is that AI hallucinations can hurt a brand’s reputation.

Take recipes as an example. Google may credit a recipe to one publisher while mixing information from several sources. If the recipe fails, that publisher may still get blamed.

AI is generally designed to provide an answer. It rarely says, "I don't know."

As a result, it often generates a response even when the information isn't fully accurate.

The concerning part is that many people don't verify what they read. They simply trust what Google presents.

The future of SEO: Barry Schwartz’s expectations

SEO is becoming increasingly connected to marketing as a whole. There will always be important technical aspects to SEO, but I think the discipline is expanding beyond traditional SEO and becoming part of a larger marketing framework.

As a result, I expect the industry to become more professional over time.

SEO practitioners will need a broader understanding of marketing, content, branding, and business strategy, not just search rankings.

For more insights, watch the full interview here: