2022·08·16 · 30:08
Why timestamping will be good for SEO
I talk with Sebastiaan van der Lans about why cryptographic timestamping of web content is a meaningful signal for search engines, and why I think it will become a real factor in SEO. My core argument has always been that ranking high is about being the best result, and one component of that is trustworthiness. Timestamping creates a verifiable record of when content was published and whether it has been changed, which helps search engines and readers distinguish original sources from copies. I also explain why the scale of Yoast SEO, running on over 11 million sites at the time, means that if we adopt a standard it starts to matter to Google almost immediately.
0:00 the black box that is Google is that we won't know whether using it too at some point. I didn't think we're there yet, but we'll be there very soon in terms of enough sites using it, that they see so often that the system start using it. (bright ambient music) is Sebastiaan van der Lans, founder of WordProof
0:31 where we fight for a trustworthy internet. blockchain, timestamps, open source technology. And with me is a very special guest today, it's Joost de Valk and he has quite a remarkable track record in making the internet a better place. work and your vision is we met I guess the first time, maybe it's a decade ago Somewhere around that, yeah. Somewhere around that. And you did a talk on holistic SEO
1:03 the word holistic meant. (laughs) principles you learned me there was rank high in the search engines is to be the best result. Yeah. sustainable strategy for over Yeah. when I tell people that now. But yeah, that's what I've been telling people for more than a decade now. I've been in search for 15 years.
1:37 you optimize for the end goal, for what Google optimizes for and other search engine optimizes for, people to the right webpage and that actually gives them the results that those people are looking for. If you optimize for that end goal, then you optimize for the search engine. It's that simple. It's very, very much getting away from all the technical nuance. lot of technical stuff that you need to take care of and that we absolutely do take care of
2:11 and I think I'm pretty good at. to people, I always say, of the technical stuff, what you have to do is think about how to become that best result. doing for quite a while now. and the team at Yoast did a pretty remarkable job there. You're really deep thinkers in not only how can we rank high on the short term but actually really deep on how to make the web a better place,
2:42 not only technicalities, of the information, so well done there and I'm really happy. to have you and Marieke and advisors in the company. So yeah. - Well, we're very happy be investors. I think one of our core values is and has always been improving the web, the web a better place, but also making it function better, resource for people.
3:15 And I think that's where we align. And one of the things that with what we do rank their website better and everybody can use our software to rank their website better, people put on their website and I don't want to necessarily. But it is one of the things where you know weapon of mass media war, delivering to everybody.
3:48 that everybody's using it elections in the US, candidate was on WordPress that wasn't on WordPress was also using our Yoast SEO plugin. For sure. So they are using it, all of them to optimize their stories. truths for all those people. new campaigns, et cetera,
4:22 to be filled in the web and there's a trust problem there that we need to fix. If we talk about the trusted web or that's the frame we love to use towards a trusted web through timestamps, what problems should that solve? So for me, of where I can in the end trust what I read. And that sounds very simple,
4:53 but it is a very hard thing to get to layers if we peel it down. Because in the beginning it is like, okay, so I'm reading this on a website, is this the website that was the first to actually publish this? That's the very simple first thing with timestamps to say, here at this point in time and compare to other sources
5:25 and see that they were indeed the first. problem in Google News, especially where being the first is one of the most important things to rank well in Google News and thus get a lot of traffic from Google talk about something. Yeah, it's one of the things that I think the web was very good at in the beginning. I'm slowly turning gray,
5:56 mine is not painted on. (laughs) can say I was in the web when I was 14, so I'm 38 now. So that's almost 25 years ago. Then it was really weird. I mean, it was really bare bones and it was really broken in many ways, but it was a lot more trusted, a lot more sources
6:27 that made sense. universities, et cetera, also had opinions about stuff that they'd actually didn't know about. And somewhere we lost that, into the fibers of the web, I mean the whole web HTTP, our browsers every day. People don't even know what it is ridiculously insecure it is. And HTTPS is only slightly more secure.
6:59 layer of security to the web to be able to take the next step. - Yeah, perfect. at trusted web as well, where that's how we define the problem. computers with computers then we had society, which made sure that in place, norms and values human behaviors like fraud, manipulation, and theft, that they won't thrive in the real world have those systems in place.
7:30 part of the Internet's DNA. there's an open source way and accountability, blocks that lead to trust DNA in an open source way. things that you see now is that what is happening is laws like the GDPR and other new laws that are introduced basically all over the world,
8:01 because everybody's seeing that we need to take care of this and that we need to make it safer, but that's applying laws to something that is inherently broken. And I really applaud those efforts because I think it's a very good thing that we were standing for. we need to take care of. But it's also sort of broken from the wrong direction and from the wrong angle. you're doing with WordProof,
8:35 we can actually fix it in a better way. We can help people, process from the ground up instead of enforcing laws from top-down annoying cookie notices and all these other things. solve all of those problems and it never will, but I think there's a good chance that we can solve a part of that problem and I think that's very exciting.
9:07 of approaching, like, okay, how do we control for that? How do we make people trust again in what's happening on the web? How can we even as government agencies, that we published this? And when we did it exactly? for a lot of these things. So there's a lot of these problems where they are now applying laws and I'd like to have those laws also baked into the technology.
9:40 And what we discussed before was as a logical next step with wonderful intention behind it. There's "GDPR" to make sure that people is a bit better. you have "the trusted web" where all information that reaches someone transparent and accountable. Yeah, as a logical next step. - Yeah. Sorry. steps are very logical to us,
10:13 that we will face there are that people don't actually understand what they're making laws about. prefaced in many countries by cookie laws, et cetera. And people called it cookie laws, tracking without cookies. I can do so many of these things without using any of these technologies that you talked about, what you're talking about. we have to do as a society do we think is acceptable?
10:45 how should this work? that into the technology great step in doing that. - And before we dive into the solution, not able to fix the internet in the coming decade? all very good things. Some people might not agree with me the current outcome
11:16 of the US elections, but I'm very unhappy about a lot of stuff that I've seen there are getting spread far too easily, and we're not finding a way as a society of dealing with that very well. And providing people and our websites with the authority to talk about stuff. And for that, we have to verify them. And we have to know when they do that
11:48 something, et cetera. a problem we need to fix. you and me, but more people. can play a role in that. And that's where our reach as Yoast and what you're building combined can actually have quite a bit of an impact on a lot of websites. So we can expose a lot of people to, Hey, we have some solutions that might actually make this better
12:21 and that might help people trust you more and it might put you in the right spot. like to collaborate with you on these things. got great recognition from Europe who said, for social goods competition. to grow the company, but more importantly, the recognition. But I have to give you credit, to invest in WordProof far before European commission said,
12:53 Hey, we think that this is a solution to fixing it the internet. - And I think this is actually funny most skeptical people about blockchain. - Yeah, can you elaborate on that? ago, I called you and I said, Hey, can I drop by? I just need 15 minutes of your time. I need to show you something. Can you explain how that moment went? I'll give you the time because I liked you as a person. And we met, had fun and et cetera,
13:25 so well you come by. But I think I also said to you, things like Bitcoin and all the related stuff. Because I don't think that's a problem that we really need to solve problems that we need to solve. I see sort of what they're doing, but I sort of want to stay away from the whole the government is evil and because I don't think like that.
13:58 At the same time, as a blockchain really is, can be very useful. And I see a lot of applications where I'd like to see more development, notary work get stuff like that, should be basically groups of the people that I'm spending far too much money on is absolutely bullshit. you were doing and I was like, yes, this makes sense.
14:30 I get this, which is also new to me because most blockchain startups make it so hard that you have to dive in actually understand it. intelligent person, what they're talking about. But yeah, you showed it and I was like, yeah, this feels good. This feels like this is actually a fix that helps us move forward. And that also helps us use the blockchain becomes something that
15:03 people can rely on. for blockchain in general to get some applications from the anti-government, only Bitcoin type thinking. So, yeah, I was enthused. (laughs) been talking about this for ever since for the last, what was it?
15:38 year now, I think, yeah. using open-source so far, you have a lot of transparency. You can see what happens under the hood and you have that transparency. hashing the information putting it on a blockchain. You bring the value of open source, owner, but beyond that buyer, to the citizen. Yeah, yeah. And also, I mean, if I could look up the terms of service for a company
16:10 log for that terms of service, see how they've adapted and whether they are mostly anti-customer and for themselves or the other way around, that could actually be a very good thing. I believe in radical transparency everything you do openly. In the stuff we do at Yoast, in everything we do our efforts to WordPress core.
16:42 And there we go as well like about what our goals are and what we're trying to achieve. I think that helps for everybody. What made you decide after that meeting? wasn't about investment, I came there to get advice. Yeah, what happened? we ended up talking here. I wanted to be a part of that. we're writing web history
17:17 and I just wanted in. something that you don't have which is our reach and our network, and that we could be of added value. So, and what you were building is awesome and needs pushing. that it can get that from and I think I can help provide that.
17:48 And so I wanted in, and just because I believe in that, and we're working on standardization of what we're doing now. So turning it into an open standard you could get competitors which I think is great, what this world needs, Because it needs commercial companies that provide this service, that we all agree on is how this stuff should work.
18:20 - Let's shift gears a bit engine optimization. things you mentioned then you opened my eyes there April 2019, where you say, wow, this soul stuff and search engine set that has never been solved before. Can you elaborate a bit on what the value of timestamps can be? Yeah. Sure. So in news especially,
18:51 being first is really important. person to report a story traffic for that story. each other's news very quickly. whether you're five minutes before someone else, and that's what timestamping can solve. prove that you were
19:22 before the other person. People scrape each other's sites without attribution, but then you can still prove that. And when Google indexes is your version it before the other person, access to it first written it yourself first. So that's a real problem it solves. build upon that even more knowing who wrote that piece
19:56 that we can even trust more problems and fix more problems that Google has. about and what they call the your money, your life type sites, where all of the news and input websites about health, about money, about all that stuff, they spend extra time there to verify that are trustable authors them solve that problem.
20:28 a lot more transparent. can really, really change of results search delivers. And with that basically get more traffic to trusted websites. it a logical next step would the adoption work? I think it's a very logical next step.
21:00 Search is incredibly complex, oldest IT problems out there. logical next step for them to incorporate something like this of a standard like this, because it would make their life easier. web at an astounding rate. and billions of pages every single day, just to figure out what is out there,
21:34 who wrote it first, what is a good result for this query, for them to optimize that process some of the verification stuff that they do. they do with manual raters lot of people realize, and thousands of people search results every day algorithm on what's correct and what's not, trust sources for authors
22:08 algorithm, that black box. It's a machine learning model machine learning model happening all the time. an extra piece of information that is very easy for them to check, easy for them to verify a WordProof hash. Yeah. That is a very minor deal
22:43 in that whole process. And I think that that is actually, worthwhile step for them steps a bit less necessary which is just a cost reduction and a big security improvement. And this year, if I had the schema with Joel and Jono content will be timestamped from major news outlets. Does it matter to be early timestamping
23:15 didn't say their index, the timestamps yet? right now, as a reader and of course I'm very biased. But as a reader, I am seeing a change log gives me confidence on head, I can look up when this was done. changed it, et cetera. I think it matters in the long run
23:46 if you're first doing this it means that you'll have your timestamps for all of this content. mean, it's not a lot of work. So being there already, doing stuff with this, it really becomes interesting. the black box that is Google is that we won't know already be using it too at some point. I didn't think we're there yet, but we'll be there very soon
24:17 in terms of enough sites using it, that they see so often that the system starts using it. learning the way Google and other search engines do it that nobody knows about. I think is very scary as well, and where I go like, well, okay, maybe we should force them to have an explainer on those models to actually see what goes in and which variables they use.
24:51 But right now, without anybody knowing. created, it's all open source. compatible in a way they can easily say. easily do it backwards. The only thing that you can't freely do is timestamp it in backwards. So that's why you need to start now. That's part of the power that you have. (laughs)
25:22 content should be timestamped, you expect to be timestamped in the future? A lot of different pieces of content. in news and in commerce. In timestamping terms of service, in timestamping invoices and in timestamping a lot of these things
25:54 that you might need legally. So in a lot of that sort of stuff. for every type of article that is not trivial, I think it's a more false to add it. And at some point you might be very happy that you're able to prove at a certain point in time. as soon as we can do that,
26:26 should and will be timestamped. better word about that point because that is time and author stamps, but that really is not a nice term. say it's the movement shift is about integrity as preconditioned instead of afterthought. instead of privacy by law. While encouraging the search engines require it and reward it
26:59 of the things with GDPR, GDPR was about punishment and we can-- Yeah, and it's about a very big fines and that's why a lot of people hate it. it's actually the first time in the last few decades privacy is something that we really, really should protect. Absolutely. the people using WordPress, by the end of the year, we will have a Shopify integration as well data analytics that
27:31 that's the number two e-commerce platform. But for all the people using WordPress who've gone and just installed a plugin, or how would you say, timestamping as soon as possible? you can't timestamp backward. So as soon as you start doing it have those timestamps. And it's so simple to do. I mean, install the plugin, run the thing, it's not hard.
28:02 And really, I think it'll pay off. I've been wrong before, right before in these things. enough to just start doing and see the benefits as you go along. the added transparency of what WordProof does documents is great for customers. was the revisions,
28:33 the higher the reward. those incentives in place the consumer wants it or because the site owner wants it, but also to search engines, for example or social media rewarding it, for being transparent. Yeah, incentivizing, this whole thing is something that's always very good. Google has been very good at which is why I hope that we will be able on this at some point once we make this a web standard.
29:05 is making it a web standard there to build upon it. So perfect, yeah. That were all the questions I had. something you want to add from your side. should just install WordProof and get going. It's awesome technology. I'm looking forward very much to work with you and the team on improving the web together. And we're building this trusted weapon
29:36 and building this thing where everybody can really rely on it again. end the interviews with "let's build the trusted web" together. So, shall we say that together? - Oh, let's do it. build... together. Yay, thanks, proud of having you - Thanks, bye. (bright ambient music)