Sep 27, 2018 · 52m · y-combinator
SEO Advice from SurveyMonkey Director of SEO and Growth, Eli Schwartz · Y Combinator
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In this Y Combinator podcast episode, SurveyMonkey's Director of SEO and Growth, Eli Schwartz, provides a practical roadmap for startup organic acquisition, covering technical architecture, content workflows, link building, international expansion, and team building.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The partners as informed peer 3.4 Guest teaching 5.5 Guest disagreement 1.1 The partners pushing back 1.1
speaking balance: gold is the partners, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 28:32 Eli countering the blind adoption of mobile-first orthodoxy
Eli directly challenges the conventional industry dogma around mobile-first design by pointing out that most consumer purchasing hours and major transactions remain heavily desktop-driven.
Hardest push from the partners ▶ 15:02 Craig pressing Eli for programmatic keyword discovery processesCraig refuses to accept a purely intuitive framing for content topic selection, pressing Eli to define the exact analytical tools and workflows used to uncover real user queries.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 35:56 Eli correcting architectural misconceptions about subdomains vs subdirectoriesEli educates Craig on modern international SEO architecture, dismantling the outdated practice of launching separate top-level domains or subdomains in favor of unified subdirectory structures.
The partners hold their own ▶ 48:02 Craig articulating the organizational peril of perverse metric incentivesCraig actively demonstrates deep operational expertise by generalizing Eli's point about vanity ranking metrics into a foundational startup management principle regarding misaligned employee incentives.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The partners as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The partners pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Re-Emerging Importance of SEO in 2018 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Craig initiates the conversation asking if SEO is still relevant in 2018. Eli explains how rising paid acquisition costs and changing platform dynamics make organic search a critical untapped growth channel. | |
| Examining Industry Leaders in Search Discovery | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Craig asks for real-world leaders in search discovery. Eli contrasts media sites with Amazon's deep crawl taxonomy and discusses internal cross-linking strategies. | |
| SEO Black Hat Tactics and Obsolete Practices | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Craig asks about black hat tactics and obsolete methods like meta keywords. Eli details why Google no longer needs meta tags due to natural language processing advancements. | |
| Video and App Store Optimization Strategies | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Craig asks about optimizing YouTube and app stores. Eli explains the distinction between Google Play's visible text indexing and Apple App Store's hidden keyword fields. | |
| Content Creation Workflow and Keyword Research Tools | 4 | 6 | 1 | 2 | Craig pushes Eli to explain programmatic keyword discovery rather than relying solely on subjective intuition. Eli walks through using Google Search Console, Keyword Planner, and Ahrefs for iterative optimization. | |
| Optimizing Visual Assets for Search Discovery | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Craig inquires about image SEO and technical file specs. Eli breaks down alt text, file naming conventions, and Google's policy against search-within-search platforms like Pinterest. | |
| Content Distribution, Link Building, and Digital PR | 4 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Craig asks about link building and PR distribution strategies. Eli emphasizes quality and contextual relevance over raw volume, illustrating with his viral survey case study. | |
| Content Iteration, Mobile UX, and Intent Matching | 3 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Eli pushes back on exaggerated mobile-first dogmas, emphasizing that high-ticket purchases still happen primarily on desktop, while noting that mobile requires aiming for top-three rankings. | |
| International Expansion and Multilingual Architecture | 4 | 7 | 2 | 2 | Craig asks if international expansion should use separate domains or subdomains. Eli corrects this misconception, advising subdirectories with strict ISO naming conventions, and details Chinese Baidu hosting requirements. | |
| SEO Advantages Introduced by GDPR Regulations | 3 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Eli presents a counterintuitive take on GDPR, explaining how mandatory site-wide privacy policy links aid internal site architecture and how privacy constraints on paid ads favor organic traffic. | |
| Criteria for Hiring SEO Talent in Startups | 4 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Craig asks how startup founders should evaluate SEO job candidates. Eli shares interview troubleshooting prompts and recounts recovering from Google Panda after losing 65% of organic traffic. | |
| Establishing Success Metrics and Essential SEO Toolkits | 4 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Craig and Eli discuss setting KPI metrics and selecting crawler tooling. Eli warns against measuring keyword rank positions, and Craig reinforces the broader management principle of avoiding easily gamed vanity metrics. | |
| Practical Advice for SEO Beginners and Conclusion | 2 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Eli gives concluding advice for newcomers, recommending hands-on experimentation over coursework, referencing his early experience writing content around high-CPC keywords. |
Statements from this episode (32)
Schwartz: Plan SEO before choosing an e-commerce platform
“In any e-commerce company thinking about SEO, they should have thought about SEO before they chose their e-commerce platform.”
Schwartz: Google Search Console is more accurate than third-party tools
“And my favorite search tool is, is Google Search Console because it, it's from Google. It may or may not be as accurate as can be, but it's probably more accurate than other tools which are sort of projecting what the actual truth is.”
Schwartz: Amazon is the only e-commerce company doing SEO amazingly
“When it comes to e-commerce, it's really only Amazon that's doing it amazing.”
Schwartz: Full crawlability and zero orphan pages are critical
“So for the most important thing when it comes to SEO and making sure that your site is somewhat optimized for SEO is that the site is fully crawlable. So no orphan pages.”
Schwartz: E-commerce sites need custom cross-linking, not standard plugins
“When it comes to e-commerce, There has to be a good plug-in or something built internally because you're not going to want to have, like, say, a red sweater cross-linked over to, like, a dog leash, right? So, like, that's where a plug-in that sort of, you know…”
Schwartz: Randomizing URL cross-links is an effective SEO strategy
“One thing I found to be very effective for cross-linking is just randomization. So if you randomize your URLs, you make sure that provided your randomization algorithm is correct. Every single URL ends up being cross-linked. So if users click it, great. If the…”
Schwartz: Never build site features purely for web crawlers
“There's nothing you should be doing that's just for crawlers. It should all be for users.”
Schwartz: Meta keywords are completely obsolete for SEO
“Meta keywords is a great example of something that's no longer useful. And the reason meta keywords existed is because Google and other search engines actually were relevant at the time, didn't have a really good way of understanding text.”
Schwartz: YouTube SEO requires metadata because Google cannot parse video
“So YouTube's different, because Google's not great at really understanding what the video's about. So by giving more information, and it could be a transcription, It's, ah, those keywords that you put in, you're giving a better indication of what the video is …”
Schwartz: Google Play ranks apps based on all visible text fields
“So on Google, the way they rank an app is based on all the visible text. So it's the name of the app, which is sort of like the title. The short description, which is forget how many characters, but a shorter page description of the app, which you see right ab…”
Schwartz: The iOS App Store has a 100-character hidden keyword field
“On iOS, there are keywords, and I think you have a hundred characters hidden.”
Schwartz: Google struggles to understand and rank JavaScript in real time
“So Google, as much as they say they're really good at understanding and ranking JavaScript, They're not because in real time when they're looking for your content, you are handicapping yourself by not having just raw text words on the page.”
Schwartz: 1,000-word product descriptions capture more search traffic
“If you have a product description and you only have a hundred words and that somebody else has the same product, but they have a thousand words in different ways of describing the product. More than likely they will get more search traffic because as people se…”
Schwartz: Local businesses have a Google ranking advantage over national competitors
“You don't really need to rank on unclogged drains anymore, because Google is very local. So if you're in San Francisco, and you're a plumber, and someone searches unclogged drains, you now have a much higher chance of ranking on unclogged drains than Roto-Root…”
Schwartz: Google will eventually understand images directly without alt text
“Google eventually will figure out what images are, and they're getting closer to figuring out what images are.”
Schwartz: Google dislikes ranking search-within-search platforms like Pinterest
“Google specifically does not like search within search. Google would much prefer that you don't go to Pinterest, that you go directly to where that image was, but maybe that site didn't do a great job of optimizing the image, but Pinterest did, so now Pinteres…”
Schwartz: Passively waiting for organic search traffic can take years
“You can't hope for organic. You could wait like years for the organic traffic to show up. You need to be proactive about that.”
Schwartz: Google rankings no longer reward raw backlink quantity
“Links are still very important, but they're not important in the sense that they used to be where people measure them by quantity. Like, my competitor has a hundred links to this page, I need a 101 links, and if I get a 101 links, then I will guarantee rank ah…”
Schwartz: Enterprise software will probably never be bought on mobile
“There are many, many products that are probably never going to be bought on mobile. Like probably no one's going to buy enterprise software on, on a mobile device.”
Schwartz: Mobile SEO requires ranking in the top three results
“And then the biggest thing that you really need to keep in mind is that it's not about ranking in the top 10 results. You actually have to rank in the top three results.”
Schwartz: International SEO is untapped because US products lack global relevance
“So international is the untapped opportunity in SEO, but it will probably remain untapped for a long time because the products and services most American centric or English centric websites offer aren't necessarily relevant for a global audience.”
Schwartz: Separate international domains are no longer an SEO best practice
“It used to be best practices where you would build another website for customers in another country. I no longer think that's the best practice.”
Schwartz: Ranking on Baidu requires local Chinese web hosting
“In order to rank on Baidu, you actually need Chinese hosting.”
Schwartz: Google grew Korean search share via Samsung and LG ties
“What Google used to not be dominant in In Korea, and they've been increasing dominance through their Trojan horse of Android. So Google's obviously very closely partnered with Samsung and LG, Korean companies. And as Korean users use these products, they use G…”
Schwartz: GDPR is one of the best things for SEO recently
“I think GDPR is one of the greatest things that has ever happened to SEO in the last five years.”
Schwartz: Paid ad budgets will suffer substantial cuts under GDPR
“The other big advantage is that paid budgets are now going to take a huge hit. Because of GDPR, we've gone to this nightmare scenario where you don't know if your paid budgets are working because you can't track users until users Agree to be tracked.”
Schwartz: Many candidates with SEO resumes do not actually understand SEO
“Looking at a resume, I've looked at many resumes of people that have done SEO, and I've discovered they don't really know anything about SEO. They've just done SEO. When you talk to someone that would be good in this seat, And that doesn't even have to be as s…”
Schwartz: Tracking keyword rankings is obsolete and distracts from users
“I no longer believe in ever measuring keyword rankings, like as we discussed, we're focusing on a user, so it's not just generic rankings.”
Schwartz: Sites penalized by Google can recover within weeks
“Now, like, things are more automated and algorithmic, where if you got hit by the penalty one day, you cleaned it up, did everything possible, maybe filed a reconsideration request, you can be back in a couple weeks.”
Schwartz: Startups should target 100% to 200% SEO traffic growth
“If it's a startup, you can have things like a hundred to 200% growth. If this is a existing company with already has tons of organic traffic, maybe it's more manageable to have 10 to 20%.”