Episode 633: GA4, Technical SEO, and Site Performance – What You Need to Know for 2025 with joe Rodichok

EBT633 – Joe Rodichok

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported. 

Supercut  00:37

You are going to want to download our bonus supercut that gives you all the information you need to grow your Instagram account. Go to eatblogtalk.com/Instagrowth to download today. 

Megan Porta  00:52

One of the absolute biggest pain points I hear food bloggers talk about is GA4. It’s just something that we have not gotten used to, and it feels like it’s not going to happen. Enter Joe Rodichok talk from Finite Solutions. He has created a tool that solves this pain point for us. In the tool, you can easily access all the information you dig for in GA4, and maybe have created a report for but it’s still hard to find and hard to navigate through. It is a dream come true. Tune into this episode to learn all about his tool. What he is hearing are the biggest pain points from food bloggers, how he’s incorporating Pinterest insights into his tool and so many other things are coming down the road. If you really love digging into your analytics, but find GA4 so frustrating and you spend way too much time digging through it, this could be your solution. And since Joe is techie minded and helps a lot of food bloggers and their businesses in more general capacities, I asked him a few questions about technical SEO and how to navigate certain things that fall under that umbrella, including core web vitals, site speed and a few other topics. This is another juicy interview Joe delivers. I hope you find this super valuable. It’s episode number 633, sponsored by RankIQ. 

Sponsor  02:21

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Megan Porta  03:01

Joe is the Co-Founder of Phynite Solutions with over 20 years in tech, including 15 years professionally in roles from engineer to Chief Technology Officer at start-ups and later with FAANG companies, solving complex challenges. I’m passionate about helping small business owners grow their websites through clear, straightforward support—something that’s personal to me as the son of two small business owners. My goal is simple: to help you succeed with no BS, just honest solutions.

Megan Porta  03:31

Joe, hello. Welcome to the podcast. How are you today? 

Joe Rodichok  03:34

Hey, Megan, I’m good. How about you? 

Megan Porta  03:36

I’m doing good. Too excited to chat. GA4, or actually the solutions we don’t have to navigate GA4. But yeah, thank you for being here. 

Joe Rodichok  03:46

Very welcome. 

Megan Porta  03:47

Okay, I like to ask all my guests if they have a fun fact to share about themselves. Do you have something to share with us? Sure?

Joe Rodichok  03:54

So obviously, I’m in the technical side, and it’s actually interesting. My love for computers actually started with my love for Legos and car engines.

Megan Porta  04:04

Oh, okay, explain. 

Joe Rodichok  04:06

So I love building things. Legos was obviously from a young child. I love building the sets, but one of the things that drove my parents absolutely insane is when I was a kid, I would get those fun sets, but I built them, and then I would destroy them and then go build my own creation out of them. I actually competed in an event when I was young, and for I think, I was in kindergarten, and I placed fourth in an event with kids of all ranges, kind of thing.

Megan Porta  04:35

That’s so cool. I need to find some of those clubs. I have a son who’s 17. He is on the autism spectrum, and he is obsessed with Legos. Like, I’m gonna send you a picture, Joe, you’re gonna die. Our Lego situation, people come down to our basement and they’re like, What in the world is this? There are so many Legos, and he just saved up money and purchased this huge Avengers Tower and put it together. It’s it’s insane, so I’m gonna send you a picture when we’re done. 

Joe Rodichok  05:06

Absolutely, a kid after my own heart. 

Megan Porta  05:10

Not many people do. Most people are like, that is crazy, but Lego lovers will so appreciate it. I love knowing that about you. Yes. Okay, well, let’s get into j4 I know it is a massive pain point for bloggers. It’s one of those pain points that we kind of thought might fade, but hasn’t faded. It’s like, yep, still a pain point. So I know you talk to a lot of bloggers, what pain points are you specifically hearing from them about GA4?

Joe Rodichok  05:37

Well, the main thing that people bring up to me is when you look at UA the original, or GA three, whatever you want to call it was, it was so simple to use to get the data that mattered to food bloggers. You logged in, and you could easily see your session, sessions, things like that. It was simple, right? You get the data that you wanted was right in front of you immediately, and if it wasn’t, it was simple to get to. GA four is nothing like that. I mean, sure, you get a couple like active visitors, but Google also admits that’s not 100% active or accurate. So it’s like, what’s the point kind of thing. But if you want those reports that show you truly what’s going on on your blog, you have to dig or you have to create your own custom report. And even then, it’s not exactly what you want. You need to go correlate it with some other reports. And it’s just like data’s all over this place, and it’s frustrating because you’re trying to make simple decisions in what data you used to have. You no longer have it.

Megan Porta  06:41

I hear you on all of that. I’m like, yes, yes, yes. 

Joe Rodichok  06:45

It’s just one of those things that and I understand what Google’s doing, because most people don’t realize Google Analytics is it’s free, right? And it’s great tool, great resource. It’s actually not a product originally of Google. It was Google acquired a company called Urchin, way back in 2005 and it turned into what we know as Google Analytics, or UA, basically, and GA four is Google’s first full version of themselves. And being free, I mean, Google, Google, being Google, is looking for a way to make money off of it, right? So with this new version, you’re like, what’s our best way to get ROI after this? And it’s the people that spend money on ads. So if you look at the way data is presented in Google, and this goes back to why is GA for the way it is, because it’s focusing on people that do ad spend with Google. It’s tailored to their needs first. And you think about it, that makes a lot of sense, considering 77% of Google’s revenue in 2023 which, by the way, was close to $230 billion Google’s going to want to find a way to influence those people over the people that are just using it for free, right? So you know, little context, why GA four is probably the way it is today.

Megan Porta  08:05

That makes sense. I appreciate that explanation. But still, there are so many creators and bloggers who are just left dumbfounded, like, what do I do with this? And they have to get complaints all the time. Am I right? 

Joe Rodichok  08:17

They have to. But under the hood, GA four is expensive to run. I kind of hinted at that, right? So, you know, I’ve spent a lot of time in my I have a background in data analytics, particularly the ad fraud world, so I can tie the advertising industry back to, you know, basic analytics here. So Google’s probably mindset is, those people that aren’t spending at they can still get that, that same data, right, that that’s their mentality is, is we can still give it to them. It’s not the way they used to before. So that’s kind of their, what I think their thought process is, and kind of going, well, you know, we don’t make any money off of them, but you know, there’s no real strong competitor to us, yeah, so they’re continue, they’re gonna continue to use it, but we’re gonna focus our shift a little bit to these, you know, ad spenders, kind of bit, and really focus on them and making their life a little bit easier to give them the data they’re looking for to increase their ad spend.

Megan Porta  09:14

That gives me a little bit of compassion, and I’m not as mad, because that makes sense when you explain it. I’ve never had anyone explain it like that, so I’m like, Okay, well, that makes sense, but it’s still frustrating. We still have those pain points. We still log in and we’re like, okay, no, I saved this report, but I don’t exactly know what I’m looking at. So you have come up with a solution for this, right, Joe? 

Joe Rodichok  09:38

Yes, I have, so what I call Phynite Analytics, and it’s basically it is and basically it is taking your same exact data that’s in Google Analytics, because Google allows you to export it to your own area, and what we do is curate that in a way that makes sense for food bloggers. It’s those simplistic views, your traffic sources, your social media, things like that, things you care about right in front of your face. Instead of, you know, having to dig into like, six different reports to find the data that you’re looking for.

Megan Porta  10:12

And I didn’t ask you this earlier, but just talk a little bit about Finite Solutions. So Phynite Analytics is part of your overarching business. So what is Finite Solutions?

Joe Rodichok  10:23

Yeah, so Phynite Solutions started out as just a, you know, what you would consider just one of those basic tech support companies does web development, focusing on the blogging computer community. I have been supporting one or two, one in particular, food blogger for probably close to 20 years. At this point, it was on an offside gig, and about two years ago I decided, well, let’s, let’s turn this into something bigger. So, you know, maintenance packets that packages that we’re all familiar with. And then, you know, of course, custom work, development work, technical SEO, things like that that I do, I’ve actually gotten into quite a bit of helping with email marketing as well, because another space that’s very confusing for for food bloggers to basically one stop shop for support for your blog or anything else technical outside of that. And then, of course, hearing all the complaints about GA four is what gave me the idea of, well, maybe there’s something I could do here. I have the background and data plus software engineering, let me see what I can do. And I stumbled across a way to do it and just spend some time into it. And with feedback from a lot of food bloggers, built, built the Phynite Analytics.

Megan Porta  11:39

So you have it in beta currently? 

Joe Rodichok  11:42

I do. So the cool thing about beta right now is, so this started with an idea, and my ideas of what this should be, and then getting it in beta. The initial reaction was awesome, but hearing what people, the feedback that I would give on what would make this useful, you know, focusing on what’s best for food bloggers and the tweaks, the adjustments, and not for nothing, just the new ideas that are coming from people that I can’t wait to be able to implement and get there.

Megan Porta  12:14

Because you’ve got all the technology, but the bloggers give you the actual like, oh, this would be great feature or other insights that you maybe didn’t think of.

Joe Rodichok  12:25

Exactly like the basic reports of what’s the main dashboard, which is a plethora of information right in front of your face, is what data is most useful to you. Like most engaged posts, least engaged posts, your top social media networks, like just hearing what’s important to you and kind of going through and saying, Oh, that makes a lot of sense now, and that direct feedback and building this tool that’s just going to be so useful for bloggers.

Megan Porta  12:55

Yeah, I’m curious if it takes a lot to maintain it, or is it just something that, once you set up and people are on your analytics program, that they it’s just kind of set it and forget it. 

Joe Rodichok  13:07

So it’s a little bit of set it, forget it. The big cog in the wheel is, is, shocker, Google. So Google natively exports this data. So one of the things that I like to delineate for people is this, a lot of people will come out with is like, Oh, I use the GA four API to do stuff. You’ll hear that a lot the pool information and everything like that. We do it in a completely different way. We export it into data into our own side. That’s why there’s a cost to it, is we store that data in a way that allows us to manipulate that data in a very specific way to people. So there’s, while it’s a link between Google and us, it’s still the reliance on Google, like the time we’re talking right now, there’s been quite the hubbub about some issues with GA four numbers currently, and I’m currently monitoring to make sure, hey, is Google going to go fix that on my side as well, now that that data has been exported, or am I going to have to go figure out how to bring that in sync again, right?

Megan Porta  14:09

I didn’t even think of that interesting. So I’m sure this is going to be a process for you to navigate this too, because it’s fairly new.

Joe Rodichok  14:16

Yes, yeah. So, I mean, the good news is I have a big background in in, like I said, data analytics, but managing extremely large systems, like I’ve I’ve worked at the large tech firms. They’re called playing companies, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google. I’ve had experience there, so I I know how to manage these complex systems, which is awesome to go along with it, but we’re gonna make it easy so you don’t notice any of these things. You can just focus on what’s going on on your blog and make the optimizations that you need to but if you do see you know an issue or question or not for nothing, you need something. The whole idea behind this, and it’s my whole idea of my business as a whole. Whole Phynite Solutions is to put a human behind it. Kind of thing is, you know, all your responses go to me, all your questions go to me. You know, there’s no in between, like your feedback is heard directly by the person that’s that’s actually making this kind of thing and give you that personable one on one of understanding what’s going on?

Megan Porta  15:21

Yeah, I’m curious to hear what your feedback has been as far as favorite features in the analytics dashboard so far?

Joe Rodichok  15:29

So the two big things I would say, is what we call the content overview section, which is really just a list of your top performing posts with metrics like page views, sessions, engagement rate, engaged sessions, with a nice graph at the top, just being able to see what’s performing there. It seems so simple, right? But it’s it’s actually hard to get nga for surprisingly. But the other part was the social media aspect, particularly Pinterest. Like food bloggers rely a lot on Pinterest for some of their traffic. You know, we’ve seen a big push because of Google’s core updates and the damage they’ve done of people trying to diversify their traffic sources, and Pinterest is notably been a big one, and trying to understand where that traffic’s coming from, from Pinterest. What’s popular on Pinterest, things like that. That’s really been the two big points of most popularity so far.

Megan Porta  16:27

And then, are you integrating Pinterest analytics? Did I read that right? 

Joe Rodichok  16:32

You did.

Megan Porta  16:33

Okay. So talk about that.

Joe Rodichok  16:34

Absolutely. So let’s talk about real quick. What led to that is one of the big things. And everybody kind of gave this feedback as a whole, but one, one of the beta customers, was really interested on what pin drives, is driving traffic. Because, you know, you can optimize Pinterest that way, or you can understand what’s going on, or even promote, you know, paid ads. I know a bunch of food bloggers do paid ads on Pinterest as well. So you used to be able to see this in in UA, right back in the day, which pins were driving, driving traffic. And one of the big questions was, why am I not seeing that in GA four? What most people don’t realize is that actually came about in UA as well, and that was a while. It’s not an animal Google Analytics thing, it is a Google thing that changed that availability. So just a quick understanding and background of that back in 2020 specifically August, Google Chrome, which everybody’s familiar with, which about 70% of the traffic on the internet comes through Google Chrome, they changed how they do refer policy and real quick, what, in case people don’t understand what refer is. It’s basically when you go from just say blog post a to blog post B, when you go to blog post B, your refer would be blog post a. So if you think about that, if people click on Pinterest and it clicks back to you, you would see as to refer. You know what pin that was? So in 2020 Google changed that so that your refer would only be what’s called a TLD, or your top level domain, to keep it real simple, so you would just see pinterest.com as the refer. So that wiped out all your information about what pin was doing, what this was done for, what Google says privacy reasons. 

Megan Porta  16:42

Oh, interesting.

Joe Rodichok  17:01

So what they were claiming is that you know they were seeing refers is private information was coming through in the refer, and they’re claiming privacy right there, which at one point I understand. But this data is also incredibly useful to users. And you know, 2020 chrome did it in 2021 and 2022 Safari and Firefox, the other two big browsers in the space, followed suites called soup, sorry, and did the same thing. So, long story short, to get to, you know, the original question here. Now everybody understands the background a little bit there. Everybody’s asking, I want this data? Yeah, so I dug into what I call the raw data in GA four, which is what we were talking about before, to see if I can find it anywhere. You know, because Google does some things that’s Google does. Google captures data that we don’t know about. Sometimes, because that’s what Google does, couldn’t find it. So my next solution is this, very clearly, is what people want, right? They want to be able to see this. And then I realized Pinterest itself has an actual API developer API, so I said, Well, why don’t I take that and integrate that into Phynite Analytics? It’s not true for our data like you would want to see, but it gives you still data about particularly your account or. Anybody has a an account right on Pinterest that they’re pinning and all that, but I can share that information now inside of this dashboard, what? Which one? And here’s the downside of it’s only gonna be your pins, right? It’s not gonna be things other people pinned back to you, but your pins, you’ll be able to see analytics. You know, time saved, how many clicks repinned, things like that, to at least give you some insight into what’s going on in Pinterest. That way, you’re not juggling multiple analytics systems behind the scenes and like, oh, I can go view Pinterest data within finite as well, and then, you know, I have all that data to go along with it. And if we can, I plan on linking that into the general reports inside of a finite of like, oh, this post and see what’s going on on link it back into the Pinterest data as well and be like, here’s some insights about this post from Pinterest.

Megan Porta  20:57

Oh, that’s so helpful. 

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Megan Porta  22:04

I didn’t know the backstory of all of that that it was a privacy issue, because I did. Back in the day, I loved seeing which pins were delivering traffic, and when that went away, it was like, Oh, such a letdown. So thank you for explaining all of that. 

Joe Rodichok  22:19

Yeah, to be clear, Pinterest is the one that actually has the keys to change that it’s something they can tell the browsers that we’re okay with sharing the refer, the full refer information. Pinterest doesn’t have a vested interest in naturally doing that, so I doubt you’re going to see that change ever happen. But yeah, just a little understand, because it’s a lot something just about every single one of my beta clients has asked about.

Megan Porta  22:47

That is great that you’re investigating that. So thank you. We appreciate you techie people. By the way, so much. I’m sure you know that, but oh my gosh, I am not techie, and I just so appreciate you, Joe, thank you. 

Joe Rodichok  22:58

That’s one of my whole things, is, let you got tech is my thing. Food blogging is your guys thing. I want you. My whole mantra is, let you do what you love to do, and I will take care of the tech side for you.

Megan Porta  23:11

Oh, we appreciate that. So I’m part of your beta group. And can I tell you a few things I love about the analytics absolutely so I love being able to click into content overview just a single click. You can see what top pages have brought traffic and any date range you want to specify, and then you can click into the URL and see just with one click. You don’t have to dig you can see where everything is coming from, Pinterest, direct, Google, Facebook, etc. You can see the number of page view sessions. I think that I love doing that. I just love clicking in because I can’t do that in G4 it’s it requires digging, and, like you said earlier, even then it’s like, Wait, what am I even looking at? Also, I want to share a win. I think I shared this with you over email, but I was doing that, I looked into my top pages, and I saw URL in there that was super old, like top five. And I was like, what? That’s so weird. I literally have never seen this URL in the top ever. It was published, I think, originally, in 2016 so it’s really old. I just kind of published and forgot about it. It’s a great recipe. So by clicking in, I could see that all of the traffic was coming from Pinterest. It was kind of viral, crazy, out of the blue, a fresh pin, but old URL. So by saying that, I was like, Okay, well, it’s getting Pinterest traction. I’m going to go update the post so that Google can see it and maybe get some Google traction. So I did that. I put it through the RankIQ optimizer. That’s kind of my go to thing. I updated photos republished within just a couple of days, and it’s. Not on page one, but it used to be like page 50 or 60 on Google. It’s now page three, top of page three. So I consider that a huge win. It’s moving up. So yeah, that’s my Phynite Analytics win so far.

Joe Rodichok  25:14

I love that. I love hearing that one of the things that I derive enjoyment from this is hearing those success stories. So I love that. It’s, it’s making wins for everybody. You know, it’s one of those things I can’t wait to. And actually, another, I guess, another hint for finite is one of the things coming. It’s Google Search Console data inside of Phynite Analytics, so you can see how things are moving naturally, just right then and there. 

Megan Porta  25:41

That’s so valuable. I love it. Okay, is there anything else that you think food bloggers need to know about Phynite Analytics? Anything they would find helpful? I don’t know anything you want to mention at all. 

Joe Rodichok  25:52

So I think the big thing is it’s, and I know I’m kind of re… harping on it again is, you know this, this is your data. It’s the same data that is in Google Analytics itself. We’re not doing anything crazy to get it. We’re doing a way that Google allows you to do and quite beyond, to be quite honest, it’s what a lot of these large advertising agencies themselves do to capture that data. So it’s your data, it’s just curated in a way that makes sense for food bloggers. I love saying this, but it’s one of those things too. Is food bloggers have they get to shape the way that data is I can’t tell you how many adjustments I’ve made, made just on pure feedback from the beta group, it’s been absolutely fantastic of not just small food bloggers, because I have plenty of those in the beta group. I also have a couple big bloggers in there as well, and just hearing and the feedback and going, oh my gosh, like everybody’s talking about the same thing and the same pain points, and then fixing those pain points. And you know, I love hearing that your feedback is not falling on deaf ears. Because how many times have we gone to a company and been like, I like this, and they’ll go, Oh, I’ll get to it. But no, that happens, yeah, and I publicly share my roadmap for for finite I think we’ve released that a week or two ago, and you can actually start to see the things that people have actually requested start to show up on those, those roadmaps and what’s coming, and how’s it coming when, we’ll start to get into when and a little bit in the future. But right now, it’s just, we’re not going to throw these ideas away. We’re going to make sure that we share, that your views are going on to that roadmap.

Megan Porta  27:43

Well, I think I can speak for all people listening and tell you that we so appreciate being listened to, okay, being asked, being listened to, being heard, and then implementing the things that we say. Because I feel like there’s so many tools, so many services in our area where we have feedback. But like you said, it just go. It falls on deaf ears. Nothing ever happens. There’s so much to be said for that. And yeah, thank you, Joe. 

Joe Rodichok  28:12

Thank you for for being a part of it like it’s really because what I And to add to that, what I know about blogging is so different the food blogging world I have learned so much over the past, I don’t know how many years of because even running somebody, the people that that do these maintenance packages and everything like that, our websites are WordPress too, and I have some blog posts, not nearly what food bloggers have. But understanding what works for me is so different than what works for food bloggers. So learning that and understanding that and just having these conversations have has just been absolutely amazing, and I appreciate everybody that’s shown interest and given that feedback, and please don’t stop with the feedback. 

Megan Porta  28:58

Yes, okay, I want to ask you a little bit about technical SEO, but before we do that, if somebody wants to, you know, be a part of Phynite Analytics or get to know more, how do they do that? 

Joe Rodichok  29:10

So the best way to do that right now is just go to Phynite Solutions.com/analytics. It will send you to a form that you can just fill out very quickly, or you can just email me directly, [email protected] Those are the two easiest and quickest ways to kind of do it, if you have, you know, questions up front kind of thing, because there is a price to it. There is an introductory price for beta. But, you know, it’s one of those things that we very, very, very interesting to you on board.

Megan Porta  29:42

Yeah, cool. Okay, since we have you here and you are a techie guy, can I ask you a little bit about technical SEO? Pick your brain a little bit. 

Joe Rodichok  29:52

Absolutely.

Megan Porta  29:53

Okay. I know you get a lot of questions about this. It’s a biggie for food bloggers, especially if we’re not into tech. Like I said, I’m not what are some of the main questions that you get from food bloggers about technical SEO? 

Joe Rodichok  30:06

Big thing is performance the number one thing. And it all comes back to that wonderful Google thing again, core web vitals is the number one question about technical SEO. Is your site’s performance and its impact on your your ranking. I can’t stress enough that it used to be one of those things, oh, Google’s doing that. But now people are starting to realize, oh, Google’s serious about doing that, and it is impacting my my rankings. It’s probably the number one thing, especially in Q4 you know, when everybody’s traffic, and biggest time of the year, and it’s like, Oh, my God, my traffic is is slowing down. Go to dig in, and you’re not passing core web vitals. And it’s like, well, that’s probably a big portion of it right there. 

Megan Porta  30:53

So what can we do on our end? Or do you recommend just having a tech person who can look into this for us?

Joe Rodichok  31:01

So one of the things I tell about my services, monitor your core web vitals. For you, it’s one of those things. But you know, if you’re not in that position, which I totally understand, one of the things is look at your your Google Search Console. It gives you a report about performance in core web vitals, and it will tell you what’s wrong, what’s going on. And you can very easily, you know, kind of disseminate. Here’s my paint. You may not know how to fix it yet, right, but it will tell you, hey, it’s a CLS issue or a large LCP, large contentful paint kind of thing. And you can kind of look up on your own, like, what those are, or you can start to reach out and be like, Hey, I’m not, you know, I don’t need a maintenance package, but I need this fixed kind of thing, like, and you can pinpoint and save yourself some money, because a lot of times you just come to me and go like, Well, my core web vitals are messed up. I’m gonna have to spend some time figuring out what’s wrong with your site first. But if you come at me and say, Well, I have a bad LCP score. Like, okay. Like, now I know where to look, and now I can optimize my time for you and figure out what’s going on and get a fix going on with it. 

Megan Porta  32:12

That makes sense. So doing a little bit of work on the front end, and you can, I mean, you can just Google all of that, right, and find information. 

Joe Rodichok  32:19

Yep, there’s tons of information out there. I mean, Google being what Google is right now, most time you’re gonna end up in Reddit, but you know, there is a lot of fantastic information on Reddit as well. Not to knock that, but you know, I’ve been a Reddit user for since it came out, and it’s funny to see Google go Oh, because we know it’s real content from real people. I was like, Well, that should tell you something yourself there Google, but you know it is really helpful information that you can find.

Megan Porta  32:50

Yeah, every time I see Reddit pop up when I’m looking for a recipe, I’m like, oh yes, dang it, yeah, I hear you though. Okay, so aside from core web vitals. What other questions do you get about technical SEO? 

Joe Rodichok  33:04

I get a lot of questions about AI right now and AI scanning. And yes, that falls in the technical SEO bit, simply because AI can take so much away from you, right? There’s the recipe scanning sites and all that. And that does fall into technical SEO, because that’s going to impact, you know, more competition is not a good thing, especially AI competition for you. So I get a lot of questions about AI, and how does it impact my site? And to be clear, not talking about AI like people writing content with AI, that’s a whole different subject, another pain point, obviously, with food bloggers and the blogging community in general, but particularly the AI crawlers that have come out and essentially taking your content and either repurposing it or using it for training model. On the AI side, I get a lot of that, lot of those questions. 

Megan Porta  33:58

So what advice do you have about that. Is there anything we can do? 

Joe Rodichok  34:02

There is some things you that, that you can definitely do. There are some tools out there. So most people, I’m gonna assume at this point, you’re somewhat familiar, probably heard the name at least, Cloudflare. Most people have in the blogging community, have Cloudflare at some point, regardless if it’s through your host or you have it directly. They have some tools to limit it. But I always caution people, there is good AI bots out there. AI bots, AI crawlers. So just blankets blocking, while the immediate thought may be, this is great to do, right? I’m stopping AI, the one, the bots that identify themselves are not necessarily the problem. So, like I mentioned before, I come from a world of ad fraud prevention, which comes obviously, we have to do prevention. You have to understand how it’s happening. And I mentioned this because I have done this. The majority of my professional career is in the ad fraud space. The Bots that you should be worried about are not. The ones that are outright identifying themselves as bots, those can be easily blocked or managed, and, you know, whitelisted or blacklisted kind of thing so many bots like, especially the the recipe index people, they are notorious for coming in and trying to look like a regular person. But there’s in reality, they’re stealing your content, kind of thing. That’s where it gets very tricky on stopping, very tricky on understanding what they’re doing. I just know from the Facebook community, the big one, I forget the name of it off the top of my head, there’s been a couple uproar posts, particularly about these recipe index things. And, you know, I’ve been able to attract a couple of them for for clients of mine, and come to find out, they’re, they’re saying they’re an Android user from Chicago, Illinois. No, you’re not. You’re you’re definitely another server trying to take my content. And that’s what these, these, these really shady people are doing to basically aggregate and try and make money on their own side.

Megan Porta  36:07

So you said recipe index. So they go, how are they going about this?

Joe Rodichok  36:13

So I can’t think of the name one of those sites over top of your head, but it’s one of those ones where you go, Oh, find all these recipes. I know what you’re talking about. Yeah, and you find it. But the beautiful thing is, all you food bloggers use the same kind of tools, right? The recipe cards, whether it’s wprm, create through MediaVine, I think, and tasty recipes, yeah, I think those are sort of big ones. I’m sure there’s some other smaller ones out there, but it’s very structured, right? They structure it for Google because Google will classify you as, you know, a food blogging site, and they know where to go look for your recipe. Well, you’ve just given everybody at the same time the keys to where’s your recipe, what goes into it. So all these AI crawlers and everything like that, they know exactly where to go look as well. And that’s how these sites exist, available. Go find them, and they go take your recipe and and all that. And the next, the new favorite thing is all the fuss. You know, we you food bloggers, write amazing content, but you get the lazy people who don’t want to read all that I’m guilty of as well. I work with a lot of food bloggers. I was like, Oh, that recipe looks really good. And I click the jump to recipe. I skim past all your wonderful content. I’m sorry. I’m guilty of it as well, but people get a annoyed by that. And then there’s all these new pop ups of like, skip the bus, enter the URL, and we’ll just give you the recipe kind of thing. But that’s that’s ad revenue loss for you guys. That’s how you make your your business range, your main income. It’s lost revenue at that point.

Megan Porta  37:41

Oh, so much to think about that we don’t want to think about this is why we love Joe and your business. And then question about site speed. Is that an issue these days? Or did most food bloggers have site speed nailed?

Joe Rodichok  37:55

It’s come a long way. A lot of people have figured it out. You know, whether you’re working with somebody like me to go get it done. Themes have come a long way of being out of the box. I’ll give them a little shout out. The Restored 316, themes that everybody loves right now. I think her name’s Lauren. That owns it. She does an amazing job not just making beautiful themes, but they come out of the box optimized for core web vitals. So it’s you’re seeing that shift of themes being less bulky and more optimized for speed. As folks transition to these they make a it makes it really easy. Just a little tip for everybody on that. I’ve seen a lot of people these themes come that way. Size your images correctly. Everybody. I can’t tell you how many times that’s the biggest issue with people’s core web vitals is they want to stick the largest image possible inside of a little 200 pixel by 200 pixel square, and then your browser has to do all this work of resizing that image. And next thing you know, it’s you’re you’re failing largest conflict content full paint metric right there.

Megan Porta  39:04

And the sizing of images is that still recommended 1200 pixels wide?

Joe Rodichok  39:08

If you’re doing a featured image. Yes, 100% that is still the same way to go. But like if you have carousels, if you’re doing a sidebar kind of thing, size your images perfectly for the area, but your featured image 100% do the Google recommended 1200 pixels? 

Megan Porta  39:28

Okay, all right. Well, I think that runs through all of my questions. Is there anything else you feel like food bloggers should know this episode will be published right at the end of 2024 so to start the year fresh, do you have anything else? Yeah, just to keep at the top of our minds?

Joe Rodichok  39:45

My biggest advice that I’m sharing with everybody is is on your site, I see a lot of people using services which are fantastic, but you become locked in with things and you get frustrated by it. We’ve seen it, and let’s take learnings from what we’ve learned with Google. And when Google’s core updates, where I hate saying it, but I’ve seen so many bloggers quit blogging because of that, you know, take control of your site, diversify. Make sure you own all of your your content. Don’t just give in and thumbs up everything. It’s your hard work. It’s your passion. You know, own it for yourself. Ask questions. That’s another thing so many bloggers just accept. You know, there’s a couple big personalities in the food blogging world, and people are so quick to just go, yes, yes, yes to that. Please question it. I’m not saying it’s bad advice by any means, but understand what they’re saying and why they’re saying it. And if you have questions, ask, just don’t blindly accept because what works for the majority may not work for you.

Megan Porta  40:51

Oh, gosh, that’s a that’s a message I feel really strongly about to Joe. Like, yeah, I’ve never been one to just blindly follow or blindly take people’s advice. I’m a questioner. I’m kind of a skeptic, like, why should I listen to that? I need I don’t know. So I, I so hear you on that and I, yeah, I’m glad that you mentioned that to end. It’s a perfect way to end.

Joe Rodichok  41:16

It’s real quick on that that so many people are afraid to ask questions. I’m gonna tell everybody right now. I love when people question me to do it like I was like, I’m so sorry for all the questions. Don’t be. Yeah, it’s your it’s your site. You deserve to feel comfortable with what you’re doing if you’re working with somebody that gets frustrated by you asking questions, I would probably say that’s maybe not the right relationship, right there.

Megan Porta  41:40

That’s a sign. Yep, I hear you. Well, thank you, Joe. This was all so valuable. Now, you mentioned, if people are interested in Phynite Analytics, where to go? If they’re interested in other services, do they go to the same place? How can they find you?

Joe Rodichok  41:55

Just finitesolutions.com If you’re interested in the maintenance package or just custom work, one off work kind of thing, I will mention as well folks looking to do maintenance packages plus Phynite Analytics, we can bundle those things together and give you a little bit of a discount there. So one stop shop for for everything for you.

Megan Porta  42:16

Do you have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration to leave us with? 

Joe Rodichok  42:21

I think my favorite words of inspiration, as we kind of touched on it, is your hard work is worth something. Don’t give up. You’re going to life’s full of ups and downs. Just because you’re in a down doesn’t mean you can’t come up in a backup. And I’ll relate that back to the Google core updates. I’ve seen so many people go down, and I’ve recently seen so many people rise back up as well. You know, I guess, to end on a quote there, even after the darkest nights, the sun, sun still rises. So keep that in mind.

Megan Porta  42:51

I love it. Nothing makes me happier than seeing people, people’s traffic come back. I’ve heard so many stories recently where it just like makes me smile from ear to ear. I’m so happy. 

Joe Rodichok  43:01

The best thing is, a lot of people are diversified their traffic now, like, it’s fantastic to go I’m not, you know, Google’s still a big portion, but you know, I’m getting it from Pinterest or Facebook or wherever else you’re getting it now, like you spent that time focusing on getting it elsewhere. And I love, love seeing that.

Megan Porta  43:19

Same and not just their traffic, but their businesses, their projects, they’re doing other things outside of traffic, which is so cool. Oh well, what a great conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today, Joe, and thank you for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

Megan Porta  43:37

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you posted it to your social media feed and stories, I will see you next time you.