John Shehata is the CEO and Founder of NewzDash, a real-time News SEO platform, and GDdash, a Google Discover analytics and optimization platform. He is also the founder of the News & Editorial SEO Summit (NESS), an event dedicated to SEO and organic audience growth for news publishers. John has more than 25 years of experience in digital marketing and SEO, much of it spent working with major publishers, media organizations, and Fortune 500 companies.
Before founding NewzDash, John served as Global Vice President of Audience Development Strategy at Condé Nast, where he led a team responsible for SEO, social media strategy, audio growth, organic partnerships, innovation, and email strategy across the company’s international portfolio. His work covered major brands including WIRED, Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, The New Yorker, and other Condé Nast properties.
Previously, John was Executive Director of Search and Social Media at Disney ABC TV Group. He led SEO and social strategies for ABC News, ABC Television, the Oscars, Disney Channels, and major programs including Good Morning America, Nightline, 20/20, and World News. Earlier in his career, he was Director of SEO and Social Media at Advance Local, where he established and led SEO and social teams supporting 35 local newspapers and 15 local news sites, including NJ.com, AL.com, Cleveland.com, MLive.com, and NOLA.com.
John founded NewzDash in 2014 to help publishers monitor and improve their visibility across Google’s news ecosystem. The platform tracks news trends, rankings, competitors, and editorial performance in near real time across Google Search, Top Stories, Google News, and Discover, providing publishers with data and recommendations for improving visibility and traffic. He subsequently launched GDdash in 2021, focusing specifically on Google Discover analytics and optimization.
His work is particularly focused on the challenges faced by news publishers, where SEO strategy must account for rapidly changing search demand, editorial workflows, breaking news, Google News, Top Stories, and Discover. He has optimized hundreds of news and enterprise websites and has worked with organizations and brands including ABC News, ESPN, Disney, Vogue, GQ, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Fast Company, Reddit, Fandom, GameSpot, and The Sporting News.
John is also a contributing author to the third edition of The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization. He was named one of USA Today’s 10 Most Influential SEO Experts of 2022 and has received recognition for NewzDash as an SEO software product.
Through NESS, which he launched in 2021 as a specialized conference for news publishers, John has built a dedicated community around News SEO and editorial search. The event has attracted more than 700 attendees from over 50 countries.
John has trained thousands of journalists, writers, editors, bloggers, and publishing teams on SEO and social media, including through training for NYU journalism and publishing students. He is a frequent international conference speaker whose sessions cover News SEO, technical SEO, Google News, Google Discover, audience development, social strategy, and the relationship between editorial decisions and organic search performance.
