Google Publisher Center No Longer Allows Adding Publications
Google has removed the feature to add publications manually to the Google Publisher Center. Instead, publications will be automatically added when Google’s algorithms decide to.
Google Favicon Documentation Adds Rel Attribute Value Definitions
Google has updated its favicon documentation for Google Search to add definitions for each supported rel attribute value in the Google Search favicon documentation.
Google: Splitting & Merging Sites Takes Longer Than Normal Site Migrations
Want to scare an SEO? Just tell them they need to manage a site migration. Want to make an SEO faint? Tell them they need to manage to split a site into two or more sites while merging content on those sites. John Mueller from Google said it takes Goog…
Google: We Won’t Change The 301 Redirect Signals For Ranking & SEO
Gary Illyes from Google said on stage at the SERP conference last week that there is no way that Google would change how the 301 redirect signal works for SEO or search rankings. Gary added that it’s a very reliable signal.
Google: Our Link Best Practices Doc Are Still Good Guidelines
Google’s John Mueller said the link best practices SEO documentation on its website are still “good guidelines” for both SEO and overall “accessibility & UX reasons.” The guidelines are only about 14 months old, so they are recent.
Google: We Have Taken Action On Some Parasite SEO In Recent Update
Gary Illyes from Google said on stage at the SERP conference last week that Google has taken steps to combat what some of us call parasite SEO in the most recent Google algorithm update. He was quoted as saying, “We have already done stuff against Par…
Google: Crawl Budget Goes Across All Googlebot Crawling, Not Just Web Search
When it comes to crawl budget and Google not crawling your site too much or too little, Google takes into account all Googlebot activity across all verticals. So that includes crawling for web search, Merchant Center, ads, and all the various crawling…
Google: We Need Very Few Links To Rank Pages; Links Are Less Important
Gary Illyes from Google spoke at the SERP Conf on Friday and he said what he said numerous times before, that Google values links a lot less today than it did in the past. He added that Google Search “needs very few links to rank pages.”
Forbes Blocks Its Coupon Directory Before Google Enforces The Site Reputation Abuse Policy
Forbes has blocked its coupons section of its web site at forbes.com/coupons using an x-robots-tag: noindex directive prior to Google enforcing the upcoming site reputation abuse policy. As a reminder, Google will enforce that new policy on May 5th bot…
Google: It’s Unlikely Your Rankings Dropped Because You Have Two Websites
Google was asked if having two websites and Google finding out about them would cause the websites to drop in rankings. John Mueller from Google said that is “not likely,” adding that many people have several websites and that is fine.
Google: Indexing API May Work For Unsupported Content But…
Gary Illyes from Google said in the recent Google SEO office hours the Google Indexing API may work for unsupported content formats, but that you shouldn’t be “surprised if suddenly it stopped working for unsupported verticals overnight.”
Google: Are Hyphenated Domains Are Bad For Google Ranking?
The topic of using hyphens in domain names is one of the oldest SEO topics we have in this space. Heck, in 2004, SEOs said there was a specific Google ranking algorithm that filtered out domains with hyphens in them (Google did not by the way).
Google Drops Video Carousel Markup
Google has discontinued its support for video carousel markup and has thus removed it from its video structured data help documentation. Initially, Google tested video carousel on a limited number of sites and is now saying that it “ultimately found th…
Google Search Console Adds Unused Ownership Tokens
Google Search Console has a new security feature under user and permission management to help you manage your unused ownership tokens. Basically, it helps you manage who has permissions to your Search Console profiles and who should not, maybe some leg…
Google: Should We Explain The Crawl Stats Report in Search Console
Martin Splitt from Google posted a one-line question asking, “Should we do something to explain the crawl stats report in GSC?” This was posted on Mastodon, which has a small audience, but the responses were pretty good.
Google Will Fight Site Reputation Abuse Spam Both With Manual Actions & Algorithms
Google’s new spam algorithm update also introduced new spam policies including the upcoming site reputation abuse policy that won’t go into effect until May 2024. Google has confirmed it will fight site reputation abuse spam using both manual actions …
Clarification: Google Search Supports Images Referenced From src Attribute
Google has clarified in its image search help documentation that images are only extracted from the src attribute of img tags in Google Search. This is not new, but Google decided to update its documentation based on some questions it received about th…
Google Goes On Defensive On Its Search Quality & Forum Results Statements
Recently, we covered some of Google’s rationale for ranking forums like Reddit and Quora so well in the Discussion and Forums box for many queries. Just a few days ago, we covered how I was sad to see Google ranking some dangerous and potentially harmf…
Google Responds To The Verge Mocking Its Search Rankings For Best Printer
Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of the Verge posted a new article with the intent to both rank for [best printer] in Google Search, as well as mock Google for how he can game Google’s search rankings using AI-generated content, while throwing in some affi…
Google Crawl Budget Is Allocated By Hostname
Google gives every hostname its own allocated crawl budget. So that means each domain, subdomain, etc has its own unique crawl budget.