Google: It’s A Terrible Idea To Disavow Links Based On Third-Party Metrics
Google’s John Mueller said it is a “terrible idea” to disavow links based on metrics from a third-party tool. In fact, John is not a fan of disavowing links in most cases.
Confirmed Google Merchant Center Feed Issues
Google has posted that the Google Merchant Center feeds have issues. The notice is posted here and reads, “We’re investigating reports of an issue with Feeds. We will provide more information shortly.”
Google Updates Canonicalization Help Document: Don’t Use Canonicals For Syndicated Content
Google has updated its help documentation for canonicalization. It removed a line about syndicated content and also updated a line about noindex to prevent selection of a canonical page within a single site.
Google Discover Won’t Show Content Filtered By SafeSearch, Says Google
Google Discover generally should not show content or images that Google’s SafeSearch filter would block. Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, said this on Twitter a few weeks ago but this was implied by previous statements from other Googlers over …
Google: Avoid Using “Coming Back Soon” Pages For Site Migrations
Google’s John Mueller said he would “try very hard to avoid having a “coming back soon” page during a revamp.” He said if you must have the “coming back soon” page then do so for a day or so but serve a 503 server status code.
Google: We Use A Mix Of Factors To Determine Content That Demonstrates E-E-A-T
Google has been saying for years now that there is no E-A-T (or now E-E-A-T) algorithm, but Google does have factors and signals it looks for that align with the values around determining content that demonstrates E-E-A-T. Google repeated it the other …
Google On Using Noindex & Canonical Tags
Historically, Google has said you should not use a noindex along with a canonical tag at the same time. But not always. John Mueller of Google said recently, “it depends.” He said it depends on whether the pages are identical and if you want them index…
Google: Page Experience Is A Ranking Signal, Not A Ranking System
Google is now saying that page experience, mobile-friendliness, page speed, and secure site are ranking “signals” but were never ranking “systems.” “It just meant these weren’t ranking *systems* but instead signals used by other systems,” Danny Sulli…
You Can No Longer Opt Out Of Google’s Education Q&A Carousel
Google has removed the ability to opt out of Education Q&A carousel in its search results. The original help documentation had a section with a link to a form to request not to show your content in the Education Q&A carousel, which was now removed.
Google Now Supports 50 Countries For Return applicableCountry Property
Google has noted that it now supports 25 more countries for the applicableCountry property within the new return policy information to the Product structured data documentation. Now Google supports 50 countries for this property.
Is Google Search Rewriting More Titles Again?
Some SEOs are seeing Google rewrite more of their titles to something shorter and maybe less descriptive than they would prefer to display in the Google search results.
Google Search Wants You To Report Inaccurate Site Names
Google’s John Mueller posted a new form asking you to submit feedback to Google about when the site name Google shows in search is not what you’d expect it to be. The form was posted a few days ago, so if you have not submitted any issues you’ve found…
Google Documents Its Three Types Of Web Crawlers
Google has updated its Verifying Googlebot and other Google crawlers help document to add a new section describing the three categories or types of crawlers they have. They have their Googlebot crawler, special-case crawlers and user-triggered crawlers.
Google Drops Mobile-Friendly, Page Speed, Secure Sites & Page Experience As Retired Ranking Systems
Google has updated its documented ranking systems page over here to remove four ranking systems from the list, including removing three ranking systems. Google has removed the page experience system from the main list, not adding it to the retired lis…
Here Is What Changed with the Google Helpful Content Guidance – Page Experience & More
Yesterday, Google announced it made some changes to its guidance around what makes content considered helpful, including adding in good page experience to the equation. Google also made some other changes to this document, which I will detail below.
Google Search Console To Drop Page Experience Report, Mobile Usability Report & Mobile-Friendly Tests
In the coming months, Google will deprecate the page experience report within Google Search Console, the mobile usability report, and the mobile-friendly testing tool. The core web vitals and HTTPs report will remain in Google Search Console.
Google Publisher Center Reader Revenue Manager & Search Console Subscribed Content Report
Google has launched some goodies for news publishers, including a new Reader Revenue Manager within the Google Publisher Center and a Subscribed content report in Google Search Console.
GoogleOther: A New Generic Google Crawler To Help Googlebot
Google has added a new crawler to its list of Google Crawlers and user agents, this one is named GoogleOther. It is described as a “generic crawler that may be used by various product teams for fetching publicly accessible content from sites.”
Google: If You Can’t Block No Result Found Internal Search Results Then Block All Search Results
Google’s John Mueller went on a bit of a rant on Reddit on the topic of having your internal search result pages crawlable and indexable. As you know, in general, Google does not want to index search results but John said, this is especially true for s…
Google Expands Return / Shipping Details In Search Results & New Search Console Reporting
Google announced that it can now show expanded shipping and return information in the Google search results snippets. Google also added new Search Console reporting to help merchants debug these shipping and return structured data elements.