Reminder: The Google Supplemental Index Has Not Existed In Over A Decade
Over the past several days I have noticed a bunch of SEOs sharing information about the Google supplemental index and talking SEO strategies related to it. Just as a PSA, the Google supplemental index has not been in existence for a dozen or so years n…
Google Updates Crawl Stats Report Help Docs
Google has also updated the crawl stats report help documentation last week. Google made a lot of support documentation changes in the past week including product rich results, Googlebot doc, job posting help doc, moving the HTTP status codes doc and a…
Google: WhatsApp Phone Numbers On Your Site Is Not A Bad SEO Practice
Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter that it is not a bad SEO practice to link to your WhatsApp number on your site. This is despite what some SEO toolsets say, linking to a WhatsApp number, phone number or fax number is fine and Google does not judg…
Google: Keywords In Domain Names Are Overrated
Google’s John Mueller said once again that “keywords in domain names are overrated.” He and Googlers over time have said this numerous times over the years and he said it again. Instead he said “pick something for your business, pick something for the …
Google Tries YouTube Shorts For SEO Help Content
Back in March, Gary Illyes and friends hinted that they may try creating short form video content for the Google help documents. Well, Google’s Alan Kent produced one of the first ones on the topic of why it is important to specify image dimensions.
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Google: Ignore Black Hat Traffic, We Do.
Google’s John Mueller said it is safe to ignore black hat traffic, he said it is just spam and there is no need to worry about it from an SEO perspective. He said on Twitter that black hat traffic is just spam and you should ignore it.
Updates To Google HTTP Status Codes, Googlebot & Job Posting Help Docs
Google has made changes to a few of its Google search help documentation over the past couple of days. The documents updated include HTTP status codes, the Googlebot and job posting help documentation.
Google Says Content Not Visible On Page Is No Longer Less Important
In the recent Search Off The Record podcast, Gary Illyes of Google said Google no longer assigns less importance to content or items that are not visible on the page. It just needs to be in the HTML or “immediate JavaScript” and it matters to Google.
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Google: Hyphens Still Recommended Over Underscores In URLs For SEO
Gary Illyes from Google reiterated that it is still best for SEO purposes to use hyphens as separators in your URLs over using underscores are separators in your URLs. Why? Gary explained “we can’t easily segment at underscore and that’s why we are re…
Google Clarifies How To Use Product Rich Results On Product Variants Pages
Google has updated the product rich results support page to add details around how these rich results can be used for product variants where each product variant has a distinct URL.
Changing Your Logo Hurt Your SEO Or Google Rankings? Probably Not.
Google’s John Mueller was asked if swapping out your logo on your site for the site’s birthday with a special birthday logo can hurt your SEO. John said on Twitter “I’ve never seen issues around that.” In fact, Google does it all the time on its home…
Google: Good Web Sites Are Good For SEO
Google’s John Mueller stated somewhat of an obvious statement, saying basically that building a good website is often good for SEO. He said on Twitter “A lot of good accessibility best practices are also good SEO best practices, and just generally, mak…
Google: Don’t Publish Empty Or Blank Pages
An SEO asked Google’s John Mueller if it is okay or even a good idea to publish blank or empty pages so Google can find those URLs? John Mueller said no, don’t publish empty pages to the web.
Google Search Console Reports Now Show Invalid Or Valid Classifications
Google has just announced that it updated its reports in Search Console to show if an error is invalid or valid in terms of it being an issue for Google to process for indexing and ranking. This is being done to better communicate if an error is causin…
Google Product Reviews Update Still English Only, For Now…
Google has pushed out three Product Reviews Updates, the latest being in March 2022. There was some confusion on if that March Product Reviews Update was more global in nature or just was focused on English language content. I wrote it was English onl…
Video: Does Google Search Rollout Algorithm Updates Globally
You probably all know the answer to this question, since we covered this countless times. But John Mueller of Google made a super short official Google from Google saying some search algorithm updates roll out globally and some are regional or language…
Google: It’s Not About 301 Redirects Passing Full Credit Or Not
Google’s John Mueller was asked on Twitter if 301 redirected links pass full credit or not. John responded that “I wouldn’t see it as “full credit or not”, but rather – as mentioned in our docs – it’s a good practice for any move to update the importa…
New Google Documentation On Vary: Cookie Support For Signed Exchanges
Google has recently added new information around Vary: Cookie support in the signed exchanges Google Search help documents. This comes shortly after Google decided to bring support signed exchanges for some desktop sites.
Legacy Google Search Console Messages Going Away August 1, 2022
Google is removing the legacy Google Search Console messages on August 1, 2022. If you try to access the old messages console Google has a warning at the top that reads “Important: This report won’t be available after Aug 1, 2022. Please use the new Me…
Video Page Indexing Report Beta In Google Search Console
At Google I/O we caught a super early glimpse of the video page indexing report. Well, now some of those who are part of the beta group in Google Search Console are seeing the report in their Search Console profiles.