Google Local Panel Showing Confirmed By Phone Call (Duplex Related)
Google is now showing how long ago it confirmed a phone number and hours were accurate for a local business. Google can now write in a business local panel “confirmed by phone call” followed by how long ago it was.
Google Ranking Quotas Do Not Exist
Google’s John Mueller said again that websites do not have some form of quota where they can only rank for a limited number of keywords. He said on Twitter “there’s no hard limit for how many pages we show from a site, subdomain or not.”
Google Search Central Virtual Unconference Back Returns For 2022
Martin Splitt from Google announced on Twitter that the Google Search Central Virtual Unconference is returning at the end of this month for the 2022 event. Google held an Unconference 2021 and 2020 and I guess has decided to host one again this year.
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Google Tests Removing Estimated Number Of Search Results
Google Search is testing removing the estimated number of search results figure you typically see under the search bar after you conduct a search query. Google tested this back in 2016 and I guess Google is testing it again.
PSA: Blocking USA Users But Allowing Googlebot Is Against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines
Google sends its crew of crawlers, Googlebot, from the United States. That is where 99% of the crawling originates from. If you are not allowed to show your website to users based in the United States, then you also cannot show that website to Googleb…
Google Business Profiles May Require Additional Verification
Google has updated the help document on how to verify your business to say “we may require you to verify by more than one method.” So if you verify using one method, Google might decide it needs you to verify again but using a different method.
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Google: Translated Content & Garbage Parameters In URLs
You may end up confusing Google when you have “garbage” parameters trailing in your URLs, espesially when it comes to translated content parameters. There is this interesting conversation when a large multilingual site found its translated content exc…
Google Search Console URL Inspection Tool Errors
Yesterday, Google confirmed that some folks trying to use the URL Inspection tool via the console or even the API may be seeing errors. Google said it is working on a fix but almost a day later, some are still having issues and Google has yet to confir…
March 2022 Google Webmaster Report
It is time for the March 2022 Google webmaster report, where I look back at the past 30-days of SEO news related to Google and highlight the most important changes over that time period. This month we had a confirmed rollout begin of the page experienc…
Daily Search Forum Recap: March 1, 2022
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
IndexNow has grown more support over the past week…
IndexNow Added To Duda, All In One WordPress & Rank Math SEO Plugins
Last week, Microsoft Bing announced over the course of three days that IndexNow gained support from Duda (a sponsor here), the All In One WordPress plugin and Rank Math SEO Plugin. This brings support for IndexNow to millions of sites, up from well und…
Google Does Not Use Disavow Files To Target Link Networks
Google’s John Mueller said again that Google does not use the link disavow files for discovery of spammy link networks. He said on Twitter “usually problematic link networks are easier to recognize in other ways. I don’t think the disavow tool would b…
Google: One Site Won’t Always Rank Above Another Site
Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter “it’s never that site A always ranks above site B.” He was asked if Medium articles always rank better than articles found on LinkedIn and John said no. He added “there’s no special search ranking for any particula…
Survey Says Google Will Remain Dominate In 10 Years
Greg Sterling, a search industry analyst (amongst other things), posted a poll on Twitter asking where will Google be in ten years from now. The vast majority of responses said Google will still be dominate in 10 years from now, while only 13% said it…
Google: CSS Colors Are Not A Google Ranking Factor…
Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter “we generally don’t use color as a factor.” He then added “but CSS tweaks can include a lot more than just color changes.” We know that making site changes can impact your rankings but John has said numerous times…
Google Blocks Search Ads From So-Called Donetsk People’s Republic & Luhansk People’s Republic
Google has posted a new legal requirement policy that blocks search ads related to what is going on with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The policy says that entities and individuals who are restricted cannot create or use a Google Ads account or have G…
Google Tests Search Bar Filters & Options On Top Right Side
I am seeing multiple reports of Google placing the search bar filters, you know, the bar that says “all, videos, news, images, more, etc” which is normally placed under the search box, is being tested on the right hand side of the search box. It doesn…
PSA: Google Top Stories Eligibility For All Pages, Not Just AMP Or Good Page Experience Scores
This is just a reminder, since I covered this back last April but I forgot myself, there is really no top stories eligibility requirements in Google Search anymore. It use to be that you needed to have AMP pages to be eligible in top stories on mobile….
Google Internal SEO Experts Hosting SEO Workshop – Is That Okay?
David Mihm pointed out on Twitter that Google is hosting a partner workshop event named “Drive Traffic to Your Website with SEO.” The interesting bit is that the workshop says it is “hosted by one of Google’s internal SEO experts, this workshop will gi…
Google Search Local Pack Is Now Interactive (Not A Static Map)
Allie Margeson from Whitespark noticed that the Google local pack in the search results is no longer a static map. The map is now interactive and lets searchers zoom in and out, move the map around, hover over businesses to see the names and reviews an…