Google: We’re Getting Better At Languages & Location Without Hreflang
Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter that “anecdotally, it feels like we’re already doing much better with getting languages & location right, even without hreflang or geotargeting settings.” This was in response to an excellent question from Glenn Gabe about can Google use MUM AI to figure out page language pairs without hreflang.
Danny Goodwin Joins Search Engine Land : Reaction
As you all know, I have been with Search Engine Land and SMX since the company was founded and the company has been through many changes over the past dozen years or so. This week, Search Engine Land hired seasoned search marketing writer and editor Da…
Google Local Service Ads Allows Alternative Background Checks Process
Ben Fisher spotted an update to the Google Local Service ads help documents around the screening and verification process for businesses. Google added a section that says businesses can request that their “own dedicated background check partner” do the…
Another Unconfirmed Google Search Ranking Update (January 19th & 20th)
Google has been busy over the last couple of weeks after being taking a bit of a break with the new years. It seems we are seeing again signs of another Google search ranking algorithm update occurring yesterday and today, January 19th and 20th. Ther…
Recipe Schema Markup No Longer Supports Ranges For Cook, Prep & Total Time
Google no longer supports time ranges for cook prep and total times times within recipe schema markup and structured data. Google said it removed the “guidance about specifying a range for the cookTime and prepTime properties in the Recipe documentati…
Google Deduplication Of Top Stories From Web Search Results
We know Google has deduplication efforts for when a featured snippet is displayed so that it might remove the snippet from the main web results. Google may do the same, in some cases, for when a URL is listed in the top stories section and then not sho…
Google: SEO Site Migrations Are Hard Because URL Signals Need To Be Forwarded
John Mueller is out with another #AskGooglebot Google SEO video, this one is on site migrations and URL changes. It is a short two minute video on one of the most SEO intimidating changes one can make to their site – change all the URLs on their site….
Some Sites Seeing Massive Crawl Spikes From Googlebot
Glenn Gabe noted that he is seeing some weird Google Googlebot activity recently, saying he is seeing “crawling spike across a number of sites” that started on January 12th through January 13th. I then checked some of the properties and noticed that on…
Google: We Don’t Push Out Search Algorithm Rollouts Right Before Weekends
Google’s Danny Sullivan and John Mueller both said that the search company does not generally launch or begin the rollout of a search algorithm update right before the weekend. Danny Sullivan said on Twitter “it’s fairly unusual in my experience that r…
Will Google Target Fluff Content In Search?
The other day I wrote about how Google said fluff content is hard for search engines to understand and thus rank. I explained how Google does rank content that is surrounded by a lot of fluff. But then I heard John Mueller of Google once again talk ab…
Desktop Page Experience Report Now In Google Search Console
As promised, Google has released the desktop version of the page experience report in Google Search Console. The desktop version is pretty similar to the mobile version, as you’d expect. With the page experience update algorithm coming to desktop nex…
Google Business Profile Edit Large Overlay In Search Results
With Google’s new effort to get business owners to manage their business listing in web search and not in the Google Business Profile manager, formerly Google My Business, Google is now using large overlays to tell businesses they can do so in search.
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Google: Do Not Use Commas, Brackets Or Non-Standard URL Encoding For Faceted Navigation
Google’s John Mueller confirmed that the search company’s 2014 guidance with faceted navigation remains true today – do not use non-standard URL encoding. That means do not use commas, brackets or other non-standard URL encoding in your URL structure….
Google Maps Pins With Review Snippets
Google Maps, the map interface, is testing displaying review snippets, short selected reviews, directly under the name of the business or organization in the map interface under the pin. This was spotted by Allie Margeson who said on Twitter “seeing re…
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 17, 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.
There may be a Google search algorithm update running now and over the weekend…
Google Location Search Pack With Things To Do, Airports & Transit Stops
Google is testing a new layout for location packs that show things to do, airports and transit stops based on the location you are looking at. This is Google mobile search feature that Brian Freiesleben spotted and posted on Twitter.
Google Product Reviews Update Will Expand, May Use Machine Learning & Can Be Incorporated In Core Updates
Google’s John Mueller was asked a series of questions around the product reviews update on last Friday’s video hangout. In short, it will expand to other languages and countries, it probably does use machine learning and eventually it might be incorpo…
Google: Hosting Companies Should Serve 500 Status Code On Robot Detection Interstitial
Google’s John Mueller posted one of those PSA tweets this morning asking hosting companies that trigger robot detection interstitials to not use a 200 status code. John also said not to place a noindex on that page. If you do these things the pages se…
Google: Target CPA In Google Ads Not Going Away In 2022
Google’s Ginny Marvin via the AdsLiaison account on Twitter confirmed that target CPA, tCPA, is not being cancelled in 2022. She wrote “we have no plans to sunset tCPA in 2022” after there were some speculation that it might be turned off in 2022.
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Google Search Ranking Update January 14th & 15th (Unconfirmed)
Friday and Saturday, January 14th and 15th there may have been another unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update. This comes a few days after the unconfirmed January 11th update. There is some chatter but this time, the Google tracking tools …