Google Knowledge Panels Can Show Competitors As Alternatives
So you get this fancy knowledge panel for your company name and/or product names and people search you on Google and can see how amazing your business is in this knowledge panel. But then all of a sudden, Google decides to show “alternatives” or compet…
Google Search Dropping Three Pack For Two Pack (Local Results)
Joy Hawkins is saying she is noticing evidence that Google is testing, testing heavily, showing a two-pack instead of a three-pack. I personally cannot replicate this and I only rarely ever see two results in the local pack (for extremely remote queri…
Google Easter Egg: Ever Given At Suez Canal
If you do a search on Google for [ever given] or [suez canal], you will see a new Google easter egg. You will see boats floating along under the search bar. Yes, this was an easter egg Google made to celebrate when the Ever Given was freed from being …
Google: Don’t Have Open Redirects On Your Website
Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter that Google “generally recommends not keeping open redirects.” An open redirect is when a parameter values (the portion of URL after “?”) in an HTTP GET request allow for information that will redirect a user to a…
Google Updated The Core Web Vitals & Page Experience FAQs
In December 2020, Google posted a Core Web Vitals & Page Experience FAQs. Well, Google has just updated those FAQs to add a lot more detail. The most important thing that I wanted to pull out are these line “out systems will continue to prioritize pages with the best information overall, even if some aspects of page experience are subpar. A good page experience doesn’t override having great, relevant content.”
Google Limits Key Moments Feature To Small Set Of Video Providers
Google has updated its help documents to explain that now it has limited which video providers can show up with the key moments interface in Google Search. It is available for all YouTube videos based on just adding a video description and now a “smal…
Microsoft To Share More Details On Bing Content Submission API
In October 2019, Fabrice Canel of Microsoft told us about a new content submission API to not feed just URLs to Bing but to feed the content on those URLs to Bing as well. Well, more details about this API are coming next month said Fabrice Canel.
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Google: Bad Idea To Make Your Images Low Quality To Improve Core Web Vital Scores
Often when it comes to getting a better score in some of the core web vital metrics it is about making your images faster to load. One SEO asked if they can downsize the images in a very heavy way where the image would become blurry in order to improv…
Google: We Do Not Measure Title Tags By Pixels
Martin Splitt from Google confirmed that Google Search does not measure title tags by the number of pixels. He said “that was a joke” when it was mentioned in the live version of the Search Off The Record podcast.
Google Maps To Improve Curbside Pickup & Delivery Features
Google announced this morning new features to improve Google Maps, including improved curbside pickup and delivery options. Plus, the company announced improvements to indoor live view navigation, air quality data and driving directions that are eco-f…
Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update This Weekend?
Before going offline for this long three-day holiday, I saw rumblings of a possible Google update about to rollout. I was a bit nervous it was a core update but Google did not confirm any update and now that I am back online, the chatter, although ele…
Google News Algorithmic Inclusion Is A Failure For Publishers
Back in December 2019 or so, Google stopped the requirement for news publishers to manually submit their news site to be included in Google News. Instead, Google said it will automatically through its algorithms figure out what sites to include in Goog…
Fabrice Canel From Microsoft Bing Wants To Build Instant Indexing Into WordPress
As I covered at Search Engine Land the other day, Fabrice Canel From Microsoft issued a feature request to WordPress to bake into the product instant indexing. Well, really, instant pushing of URLs to the search engines so the search engines don’t hav…
Microsoft Advertising Automated & Auto-Applied Ad Suggestions
I am surprised I am not seeing more concern with the latest Microsoft Advertising notice that it will automate its ad suggestions and if you do not specifically tell Microsoft within 14 days that you dislike that suggestion, the company will auto-apply…
Google Won’t Test FLoC In Europe – Not Yet At Least
Marshall Vale from Google said on Twitter that Google will first begin testing FLoC, the company’s cookie alternative, in the US and select countries. It will not be testing FLoC in European countries to start likely because of GDPR concerns.
Google My Business Sent Out User Survey
The Google My Business team is looking for ways to improve and sent out an survey to a bunch of businesses asking them for feedback. Andy Simpson shared some screenshots of the survey on Twitter.
Vlog #113: Dan Toplitt On The Evolving Role Of SEOs & SEO Hiring Trends
In part one with Dan Toplitt we spoke about how enterprise SEOs look at the larger picture of things but in part two, which is what this video is about, we spoke about the role of SEOs and how that changes over time and then what trends he sees in hiri…
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Zero Google Click Study, Final Mobile First Indexing, Page Experience Rollout & Search Console News
This was an interesting week, let’s start with the Sparktoro study claiming 65% of all searches done on Google do not lead to a click to a website. Then Google responded saying this is a misleading statement. This all led to a lot of debate on…
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Programming Note: Offline For Passover On Monday – March 29th
This is a programming note that I will be 100% offline Monday, Marc h 29th for the Passover holiday. Technically, I will be offline straight from Friday night through Monday night, so if anything blows up over the weekend, I won’t get to it until Tuesd…
Google Adds Free Property To Dataset Structured Data Docs
Google has added isAccessibleForFree to the datasets structured data help document. This new property tells Google Search if the dataset is accessible for free or if you need to pay to access the data.