Vlog #80: Patrick Stox – Heavy On Technical SEO with a Touch Of Humor
Patrick Stox (@patrickstox) is now the Product Advisor, Technical SEO, & Brand Ambassador at Ahrefs. Prior to that he was at IBM, he worked there for four years. This was my last interview at SMX West, so I was a bit loopy…
August 15th – Another Possible Big Google Search Algorithm & Ranking Update
Super rare that I come on, on a Saturday night, and write something here. But I turned up the computer after Shabbat ended and I see the SEO community is buzzing in a big way about some significant changes to the Google search results today. This is n…
Search Buzz Video Recap: Google Indexing System Failure Caused Major Search Result Fluctuations
Well, this was an interesting week, to say the least. Monday afternoon we saw some insane Google search ranking fluctuations with really unusual search results coming from Google. It turned out it was a glitch with Google’s indexing system that trickle…
Google Can Help You Find Live TV & Sports Games
Yesterday Google announced it can now help you find live TV shows to watch and also live sports game through the MLB and NBA leagues. Google said “today we’re adding new features to Google Search in the U.S. to help you quickly find the live games you’…
Google Explains That Canonicalization Is About Duplication Management
Google has another SEO mythbusting video, this one is on canonicalization and it is with Rachel Costello and Martin Splitt. Martin Splitt explained first you need to understand that canonicalization is about duplication management. But the whole vide…
Google My Business Upgraded Its Inline Editing In Search & Maps
Google announced that you can now edit your Google My Business listing directly from Google Search and Google Maps. Truth is, this is a feature Google kind of launched in 2017 but now Google improved the user interface and made some additional improvem…
Google: High Domain Authority With Backlinks Does Not Guarantee High Rankings
Google’s John Mueller said even if your site has “high domain authority with backlinks” there is no guarantee that it will lead to high Google rankings. This is a good continuation from our coverage of Moz spam score and DA not being Google ranking fa…
Google: No Such Thing As Too Many Outbound Links
Google’s John Mueller was asked if there is such a thing as having too many outbound links, even if those links are natural. John said “I’m not aware of anything like that.” He did add that maybe there is a situation where you are lacking content beca…
Video On How Google Search Improves Results Both Algorithmically & Via Policies
Yesterday, Google published a new short video on how Google search works. This was on specifically how Google Search continues to improve results. Clearly this is in response to the US Congressional hearings from a few weeks ago. The video is super si…
Moz Spam Score Does Not Influence Your Google Rankings
Google’s John Mueller sometimes has to confirm the more obvious questions including that Google does not use DA, a Moz metric. And now that Google does not use the spam score metric from DA. Believe it or not, Google uses its own scores, signals and r…
Google Tests Search Results Interface Without Borders
We saw Google testing featured snippets without being enclosed in borders. Well, now Google is testing its search results interface without borders around any of the search result features. Not the people also ask, not the knowledge panels, not the loc…
Google My Business: Your Menu Managed By An External Service
Google My Business seems to be rolling out a useful feature to let business owners, mostly restaurants, know that their menus displayed on their local listing is managed by an external service. This screen shot, shared by Thibault Adda, shows an examp…
Google Image Search Highlight Can Now Highlight Text On Your Web Pages
You know that Google Search on some browsers can now highlight text and even scroll down to the portion of the page with the text from the search results page to your web page. Well, now it seems to also work not just in web searches featured snippets…
500 SEOs Waitlisted For The Google Virtual Webmaster Unconference
Like we reported yesterday, the Google Virtual Webmaster Unconference was sold out within a few hours after it was announced. Google opened up a few more spots yesterday morning but those were taken very quickly. Martin Splitt of Google said there ar…
Google Local Listing Reviews Asking More Questions
It looks like Google is expanding on its local listing reviews for service level businesses. Amy Toman posted a screen shot showing how when she selected five stars to give to a power washing company, Google then asked her if she used the business and…
Google Merchant Center New Attribute To Exclude Products From Certain Countries
Google Merchant Center added a new technical attribute you can use to exclude some or all of your products from displaying in specific countries. The new attribute is shopping_ads_excluded_country and you can use it in your product feeds to communicate…
Google Tests People Also Ask On Right Side Bar
Google is testing placing the people also ask box on the right side column of the search results interface. Normally this shows up on the left hand search results side but here is a screen shot from Mordy Oberstein showing it on the right side.
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Google Says Not Correct: It Does Not Monitor Sites Listed In Disavow Files
There have always been rumors that if you are listed in someones disavow file that it can end up hurting your site. But Google has said time and time again that is not true. Being in a disavow file won’t end up hurting you Google said. And it won’t l…
Google: An Indexing System Failure Caused The Search Results Glitch
Just to catch you all up, on Monday afternoon we saw some insane changes to the search results rankings. Google confirmed later it was a bug and things were back to normal. Google then explained the bug stemmed from the indexing system. But what doe…
That Massive Google Update Was Glitch & Bug – Search Results Back To Normal
Yesterday afternoon I reported on one of the biggest Google updates we have seen in a long time. It was so big and the results were so all over the place, many suspected it was a bug. And a bug it was. A Google spokesperson confirmed with me over ema…