New Google Maps Community Feed Within The Explore Tab
Google Maps has added a new social feature in the map software named the “community feed.” It can be found in the explorer tab within the Google Maps app on Android and iOS. It is a way for you to find out what the community is sharing about a specifi…
17 Years Covering The Search Industry
Today marks the 17th anniversary of starting this site, the Search Engine Roundtable. I’ve been writing about search for over 40% of my life – which is weird to think about. And I’ve been doing it consistently every workday, several times per day, even…
Google Merchant Center: Build Your Own Performance Reports
Google Merchant Center seems to be rolling out a new reporting feature that lets you build your own performance report. You should be able to access this in the Google Merchant Center under the “Performance” tab.
Google Local Panel Adjusts How To Suggest An Edit To Store Hours
Google has made a small tweak to the “suggest an edit” feature in the local panel results. Yes, you can still suggest an edit but now if you click on the arrow to expand the hours of that business or store, Google will let you suggest an edit specific…
Google: We Do Not Support Nested XML Sitemap Index Files
Ryan Siddle, an SEO, asked John Mueller of Google if Google supports nested XML sitemap index files. The answer is no, Google does not support it. But Google does have a help document on how to split up your large sitemap files.
Google: We Don’t Differentiate Search For Travel In X vs Live In X
So let’s say you are searching for pizza stores in Saint Moritz, Switzerland – does that mean you live there or you are about to travel there. Google’s John Mueller said while Google does try to understand where you are searching from, it does not dif…
Google Global Holiday Doodles Throughout All Of December 2020
Google will have a new holiday Doodle on its home page, Google.com, throughout all of December 2020. I guess for 2020 the company is looking to spread the holiday cheer as it does best, through its Doodles, special Google logos.
Google: Longer Anchor Text Is Not Better But May Provide More Context
On Friday, Google’s John Mueller was asked if longer or better anchor text is better. Anchor text are the words in the hyperlink, so the underlined blue link (in many cases). John said longer versus shorter anchor text is not better or worse, it just…
Google Search Podcast Carousel Updated With Larger Graphics
A couple of weeks ago Google started to test a new design for displaying podcasts in Google Search. The new design adds larger images and longer descriptions of the podcast episode.
Yes, Anchor Text Is A Google Ranking Factor
I am a bit surprised I am writing this but yes, anchor text is a signal Google uses for ranking purposes. Yes, Google can ignore spammy links that try to manipulate rankings but normal anchor text does help Google rank a page for what the anchor text …
Google: Why It May Appear Your JavaScript Page Is Not Fully Rendered Before Indexed
Mark Williams-Cook posted the results of an SEO Twitter poll that said most believe Google does not fully render a JavaScript page/document prior to ranking. In fact, the results showed that almost 70% of SEOs felt those pages were not always rendered…
Vlog #96: Elie Orgel On Writing Unique Robust Content That Ranks Well In Google (Part Two)
In part two of my interview with Elie Orgel (you can see part one here) we talked about how to get content and data that Google has not indexed yet. A lot of governmental web sites and portals do provide data exports and weird charting solutions that …
Some Google AdSense Publishers Receive Multiple Payments/Deposits
There are reports of some Google AdSense publishers receiving more than one deposit or payment from Google this month. In fact, I received a few myself, and I am not exactly sure why. The payments report shows weird cancelled earnings and rebilled ea…
Google: We Can Still Rank A Page After Matching Content Is Removed
Let’s say your company name is Google and then after 17 years you decide to change your name to Alphabet – just a theoretical name change. So you remove Google from all your home page and change it to Alphabet. Did you know that the home page can stil…
Google Maps Tests Address Numbers On The Map
Google seems to be testing displaying address numbers in the Google Maps user interface. I personally cannot replicate this but Joy Hawkins was able to see it and shared a screen shot.
Google Local Suggest An Edit Placement Moved On Mobile
Google has moved the feature to “suggest an edit” from in the main mobile list view of a local listing to in the three vertical dots bar. So it is a bit harder to find now but it now takes up less space in the local panel.
Click Bots Won’t Improve Your Google Rankings
A post on Reddit asks what is stopping someone from building a bot to click on your Google search result listings, going to your site, spending some time there and sending Google positive click data. The truth is, no one is stopping you from doing th…
Search Buzz Video Recap: Google Ranking Fluctuations, Featured Snippets With Augmented Links, Google-Generated Web Stories Deindexed & New Crawl Stats
Although this is the Thanksgiving holiday week, it was not slow at all in terms of search news and changes. First, we had an unconfirmed Google search ranking update earlier this week…
Google’s Socially Distant Thanksgiving Day Logo: History of Thanksgiving
Google has a socially distant Thanksgiving Doodle, logo, up on its home page in the US today. You can see the “furry and feathered friends” talking over a tin can with string telephone from branch to branch. Yahoo also has a turkey logo and Bing has …
Google Search Console Crawl Stats Report Is Now Outstanding
Google has announced the launch of the new crawl stats report and to be honest, it is a huge upgrade from the previous report. This report now gives you data you can use to debug crawl issues and check the health of your site with crawl related issues…