Google: .gov Domain Names Do Not Get A Ranking Boost
John Mueller of Google said again, .gov TLDs, top level domain names, do not get a ranking boost or preference in Google search. Having a .gov, just because it is a .gov, does not directly help you rank better. However, a lot of .gov domain names hav…
Google: A Site Won’t Outrank You Just By Using Hidden Text
Google’s John Mueller said on Reddit “A site is not going to outrank your site just because of hidden text.” He also added “Inversely, just having hidden text on a page won’t get the site banned from Google.”
Google: We Made Significant Updates To Mobile-First Indexing Developer Docs
Google has announced that it made “significant updates” to its developers documentation on mobile-first indexing. You can see the new docs over here and here is the cached version that is old (updated in October 2019).
Vlog #39: Mike Grehan – The Search Industry Pioneer Who Sees The Future
Mike Grehan (@mikegrehan) is one of the first people I looked to for guidance, knowledge and education when I first began my journey in the SEO industry…
Video: Google Image Search Ranking & Optimization
Google has released a new video on how image search rankings work. John Mueller of Google answered how to rank images on Google and provided useful tips on the topic.
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 21, 2020
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.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
Google To Drop Data-Vocabulary On April 6th…
Overthinking Natural Links? Google: If It Is Natural, It Is Natural.
Is it this simple? John Mueller of Google said on Twitter “You’re overthinking it. If the link is natural, then it’s a natural link.” It makes sense to me? I mean, if you are building and forcing new links, is that natural? Is there a gray area?
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Google AMP Stories Expands To Animals, Insects & More
When Google launched AMP Stories, it was mostly to cover people and news events around people. Now it seems to have expanded beyond human beings and to animals, insects and more.
Google: Here Is Some Of What SEOs Do…
John Mueller of Google was asked “I’d like to become the greatest SEO ever, what would you advise him to study?” John responded “There are so many interesting facets of what SEOs do, I’d recommend trying out different areas to find one those you’re pa…
Google To Drop Data-Vocabulary On April 6th, All In On Schema.org
Google announced this morning that after April 6, 2020 it will no longer support the data-vocabulary markup for rich results. Google is going all in with Schema.org. Google said “with the increasing usage and popularity of schema.org we decided to focu…
Vlog #38: Josef Sperzel On Using Python For SEO Gains & Technical SEO
Josef Sperzel (@josefsperzel) when I interviewed him he was the VP Director of SEO at Mediahub…
Martin Luther King Jr. Day Google Doodle
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States. Like every year, Google has a Doodle, a special Google logo, for the day. Today’s Doodle was illustrated by Atlanta-based guest artist Dr. Fahamu Pecou. Dr. Pecou has an ongoing series of iconi…
Google Hiding Like Reviews With More Link – A Bug or Test?
Google may be testing or it may be a bug hiding reviews by collapsing them in a “more” links. This was spotted by Jason Brown and posted on Twitter but others said they have seen this recently as well.
Tweets In Google Featured Snippets & People Also Ask
Shay Harel, the founder of RankRanger, spotted Google showing a tweet, yes, a post from Twitter, in the Google featured snippet section and people also ask section. Here is his screen shots via Mordy on Twitter.
Did Google Change How To Schema In November 2019 Update?
Jeff Hawley shared on Twitter that he thinks Google not only is showing how-to schema more randomly and less often but also changed how they function a bit. This, he said, coincided with the November update.
Google: Domains Are The Most Important Part Of URLs
Over the past several years, espesially with the changes to Google’s Chrome browser, SEOs have been worried that the domain names would be removed from the search result snippets. Danny Sullivan from Google kind of squashed that rumor on Twitter the o…
Google Search Showing Wrong URL In Snippets
Google is now showing the incorrect URL in the snippets. It isn’t a massive problem because when you click on the result, it takes you to the correct place. But Google is placing a www on the URL when it is not there. For example, a search for [harw…
Google: Good Spam Reports Can Lead To Broad Spam Action
Danny Sullivan from Google responded to complaints about spam in Google search asking the user to report the spam using the form. The user complained and Danny responded that good spam reports often lead to “a deep dive to understand networks and take…
Google Once Again Says Structured Data Does Not Impact Ranking
Google, once again, had to say structured data does not impact ranking in web search. But this time Google had to say it because their structured data warnings in Google Search Console were confusing to understand and came off like bad structured data …
Google: January 2020 Core Update Mostly Done Rolling Out But Is It?
Google has said that the January 2020 core update is “mostly done” when I and others asked if it was done rolling out. Google said “the update is mostly done, though as with any core update, it may take to two weeks to fully complete.” But is it?
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