Google January 7th Search Ranking Algorithm Update Early Signals
I am seeing some early signals of a possible Google search ranking algorithm update starting today, January 7, 2020. There is some chatter within the SEO community and some of the tools are picking up on ranking fluctuations.
Bing’s Frédéric Dubut: Keyword Research Practices Should Be Replaced By Intent Research
At SMX the team did a short interview with Frédéric Dubut, the PM of overall Bing’s core search team, who said that he thinks SEOs need to move from keyword based research practices to intent research practices. He said with search engines focusing more on intent versus keywords, with the deployment of BERT and other machine learning techniques – that is an important area SEOs should focus on in 2020.
Google Mocks SEO Strategy To Update Stories With “2020” Titles & Headlines
I see a lot of SEOs over the years push out new stories, repurposed, with a new headline for the new year. So this year you’d see articles on “how to optimize for Google BERT in 2020” whereas last year it would be “how to optimize for Google BERT in 2…
Medium Google Organic Traffic Takes A Beating
It seems that Medium, the popular publishing platform, hasn’t been doing too well in Google over the past couple of months – especially since December. And it seems like it is getting worse. Some are saying the site has 40% declines in organic visibil…
Google Reminds Us To Fix Internal Links That 404
Google posted a response on the Google Webmaster Twitter account reminding us that when you get 404 error reports, you should make sure your internal links are not causing it. Meaning, make sure your internal links are not 404ing to a page that does no…
January 2020 Google Webmaster Report
Here is the first Google webmaster report of 2020, the January 2020 report is pretty packed. We had Google confirm in December that there was a local search update in November…
Vlog #34: A.J. Ghergich On Scaling An Agency, Not Chasing The Google Algorithm & Searcher Intentions
A.J. Ghergich invited me to his office in St. Louis right by Busch Stadium where the St. Louis Cardinals play. He is an SEO guy but he is now doing a full service health and life sciences agency named Brado. A.J…
Google Company Culture Not Doing Well?
There has been a string of articles in the past few weeks about Google not being the same company it use to be. The culture, the strive, the attitude and passion, the do no evil, seems to have somewhat gone out of the window. I don’t have any inside in…
Google: Put Voice Search Optimization Fad To Sleep Already
Gary Illyes from Google posted on Twitter “It’s a new year, maybe we can put the voice search optimization fad to sleep finally…” What does he mean by this? I don’t think he means that voice searches aren’t growing but rather that SEOs can optimize…
Google: Fewer Page Types Is Easier
Google’s John Mueller was asked by a webmaster if he should remove the mobile alternative pages since the site is now responsive. John Mueller said yes, saying “Fewer page types make things easier, so if you can migrate away from m-dot that seems like…
Google Snippet Shows List Includes For Some List Based Content
Brian Freiesleben posted a screen shot, that I can replicate on mobile, of Google adding to a snippet “list includes.” Google is showing the listed items but titling those lists in the snippet with “list includes.” This is not on desktop, but right now…
Search Buzz Video Recap: Google New Years Update, Video Text To Speech Spam, Google’s Company Culture Failing?
Happy new years everyone, but there may have been a Google search algorithm update on New Years, I doubt it…
Google Displays “Get More Reviews” For Local Knowledge Panels You Manage
Google has changed the button for your local knowledge panel from “write a review” to “get more reviews” for the businesses you manage. When you click that new button, Google gives you a way to share with people the ability to leave reviews for your b…
Google Local Pack “Choose Area” Feature Now Live
About six months ago Google was testing an option to select or “choose” your area or location when a local pack comes up in the search results. Well, now I even see the “choose area” link for local pack results after six-months of testing.
Google Video Spam Through Text-To-Speech Technology
Roger Montti posted on Twitter that he is seeing more and more spammers using a technique to spam Google through videos. In short, the spammers would find the top ranking content, use text-to-speech software to create automated videos of the content, w…
Google: Persistent 5xx Result In Slower Crawling But Won’t Say How Many URLs Required
Google’s John Mueller said that persistent 5xx error responses to Google’s requests by your server would result in Google slowing its crawl of your web site. John wouldn’t say if there is a specific percentage of your site’s URLs that are required or …
Google New Years Search Algorithm Update? Mixed Signals.
There is some significant chatter in the SEO industry around a possible new years update that started late December 31, 2019 and throughout January 1, 2020. The chatter is high but similar to the Christmas update chatter, the tracking tools are not s…
John Mueller Of Google Helping Webmasters On New Years 2020
Just like on every Christmas, John Mueller from Google dials up to the internet and logs on to the support channels on New Years and helps out folks in the Google Webmaster support and social media channels. He has done it year after year on New Year…
Google’s New Year’s Day Doodle For 2020
It is a new year, 2020, in some places now and if you visit the Google home page in those locations you can see Google’s frog-themed New Year’s Day Doodle. The frog is also looking out at a city landscape, over the water, as the sunrises. It looks li…
Lists On Google Maps Search Carousel For Restaurants?
Google is testing a new search user interface treatment for map results called “Lists on Google Maps.” This shows you a carousel of results from Google Maps, Google My Business listings, that you can scroll through and learn more about.