Google Ads Login Bug Did Not Impact Ad Serving Or Reporting
Google confirmed it has an issue with the login feature to the Google Ads console. Google said on Twitter “At ~8am PDT we experienced an outage for
New York Times Search Ranking Drop After Google BERT Update
The New York Times said it may have seen a “huge” impact from the Google BERT update and by impact it means a decline in search traffic from the search engine. Hannah Poferl, the Associate Masthead Editor for Audience at The New York Times told me so …
Google: We Are Not Working On Content Submission & Crawling Removal
Earlier this month, Bing announced a pilot to allow some publishers to submit content and the HTML to the search engine without Bing having to crawl the page at all. This would effectively remove the requirement to crawl these sites. I asked Google i…
Vlog #22: Eric Enge On SEO Testing, Structuring Content & Managing Client Expectations
Here is part two of my interview with Eric Enge (@stonetemple) where we get into more SEO focused topics…
Google: Don’t Crawl Your Site To Build A Sitemap File
I never understood why people would use a crawler to build their XML sitemap file. I guess if you don’t have access to read the database of your CMS you would do that but seems so inefficient. John Mueller of Google said that also on Reddit.
Daily Search Forum Recap: October 29, 2019
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:
The Google BERT Update Felt Small But Was Big
As you know…
The Google BERT Update Felt Small But Was Big
As you know, I watch the SEO community closely. I also watch Google algorithm update chatter and signals closely. When I was reporting about those Google updates last week, they seemed on the weaker side, but then Google announced BERT rolled out thro…
Google My Business Messaging Adds Photos
The Google My Business app is testing allowing business owners communicate with its customers not just through text but also through photos. Some business owners can now send photos to customers who message them via Google Maps and Google Local.
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Elon Musk: It’s Hard To Google Tesla Solar Panels
Elon Musk, the co-founder of PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX and the list goes on and on, said on Twitter that it is hard to go to Google and find Tesla’s solar roof panels. He said “Unfortunately, it’s hard to google Tesla solar links due to tons of ads & SEO.”
Google: Links With Diminishing Traffic Are Not Any Less Valuable
Google said in its Google Webmaster Twitter account that diminishing traffic of a backlink does not lower the value of that backlink in the eyes of Google. That was the question and Google said no, it does not lower the value of that link in terms of …
Google: Internal PageRank Sculpting Is A Waste Of Time
Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter that he believes using the nofollow link attribute for internal PageRank sculpting is a waste of time. He said “I think it’s a waste of time to do that.”
Google To Stop Indexing Content Within Flash This Year
Google announced this morning that it will stop indexing content within Adobe Flash files, SWF files, this year. Google said “Google Search will stop supporting Flash later this year. In Web pages that contain Flash content, Google Search will ignore …
Google: There Is Nothing To Optimize For With BERT
On Friday, Google said it launched the biggest change it made to search within Google in the past five years by releasing BERT. And as expected, Google said that you cannot optimize for BERT, just like you can’t optimize for RankBrain.
Google Changes Expandable Featured Snippet Look
Google has had expandable featured snippets officially for over a year now but Google seems to have recently been testing changing the design and layout of those. It is now showing less content in the expandable element. I should note – I personally c…
Poll: 50% Of SEOs Have Bought Links In Past Five Years
Here is another fun poll Lily Ray posted on Twitter, asking if you or your company have bought links in the past five years. The results are literally 50/50. I retweeted it to help get more of a response last week and with over 1,000 responses, it is …
Google’s New How Google Search Works Video
Previously, I believe, the how search works video that was used on the How Search Works portal at Google was a video created by Matt Cutts on a whiteboard back in 2012. Google has updated that video to be more inline with 2019 standards.
Google BERT Update Impacts 10% Queries & Has Been Rolling Out All Week
This morning Google announced that starting earlier this week, throughout the week, Google has been pushing out what it calls “biggest leap forward in the past five years, and one of the biggest leaps forward in the history of search.” That is the BERT…
Google My Business Tests Auto Replies For Reviews
Google My Business seems to be testing a new feature to help business owners respond to reviews left by customers in Google Maps. Cordell Crowley posted this GIF of it in action in the Local Search Forums, where Google is auto-suggesting replies for r…
Google Corporate Contact Markup For Knowledge Panels Deprecated
Google has officially deprecated the corporate contact markup for knowledge panels. Lizzi Harvey from Google posted about it on Twitter, she said “Corporate Contact markup for Google knowledge panels is deprecated. If you’re verified as an official rep…
Google Knowledge Panel Has A Countdown Widget
Did you know that the Google knowledge panel can show a countdown widget? Valentin Pletzer showed me a screen shot yesterday of Google counting down to the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare release date. Instead of it showing the date, which is October 15,…