You Can Now Edit Google Maps Business Listings When Unverified
Google announced that you can now make some edits to Google My Business listings as an unverified business owner within Google My Business. Google said “Business owners will be able to suggest edits to some core business information directly from thei…
Search Buzz Video Recap: Google October Algorithm Update, GoogleBot�s New Name, Search Console Changes & More
This week we covered a new unconfirmed Google algorithm update that touched down on October 3rd. Google announced a new user agent name for GoogleBot launching in December. Google added the change of address tool to the new Google Search Console…
…
Google Search Console Link Counts Drops – Cut In Half
A WebmasterWorld thread has some complaints that the number of external links reported in Google Search Console’s link report is down by about 50%. Like Google cut out about half of the links they were originally reporting. So I checked some older scr…
Google To Rename GoogleBot With Dynamic User Agent
Google announced it is changing the user agent name of the current GoogleBot in December. We knew this was coming when Google launched the new Evergreen GoogleBot. Google didn’t change the user agent from Chrome 41 to what it was really running to not …
Google Migrates Change Of Address Tool To New Google Search Console
A sigh of relief swept through the SEO community yesterday (sounds like something I’d read in a book) when Google announced the change of address tool is now part of the settings section of the new Google Search Console.
Google: No Plans To Penalize Sites Without Mailing Addresses
Google’s John Mueller caused a bit of a panic yesterday when he started questioning why so many SEO and digital marketing agency web sites do not list the physical address of the business. He had to clarify later that this was just a personal question…
Possible Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On October 3rd
I am seeing some early signs of a possible Google search ranking algorithm update kicking off today, October 3, 2019. There is some early chatter in the SEO forums, including WebmasterWorld and some on social media. Some of the tools are showing some …
Google Webmaster Conference At The GooglePlex
Google has been hosting webmaster conferences all over the place, espesially in India and other regions where you cannot find many SEO type conferences. Well, that is now changing with Google hosting a Google Webmaster Conference at the GooglePlex, in…
Google Featured Snippet Image Carousel To Show More Results
We’ve seen variations of Google showing image carousels in the featured snippet position, but this one seems new. If you search for [seo checklist] you may see a featured snippet that also shows an image carousel that lets you click on the images to s…
Google: HTML Sitemaps Not Worthwhile For SEO Purposes
Google’s John Mueller posted on Reddit that he agrees, that HTML sitemaps are not worthwhile for SEO purposes. He said “I agree. When it comes to SEO … for small sites, your site should be crawlable anyway (and if you’re using a common CMS, it’ll almost always be fine) & for large sites, they’re not going to be useful anyway (use sitemaps, use normal cross-linking, check with a crawler of your choice).”
Google Ads Browser-Based Report Editor Cross-Account Analysis
Google has expanded the ability of doing cross-account Google Ads analysis within the Report Editor within the Google Ads browser based console. Google allowed this in 2017 but it had to be done outside of Google Ads, now you can do it directly within …
Vlog #18: Russ Jones On (DA) Domain Authority & What’s Next For Moz
Russ Jones (@rjonesx) is the Principal Search Scientist at Moz. He joined Moz in 2015 after consulting for the company for years. Russ still does coding but the “real” engineers clean up his code for production.
Russ is responsible for the keyword …
Google: Optimizing For RankBrain Is The Same As Optimizing For Users
RankBrian launched in 2015 and is a way for Google to understand user queries better. Google has said you cannot optimize for it but you can work on making your site better. Gary Illyes from Google said basically making your content for users is acco…
Google Is Investigating Spike In Impressions & Queries
Google’s John Mueller said the Google search team is investigating spikes in Search Console impressions for specific queries. In fact, it seems like Google Trends was showing that spike in those queries as well, so it might be some sort of Google bug …
Google: H1 Tags Are Not Critical For Search Ranking
Google’s John Mueller said that your site can rank fine with or without H1 tags. You don’t have to use any H1 tags, or you can use many, either way, it is not a critical issue specifically for Google search. He did say it helps Google understand the st…
Google Tests Colorful Dots To Explain Search Results
Google is testing showing colorful dots, a blue, red, yellow and green set of dots, to help users understand different search result elements. When you click on the dots, it launched an “about this result” box to help you understand what that search fe…
Google’s John Mueller: I Strongly Recommend New Sites Not Use M-Dot URLs
Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter that he strongly recommends sites, espesially new sites, not use m-dot URLs. Google has always strongly recommended sites use responsive designs but here John is saying stay away from m-dots as a strong recommend…
Google My Business To Remove SMS Messaging
In July 2017 Google launched a messaging feature within the Google My Business platform. One of the options was to respond to messages via SMS, a text message. That is going away on November 15th and you will only be able to manages the messages via t…
Google Stops Using MapReduce: This Does Not Impact Google Search
Urs Holzle, the senior vice president of technical infrastructure and Google Fellow at Google and Google’s eighth employee, announced Google is not using MapReduce anymore. But don’t you worry, this has zero impact on Google Search and your rankings im…
Google Search Tests Side Bar Filters New Design
Google seems to be testing a new design interface for the Google desktop search results. Here Google is filling in the white space you normally see on the left and right side of the desktop search results with more options. On the left side you see mo…