Myth Busting: HTTPS Not Required For Google Indexing & Ranking
Google’s John Mueller did some myth busting this morning around HTTPS. There are always some SSL providers trying to use Google’s HTTPS ranking signal in their marketing efforts. One said that “Without an SSL Certificate Google is likely to drop your …
Google: Sitemap Files Don’t Need To Be Indexed To Work
This is a bit heartwarming – to see John Mueller back up Joost de Valk and Yoost when someone incorrectly claimed their was a bug with the Yoast SEO plugin causing major Google issues. John from Google came in and backed up Joost, confirming Joost and …
Google Recommends To Disavow Links That Can Trigger Manual Actions
Google’s John Mueller said in a hangout last week that he would recommend that you not just disavow links that have already resulted in manual actions but you can also disavow links that you think would lead or result in a manual action. This is in add…
What Is More Important For SEOs To Understand; Guidelines Or Algorithm Updates?
Tomorrow at SMX West I am moderating a panel called Machine vs. Man: What Really Matters For SEO Success. One of the panelists is Frédéric Dubut from Bing and he posted a poll asking what is more important for SEOs, understanding the search quality raters guidelines or the ranking algorithm updates?
Now Google My Business Bulk Users Can Download/Upload Spreadsheets
Kara from Google announced a small update in the Google My Business Help forums saying “Now, bulk users can download and upload their locations to and from spreadsheets.” “This feature enables bulk users to easily manage and organize their multiple loc…
Google AMP Crawl Error Bug Fix Is Here
We’ve been tracking the big AMP crawl error and AMP issues in search over the past week. Yesterday Google confirmed it was a bug on their end and said they would fix it. Today they documented the issue on their data anomalies page and RankRanger is s…
Google Ads Bug Shows Too Many Ads; It Is Resolved
We’ve seen it numerous times, where a bug leads Google to either show too many Google Ads in the search results or the organic listings do not load and Google only shows ads. It is rare, but we see it every now and then. Google recently confirmed a b…
Social Media Icons Return To Google Knowledge Panels
Some SEOs are noticing that Google has brought back the social media icons in the knowledge panels for both personalities and local businesses. I personally didn’t notice they ever were gone but I guess they were.
Google+ APIs Shut Down Concerns Google My Business Developers
Yesterday, I and many developers received an email from Google Developers that had the subject line “[Action Required] Google+ APIs and OAuth requests are being shutdown on March 7, 2019.” The issue is not specific with Google+ but some of those APIs …
Google Tests Bolding Content In Knowledge Panels
I cannot replicate this but some searchers are seeing Google bold the query they used in the knowledge panel blocks. Both Valentin Pletzer and Mordy Oberstein posted examples of this on Twitter. Again, every time I try to replicate it I come up empty…
Google Investigating AMP Errors & AMP Pages Not Showing In Search
Over the past few days or so, Google has been having issues showing AMP pages in the search results. I’ve been hearing reports on social media around publishers seeing their content show up in Google search labeled as AMP and then that content goes mis…
Google Officially To End Some Old Search Console Features
I reported on Friday that Google will be deprecating some or all of the old Search Console features so they can focus more on the new Google Search Console. Well, Google made it official by posting a blog post on the news on the Google Webmaster Blog….
Google My Business Photo Bug Prevents Photos From Showing On Google Maps
Joy Hawkins posted in the Local Search Forums that a bug with Google My Business is causing photos that were recently uploaded via Google My Business by the owner not to be able to be seen in Google Maps by searchers. There is no ETA for a fix, but she…
Google Ads Poaching Advertiser Clients Again But Now Requiring Opt Out
Every few years or so we cover Google Ads (former AdWords) representatives caught trying to poach or steal clients for advertising agencies and SEM agencies. Well, this time, as reported by Ginny Marvin on Search Engine Land, Google is doing so automa…
Google To Host More In Person Meetups But Focused On Webmasters
Back in November, Gary Illyes from Google said they are changing the name of the Google Dance, removing the dance part but hosting more in-person Google events worldwide. Last night at the last-minute Google NYC event put together by John Mueller, Joh…
Google Image Search Changes Coming This Year: Think Different
Google’s John Mueller said last night that bigger changes are coming to Google Image search this coming year. Instead of thinking of how to optimize for images like you have been for the past two decades, you will need to think differently about image …
Google: Last 50% Of Mobile-First Indexing Migration Will Be Harder
As you know, Google said over 50% of the search results they deliver were processed through the mobile-first indexing mechanism. But Google still has another 50% or so to go and that next 50% will be the harder batch for Google to migrate over.
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Google May Drop The Old Search Console In March
Last night in the Google NYC event John Mueller said Google is currently aiming to deprecate most, if not all, of the old Search Console by March of this year. That timeline may change but that is the goal. With that some features in the old Search Con…
Google: Disavowing Bad Links May Help Google Algorithmically Trust Your Links
Google’s John Mueller said in a webmaster hangout on Tuesday at the 16:44 mark that in some cases, disavowing or cleaning up bad links to your site may help Google’s algorithm trust other links to your site. Let me quote what the question was and how …
Search Buzz Video Recap: Google Search Console, Image Search, Mobile-First, Disavow & Much More
This week, we covered how Google said the old Search Console may sunset in March and specifically which features are going away. Some European Google searchers were seeing…