I always wondered why Google had status dashboards for hundreds of other products across Gmail, Drive, Google Ads, etc., but not for Google Search – its most important product/service. But…
Google’s John Mueller repeated it, the time spent on a page by your users is not a factor Google uses for ranking. Time spent on the page is not a…
Gary Illyes from Google said on LinkedIn that if your server returns a 500/503 HTTP status code for an extended period of time for your robots.txt file, then Google may…
I’ve been checking for the past week, multiple times per day, and just now, Google has launched the Chanukah/Hanukkah decorations for the 2022 season. Chanukah starts this Sunday night, so…
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. No…
Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, said on Masoton that your content does not need to be on one topic, one niche topic, for it to rank well. You can…
Microsoft announced that if you do financial service ads in its network, like on Bing Search, in the UK, you will need to be verified in early 2023. “Starting early…
Google is once again testing showing the featured snippet, aka position zero, not in the first or position zero slot but rather under position one or even further down the…
Joy Hawkins has published another local SEO case study, this one on whether reviews left by Local Guides do better than any ordinary reviewer on Google. The answer is yes;…
Google’s John Mueller said there is no score or threshold for the Google helpful content update. He said on Mastodon “There is no “HCS score” or threshold at which HCS…
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Google has spoken about being on the edge of indexing is similar to Google thinking those pages are on the edge of quality – they seem to go hand in…
Part one and part two with Jeremy Meindl was more on black hat SEO stuff and now in part three, we get into more white hat topics talking about CRM…
Google Maps can now display an “offer available” label under a business profile listing’s map pin in the maps interface. Businesses that add offers in their Google Business Profile may…
Google Search Console is testing a new feature named “content ideas.” It is labeled as an “experimental” feature that brings Question Hub-like concepts directly into Google Search Console.
In August, we covered a new form of featured snippets in Google Search named Google perspectives. It seems like the perspectives feature is now live on the Google mobile search…
Google’s John Mueller said that using expired domains, repurposed domains are “SEO-flotsam, index-cruft.” John went on to add that search engines have had a lot of practice with dealing with…
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
This week we had another confirmed update to the Google helpful content system; it is now global. Google also had a lot of volatility over the previous week, unrelated to…
John Mueller of Google has always downplayed the importance of HTML sitemaps over the years, he is a fan of XML sitemaps, but HTML sitemaps, not so much. On Mastodon…
Gary Illyes from Google loves posting his PSAs on Mastodon. His next PSA is that if you are using a CDN or cloud hosting service, then make sure to test…
It is that time of the year again when Google publishes its top searches for the year. Not going to lie, it is getting tiring, but Google does put a…
Earlier this week, Google announced it has begun to roll out the new topics + sign refinement options in the English/US on mobile search results. But it seems Google is…
It is that time of year when content creators take their content that has been performing well and updates it from the 2022 edition to the 2023 edition. But updating…
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
There have been a lot of complaints about the quality of Google search results – the truth is, there are always complaints. Assuming you believe the results are indeed getting…
A couple of years ago, Gary Illyes of Google noted that using many more X-rated curse words can trigger Google to think your site is adult oriented and thus be…
Let’s say you are going on a road trip from one location to the next. One thing I expect some of those who do such entertainment would want to know…
Seems Google is once again testing removing the estimated number of search results under the search bar. You know, the line that says “About X results in Y seconds” Google…
Google added a new annotation to the Google Search Console performance reports on December 5th, saying that sites that use Subscribe with Google may see an increase in clicks and…
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. Google is rolling…
We have heard a lot from Google recently that links are just not as significant of a ranking factor in Google Search as they used to be. But 40% of…
Google has added a disclaimer to the appointment provider links that you find in the Google Search local panel and in the Google Maps business listings. The disclaimer partially reads…
Back in July we reported that Google was testing a new more dynamic search bar refinement option that adds keywords to the filters at the top under the search bar….
Google has officially confirmed the launch of the second release of the Google helpful content update/system. It started lightly on December 5th but became noticeable, according to Google, on December…
Google announced three new ways to search in Chrome – including search your tabs, your bookmarks and your history. You can search with three new site search shortcuts directly built…
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Microsoft posted the monthly Microsoft Advertising news and new features and announced a bunch of new stuff. The new features include new flyer extensions, update (restate) the revenue value associated…
There is a confirmed bug with Google Business Profiles where you cannot upload your logo or other photos to their business profile. Google is aware of the issue and is…
Google seems to be testing showing a super short product review in the image thumbnail in the search results. So Google will overlay at the top of the product image…
Back in August that Google added a new feature to the Keyword Planner tool to organize keywords into ad groups. Ginny Marvin, Google’s Ads Liaison, said last Friday (yes, months…
Google has officially brought the continuous scroll feature from the mobile search results to the desktop search results. Google has been testing this for a while after bringing it to…
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…
Part one and part two with Jeremy Meindl was more on black hat SEO stuff and now in part three…
Every Monday, I end up covering an unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update but this past week, going into the weekend, was even more volatile than the others. I am…
On Friday, Lizzi Sassman from Google updated the crawl budget management help document with two more topics. Specifically, Google added two new myths to the crawl budget documentation.
Gary Illyes from Google posted a PSA (public service announcement) of sorts on Mastodon and LinkedIn for sites that are heavy with JavaScript. He said that you should try to…
Welcome to the big Google Webmaster Report for December 2022, the last one for the 2022 year. It was a fun 30 days or so; we learned a lot. The…
Google has updated its Google Crawler / User Agent help document with a new section for “Retired Google crawlers.” With that, Google announced the retirement of the short-lived DuplexWeb-Google User…
Google has posted its “Seasonal Holidays” Google Doodle for the month of December – the holiday month. Google did this last year as well, and while the past few days…
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. Just saying today…
A recent Twitter poll by Tim Soulo shows that SEOs are super mixed in their opinion of the importance of domain name age on SEO and Google rankings. The poll…
In the new Google Business Profile manager, in Google Search, when you go to the option to remove your Google Business Profile from Google, Google will show you that you…
Here is a bizarre question that was asked on the Google office hours video asking if Google rotates its index. The question kind of makes sense, because the SEO who…
It has now been 19 years that I’ve been writing on this site, covering what you – the search marketers are talking about from within the search community. Today marks…
Since Friday of Thanksgiving last week, we have been seeing a lot of chatter and volatility with Google Search. Google said they improved the accuracy of the Discover performance report…
Google’s John Mueller said it is a big deal if your most important page or pages are terrible but not such a big deal if your less important pages are…
Google Search is showing and maybe testing news and top stories related boxes with a headline that says “maps on this topic.” Also, Google can also know what publications you…
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Google announced it has filed a lawsuit against “scammers who sought to defraud hundreds of small businesses by impersonating Google through telemarketing calls.” You know, the calls from “Google” asking…
Google has annotated the Discover performance report in Google Search Console, saying the report has been improved. Specifically, Google said it improved the system for counting clicks and impressions within…
Back in 2015, Google said the URL should be in the same language as the content of the page. But now, Alan Kent from Google said the URL doesn’t have…
Google is testing placing the map of the business you searched for in the search results area under the snippet(s) for that listing. Google is also testing a slightly updated…
Google has announced a new AdSense ad format named side rail ads. Side rail ads stick to the sides of your web pages when the user viewing the page is…
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. Google says again,…
Here is a good one-liner from Google’s John Mueller on the technicalities of the Google index. John said on Twitter “A page’s content doesn’t need to be indexed for a…
Duy Nguyen from Google’s search quality team said in the Google office hours video that Google has “algorithms to go after” those who post AI plagiarized content, he the algorithms…
In the last Google office hours, Gary Illyes said that Google is not more likely to crawl or index shorter or more niche content better or worse than other forms…
Google’s John Mueller said on the last Google office hours that using HTTP/3 for your server will likely not have any impact on your SEO or rankings in Google Search….
Duy Nguyen from Google’s search quality team said in the Google office hours video that “backlinks as a signal has a lot less significant impact compared to when Google Search…
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. Got a lot…
The new Google Business Profile interface in Google Search to update your local listing can show the previous location your business was listed at before you tried to move that…
Google may now show you the time it takes to review a requested edit in Google Business Profiles. So if you edit, let’s say, your business category, Google may show…
Google is testing various headlines for the Local Service Ads. Two of them show the “Ads” label and one does not, while they all test different headlines for the ad…
Google is testing the Things to know search refinement expander feature in a carousel format. Normally, the Things to know is in this list format but here Google is testing…
Joy Hawkins team did another small local ranking study in Google and found that the longer reviews, the wordier reviews, tend to rank towards the top of the reviews and…
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
In part one, we learned about Jeremy Meindl, why he loves pushing the line in SEO and how he never was caught with any of his SEO spam efforts. In…
The other day, I covered a poll that showed about half of SEOs still use guest posting for SEO purposes. Then a few days later, an SEO asked John Mueller…
Google lets you dive into some of the reviews on a business listing, so if you say show me the reviews of the bar in a hotel, Google will let…
For the past several weekends, I’ve been reporting about a Google search ranking algorithm update that hit on a Friday and continued throughout the weekend. Well, last weekend was the…
Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, said there is no such thing as an SEO compliance score from Google. He said instead think about avoiding technical errors, don’t spam, and use…
Microsoft Bing is testing placing a favicon or icon of some sort in front of the people also ask results. The screenshot example below is from Frank Standtmann, a German-based…
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
And you think you have a duplicate content problem on your site? Google said, “60% of the internet is duplicate.” Gary Illyes posted this slide at the Google Search Central…
Google is testing a new design, layout, and user experience for the people also ask box in the Google Search results. This interface has results side by side and stacked…
When you create a Google Business Profile and now go into creating service areas, Google may now offer you a list of suggested service areas in your region. Just be…