Google has officially launched Penguin 4.0 This new version of Penguin is the long awaited real-time Penguin that eliminates the long wait for site owners to recover if they have been negatively impacted by Penguin. Gary Illyes, part of the Google Search Ranking Team, as well as a Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, announced the […]
Major Google Change
Google Increases Width of Main Search Results Column
Google has made a major change to the search results column. Google has significantly increased the width of the column of the main organic search results. Google has increased the column to 600 pixels… which also means longer titles for organic results! (May 11, 2016) Read more…
Latest News
Google Testing Individual Hotel Booking Block at Top of Search Results
Google is testing a new format for hotel searchers. Instead of listing the booking deals in the knowledge panel, Google is testing them in a separate area where the AdWords ads are normally positioned at the top of the search results. AdWords ads still appear, but under the hotel block. Dr. Pete Meyers shared the […]
Recovering From Accidental Site Removal via Google Search Console Remove URL Tool
On a somewhat regular basis, site owners report in the Google Webmaster Help Forums about using the Remove URL tool for website cleanup, only to inadvertently remove the entire site (or most of it) from the Google search results. Yes, Google does take those Remove URL requests pretty seriously, and removes those URLs (or the […]
Google Testing Local 3-Pack Near Bottom of Search Results Page
Many are used to seeing Google’s local 3-pack appearing near the top of the search results – underneath the AdWords ads with occasionally a single organic result above the local 3-pack. This means that instead of the lcoal 3-pack appearing above the fold, it won’t show up until either near the bottom of the fold […]
AMP Results Now Live in Google’s Organic Search Results
Have you made your content AMP ready yet? Google has officially turned on AMP results in the “ten blue links” in their mobile search results. This means when a webpage has an AMP version available, Google will swap out the non-AMP version and display with AMP version instead, complete with the AMP tag in the […]
Site Not Mobile Friendly? Google Offers Mobile Friendly Version of Page in Chrome
If you visit a page that isn’t mobile friendly, Google Chrome will now offer users the option to view a mobile friendly version of the page instead. Joy Hawkins shared a screenshot that shows a non-mobile-friendly page, with a “Make page mobile-friendly” option at the bottom of the page. When you click the option, it […]
Disqus Comments Now Support AMP
If you have been reluctant to switch over to AMP because of the loss of comments on your pages, you will be happy to know that Disqus has announced they now offer support for AMP. AMP for Disqus utilizes the <amp-iframe> tag to bring comments into the AMP page. However, it requires the unusual step […]
Google Adding More Thumbnails to Organic Search Results Listings
Google has made some changes to make mobile search results much more visual. Google announced on Google+_ the addition of “new, more visual mobile search results at your service.” These results appear as thumbnail search results we have seen Google test periodically in the search results. Here is what it looks like: These changes appear […]
Huge Drop in Image Results Block in Google Search Results
Google has dropped image results from a large percentage of Google search results on Tuesday, which is also contributing to the volatility in search results many are seeing right now. Mozcast recorded a significant 49% drop in search results that feature image results appearing within the organic search results. This means that searchers are only […]
Google AdWords Requirements for Detailed Keyword Planner Data
A few days ago, Google AdWords shut off detailed Keyword Planner data from all AdWords accounts except for those advertisers above a specific threshold. And many have been questioning what that threshold is… in other words, how much do they have to spend to keep the detailed data level. Unfortunately for SEOs and low budget […]
AdBlock Plus Selling Ads to Display in Place of Blocked Ads
AdBlock Plus, the most popular tool to block ads on websites, is now selling their own ads through a partnership with ComboTag . AdBlock Plus has launched the Acceptable Ads Platform, a new ad network that replaces the blocked ads on a website – ads that would normally disappear on a site for a user […]
Google AdWords Announces Call to Action YouTube Video Ads
Want to create video ads for YouTube with a call to action instead of the usual pre-roll video ad format? Google AdWords has announced a brand new TrueView video ad that allows advertisers to include call-to-action buttons. The new call-to-action buttons can be tailored to fit the specific video ad, such as using “Learn more”, […]
Google Quietly Launches AdWords Shopping Tab Results in Ten Countries
Google has quietly launched the AdWords Shopping tab in multiple countries, ten new countries in total, featuring local results for those countries. The new launched countries include Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden and Turkey. These new countries did previously show country specific products at the top of the search results and […]
Google AdWords Keyword Planner More Transparent in Combining Search Variants
Google has made a new change to the Keyword Planner to make it much more transparent to advertisers when it is detailing search volume for combined search variants. When you search for similar keywords that Google combines for being “close keyword variations” Google now combines that data on a single line and also includes a […]
Google AdWords Removes Detailed Keyword Planner Data From All Non-Advertisers
Google has continued their removal of detailed data from search marketers. Now, all legacy accounts (even those that weren’t currently advertising but had previously advertised via AdWords in the past) now only see the general monthly search range instead of the detailed data they previously were able to see. And Google has also closed the […]
Unruly Launches Emotional Intelligence Products for Digital Advertising
Earlier this year, The SEM Post reported that video ad tech company Unruly had launched Unruly Pulse, a new dashboard that provided marketer with “emotional intelligence.” Among other things, data from the new dashboard showed that advertisers were failing to make people laugh, with hilarity one of the least common emotions worldwide. Yesterday, Unruly launched […]
Increased Googlebot Crawling Not a Sign of Google Update or Manual Action
In yesterday’s Google Q&A with John Mueller and Andrey Lipattsev, I asked a question about Googlebot suddenly increasing the amount of crawling it does on a site, when there are no obvious reasons – such as a new URL structure – for Google to do so. Is it a sign of a Google update or […]
Google Analytics Real Time Reporting Down; Fix Expected Today
If you have tried accessing Google Analytics and the real time reporting since yesterday, you have probably discovered that real time reporting is not updating. Instead, users are seeing an empty report and an error message: Google first acknowledged the issue for some users yesterday: Some users may be experiencing issues with real time reporting. […]
Is Code to Text Ratio a Google Ranking Factor?
During yesterday’s Crawling and Indexing Q&A with Google, the question was raised about whether code (actual code on the page) to text (the text content) ratio has any impact on Google’s rankings. It is something that people periodically bringing up with regards to SEO. And compounding the issue that it is potentially important is that […]
Google Warns About Followed Links in Widgets Again
Google has posted a reminder for site owners to not use widgets that have a followed link within it. Despite it being clearly against Google’s webmaster guidelines, many site owners still gain links via widgets. And regardless of the motivation, links – in widgets or just as a regular link – cannot be placed in […]