Many SEOs have debated over the years about whether they should ever use all CAPS, or even any capital letters, in a URL. While capital usage in URLs has fallen out of favor in recent years, some sites continue to use them exclusively. But what about the SEO impact of the choice of upper or […]
Google’s Mobile First Index Changes
Google’s Mobile First Indexing Change: Everything SEOs Need to Know
Google’s search index is becoming mobile first. This means that Google will be crawling the mobile versions of the website to rank webpages… and if you truncated content on your mobile pages, your rankings could suffer. Read more…
Latest News
Site Moves Do Not Fix Google Panda Content Issues
If you are suffering from Google Panda, Google’s quality content algo, fixing the content is the only way to get that content ranking higher in the search results. And one thing that definitely won’t fix the issue is simply doing a site move. Gary Illyes from Google made a comment on Twitter specific to Panda, […]
Google Maps Soliciting Location Information in Organic Search Results
Google is testing an interesting way to get data for Google Maps. When doing a search query – and a query that seemingly has nothing to do with local or location – Google will display a map with a pin and ask the searcher if they know what is located at the location marker. Here […]
Google’s Fred Update is Not an Updated Panda Algo
Google’s Fred update, the update encompassing many updates that SEOs have seen in fluctuations in the search results is still a hot topic. Fred, which we know is a quality related update, was discussed by Gary Illyes from Google at last week’s SMX Advanced. Illyes confirmed one thing that some SEOs had pondered about the […]
Google to Continue Showing Featured Snippets with Images from Second Source
Over a year ago, we first started noticing Google showing featured snippets with one source for the snippet itself while using a second source for the image. Earlier this year, Google began to increase the likelihood of this happening, resulting in some upset webmasters who claimed the featured snippet, only to see a competitor’s thumbnail […]
Google Ignores Paid Links from Major Publications
It has been a well known secret that some major publications, such as Forbes and Huffington Post, have authors who are using their status as a regular contributor to make money on the side by adding paid links within their articles published on those sites. And those authors make pretty good money from them, as […]
Google Launches New Vehicle Ad Carousel in Mobile Results
Google AdWords is testing a new dramatic style of AdWords ads on mobile, and these are a new image carousel style that are extremely eyecatching within the automotive vertical. They feature a large image carousel, sitelinks and the ad title and URL. Here is what it looks like: The sitelinks style at the bottom scroll, […]
No Google Plans for a Featured Snippet Specific Meta Tag
While many SEOs are trying to earn featured snippets for their sites in the search results, there are some SEOs who don’t like their content featured in the featured snippets by Google, especially when the answer is fully displayed in the search results. Currently, there is the nosnippet meta tag, but this isn’t the right […]
Google’s Page Speed Ranking Boost Acts as Tie Breaker in Search Results
We have long known that Google has a ranking boost associated with page speed. We also know that it tends to impact sites more negatively, where the page speed algo will not rank exceptionally slow sites as well, when there are other sites with a better user experience with load times. And it is a relatively […]
Google Adds Festival Locations to Local Google Maps
Google has added a new feature to their local maps – Google will now show an area that a festival is in a map. Emily M. Yetzer shared this screenshot showing a local festival showing on Google Maps when nearby Ribfest in Chicago. It appears it shows it not when someone is searching specifically for […]
Google SEO & Using Age Verification Gates
Sites that require some kind of age verification gating system, such as you see on alcohol sites or some video game sites, can be a complicated thing when it comes to SEO. On the one hand, those sites are required by law to ask someone’s age before viewing the content on the site. But on […]
Google Adds Upcoming Hotel Deals to Hotel Knowledge Panel
Google is testing a new type of sponsored alert in their hotel knowledge panels, this time as an alert that there is a great deal at that particular hotel during particular dates, alerting searchers that the hotel they are looking at may have better deals if they chose alternative dates. Here is what it looks […]
Google AdWords Launches Structured Snippets Globally
Google AdWords has quietly launched their structured snippets for AdWords ads globally. Google has added a new interface option to allow for structured snippets in a large number of languages, up from the limited number of the languages it was available in. AdWords structured snippets are the line of text ad copy, that starts with […]
Bing Adds Expandable Featured Snippets to “See Full Answer”
Bing has added a new type of featured snippet to their search results, and site owners likely won’t be very happy with this one. Bing will display a usual sized featured snippet, but instead of requiring a clickthrough to the actual publisher’s site for more details or information, Bing is offering a new “see full […]
Google Officially Stops Using DMOZ as Snippet Source in Search Results
In a move that should come as no surprise to SEOs, Google has officially stopped using DMOZ as a source for sites and pages in their search results. DMOZ closed earlier this year, meaning Google no longer had an updated outside source – beyond the webpage itself – for pulling snippet information when the webpage […]
Google Soliciting Feedback for Local Pack Results
Google is testing a new feedback feature in their local packs, allowing searchers to give feedback about the specific results that are being shown – or not shown – in the local pack. For local SEOs, the feedback form includes the usual expected feedback options, but with an very interesting addition – an option for […]
Google Adds Local Restaurant Search Suggestion to Top of Search Results
Google has added a new alert to their search results, suggesting that people use Google search to find local restaurants, going so far as suggesting a search query to do so. And most mysteriously, it shows up for completely unrelated – and non-local – queries. Here is what it looks like: As you can see, […]
Bing Adds “People Also Ask” To Their Own Search Results
Bing is now adding “People also search for” drop down box features in their search results. And their implementation is identical to the one Google added to their own search results. The “People also search for” shows collapsed in the search results. Here is what it looks like: It displays in the second half of […]
Use Fetch & Render for Most Accurate Google View of Webpage
A question came up on Twitter regarding how Googlebot sees a page and whether the fetch and render within Google Search Console is the most accurate or if using the cache view from within the Google search results is more accurate. John Mueller answered, and he said that fetch and render will be the closest. […]
Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines for YMYL & Offensive Results
Google has made another update to the Google Quality Rater Guidelines, coming only a couple of months after the last release, which saw major changes made to target fake news, science denail and clickbait, among other things. This updates sees Google bring added clarification to specific areas of the guidelines and other minor changes. The […]