When is it safe to remove URLs from a disavow file? Anything to do with links and disavows has been a hot topic ever since Google launched the new real time Penguin. Can disavows be removed with how Penguin discounts links now? Or should they be kept in place? The question came up on Twitter, […]
Archives for October 2016
Google Adds New HTML5 Effects to Search Box in Search Results
Did you notice Google’s search box is looking a bit different? Google is changing the way the search box appears in the search results, and the changes seem to be different based on where you are searching from. And when you mouse over the search box, the effect intensifies. We have two styles being tested. […]
Google Fixes Manual Action Issue in Search Console
If you have been waiting to file a reconsideration request because the manual action is not showing up in Google Search Console, you should be good to file it now. Google has fixed the bug that prevented manual actions from showing up in Search Console, which also affected the ability for site owners to then […]
Hackers & Phishers Using Google’s AMP URLs to Disguise Malicious Links
For most web savvy users, checking the URL to ensure that it is a legitimate google.com URL is pretty standard, and ensuring that everything before the first / looks legitimate. Many phishers and hackers use URLs like www.google.com.someotherurl.com/blahblah.html to disguise links (for reference, the bolded part shows the true domain – the google.com part of […]
Google’s Manual Actions Not Showing Up In Google Search Console
If you are waiting for a manual action to show up in Google Search Console, you might be waiting a bit. There is currently an issue where manual actions are not showing up as expected. The issue seemed to start on October 19th, so just under a week ago, when there seemed to be an […]
Using Strikethrough Text on Google AdWords Ads
While advertisers have not been able to use emojis in AdWords ads for some time now, it seems there is another eyecatching way an advertiser can play with the look of their ads – this time by using strikethrough text. Here is how it appears in the search results. First, as it appears in the […]
Google Testing Icons on Mobile Sitelinks
Google has a new test where they are showing a variety of icons next to common types of pages that shows up in a site’s sitelinks in the mobile search results. Here is how they look: Sergey Alakov spotted them and posted screenshots on Twitter. This seems to be a limited test, as I was […]
Google Showing Featured Snippets for Site: Searches
Curious what a featured snippet might look like on your site, but you don’t think you have any active ones? Google will now show featured snippets when doing a site:example.com search with other keywords. Here is one example: Here is another: These are coming up for many sites with a variety of keywords. Here is […]
JSON-LD Google’s Preferred Structured Data Markup
JSON-LD has grown in popularity with developers over the past couple of years for the preferred structured data markup, and it is the preferred markup now for Google. The question came up in the Google Webmaster Office Hours earlier this week with John Mueller, about Google’s preference to JSON-LD over the other structured data formats. […]
How Google Handles Site Moves When Old Domain Cannot Be Redirected
In the last Google webmaster office hours, John Mueller talked about the best practices for site moves and the length of time to keep a 301 redirect in place for. But he also addressed cases where site moves have to be done where redirects cannot be done for whatever reason. For many reasons, when you […]