Earlier this month, Google removed sitelinks from individual search results, meaning sites lost the row of sitelinks at the bottom of their listing. While this didn’t affect branded site’s sitelinks, a huge number of sites lost them for more generic queries. Gary Illyes commented at the time, asking if they had returned yet, which made […]
Archives for 2016
Google Search Console Adds New AMP Reports in Search Analytics
Ever since Google launched AMP in the “ten blue links” of the Google search results, the reporting in Google Search Console’s Search Analytics would not track it properly. But they have now launched new AMP reporting that allows site owners to get detailed AMP reports. Site owners can switch between two AMP specific reports. The […]
Google Fixes Date Bug From Embedded YouTube Videos
Google has fixed the date issue that caused many sites to show wrong publish dates directly in the Google search results. Sites that had embedded YouTube videos were showing publish dates that were actually taken from embedded videos on the page, rather than from the page’s publish date. Here is an example from this site. […]
Google Indexes Desktop Page for Mobile First Index, When AMP Only Mobile Friendly Version
There has been some confusion about how Google’s mobile first indexing change would be affected by sites that have a traditional desktop page, but the only “mobile friendly” page is the AMP version. I asked Maile Ohye from Google about this, and we got some clarification on the issue. If the only mobile version page […]
Google Showing Wrong Article Publish Dates When YouTube Videos Embedded
Google has an interesting date bug issue right now in the search results – when there is an embedded YouTube video, Google will show the date from the YouTube video, rather than the date the article was actually published. Here is an example from this site. The Google Panda guide was published in 2016, but […]
Google AdSense & Facebook Ban Their Ads on Fake News
Google AdSense announced yesterday that it would no longer allow fake news sites to monetize their sites with Google AdSense. Facebook later followed suit and announced that fake news sites would not be permitted to use the Facebook Audience Network on fake news sites either. “Moving forward, we will restrict ad serving on pages that […]
Bing Search Will Not Do Mobile First Search Index
Some have been wondering if Bing would follow in Google’s footsteps and do a Mobile First Index, similar to what Google recently announced. Google will be changing their desktop index to one where they index the mobile version of a website, in order to serve mobile users – which now account for more than 50% […]
Google Testing Light Green URLs in Organic & AdWords Search Results
Google is testing yet another color in the search results, this time a light green in the URL field. Here shows AdWords with the lighter URL. You can also see that the AdWords “Ad” tag remains the same. Google doesn’t always seem to test the color of the “Ads” tag. Google has a long history […]
SEO Agency SEO Hocasi Confirms Google Penalty
One of the larger SEO agencies in Turkey has confirmed that their main site has stopped ranking for their major keywords, and it has been major news in the Turkish webmaster and SEO forums since last week. And all signs seem to point to either a link manual action (they have been subject to repeated […]
No Changes to Mobile Friendly Criteria or Ranking Boost With Mobile First Indexing
Google is keeping the mobile friendly ranking boost, which rewards mobile friendly sites with a slight boost in mobile search results, with the upcoming mobile first indexing change. Also remaining the same is the current criteria for what makes a page mobile friendly or not. I asked Gary Illyes the question on Twitter, and he […]