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 […]
Archives for 2016
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 […]
Google Analytics Adds New Surveys 360 To Its Collective
You run a campaign. You look at your website traffic. It goes up, but people are still leaving without converting. We’ve all been there. We’ve all screamed out with that burning question – WHY?! Starting today, Google’s helping you figure that out with the introduction of Google Surveys 360. Using your web analytics data, you […]
Exit Page Interstitials Not Impacted by Google’s Mobile Interstitial Change
If you have an exit interstitial – an interstitial that only displays once a user tries to leave a site – they won’t be impacted by Google’s upcoming mobile interstitial change which would see pages with interstitials lose their mobile friendly ranking boost. The question came up in the Google Webmaster Office Hours this week […]
Google: Leave 301 Redirects in Place at Least a Year, Preferably Longer
When you undergo a site move, it is standard to set up 301 redirects from the old domains to the new ones. While many recommend leaving those redirects in place permanently, in practice this isn’t always an option or even if it is needed. The question came up about redirects and John Mueller from Google […]
Site Wide & Blogroll Links Are Not Automatically Bad Links for Google
With the release of real time Penguin, there have been a lot of questions about link quality and link value. In the last Webmaster Office Hours, John Mueller was asked specifically about site wide links, such as those found on blogrolls. Now, blogroll links used to be pretty common many years ago, but as reciprocal […]
Google Testing Write a Review in the Local Knowledge Panel
Google is hoping searchers add local reviews to businesses with a new “Write a Review” test in the search results within the local knowledge panel. Here is what it looks like on mobile: It is a call to action style box within the local knowledge panel with “Write a review” showing underneath the section on […]
Google Adds New AMP Testing Tool
If you are still working on getting your pages AMP ready, the AMP related reporting in Google Search Console can be a bit frustrating since the error reporting is quite delayed. And while the structured data testing tool can help show errors, it isn’t as intuitive for AMP, especially for those with little experience with […]