Archives for 2017

When Google began adding dates to the snippets in their search results, it became obvious that for some types of searches, fresher dates could help click throughs.  But for a lot of results, Google doesn’t show the date, even for content that is clearly dated with a publish date. But for evergreen content, some are […]

It has become a trend  by SEOs to remove older content, especially older content on a news sites, where sites remove content rather than simply archiving it.  Reasons why some do this varies, but the common reason is simply that it is old or dated. Gary Illyes from Google tackled the topic at State of […]

Google has previously confirmed that for mobile first indexing, having content in tabs is fine. It makes for a better user experience on smaller mobile screens, so Google has been clear that they don’t tend to demote content behind tabs, something that had been done on desktop sites. In the last Google Webmaster Office Hours […]

It is pretty common for ecommerce sites to have identical products, or near identical products, listed on their websites.  Sometimes there is a color variation, sometimes a minor size difference, or merely a difference in the model number.  For those sites that choose to leave these identical or near-identical products on individual pages, how does […]

If you are suffering from Panda issues, or suspected ranking issues related to low quality content, the most obvious fix is to improve content quality.  But after you make major site-wide changes to improve the quality of that content, how long does it take for Google to adjust their ranking signals accordingly for the new […]

At State of Search in Dallas last week, I asked Gary Illyes about the issue about 301 versus 302s when it comes to passing PageRank.  While Google has said previously that both pass PageRank, there are arguments from many SEOs that 301s are better for passing PageRank while others insist 302s are better for PageRank. […]

One thing Google does in the search results that tends to annoy site owners is when Google will rewrite a carefully crafted title tag with one of their own, sometimes with mixed results and effectiveness.  And these titles can vary significantly based on the query – a single search result could have dozens of different […]

At State of Search this week, I asked Gary Illyes from Google about the issue surrounding removing or noindexing low quality content versus leaving it or improving it.  It has been a long debated topic from SEOs, especially for those sites suffering from Panda issues. I specifically asked about whether or not noindexing low quality […]