Bing has added a new directions feature in their Google Places local knowledge panel directly in the search results. The new feature shows a test for “send directions to phone”. Here it is when displayed in the main search results column. Here it is on the right sidebar. Bing has previously shown this when viewing […]
Archives for 2017
Google Crawl Budget: What SEOs Need to Know About Googlebot Crawling
Gary Illyes from Google has posted a blog entry on the Google Webmaster blog, touching on Googlebot and crawl budget issues that site owners might have. First, it is important to note that not all site owners will be impacted by crawl budget issues. For the most part, sites with 4,000 or fewer URLs generally […]
Google Local 4-Packs Showing 1 Ad & 3 Organic Local Listings
We have seen local 4-packs from Google where Google will show 4 paid local listings in a local 4-pack. But it seems Google is now testing a single map pack with a combination of both paid and organic listings. Sergey Alakov spotted this in action this morning, with one paid local listing followed by three […]
Google AdWords Testing Local Inventory Ads in Local Pack
Google appears to be testing a hybrid of a local pack listing with shopping ads, where it is highlighting products available locally, but within a local pack style, including map. Mike Blumenthal shared a screenshot showing it in action: It shows a thumbnail of the product, along with details such as price and ratings, but […]
How Google Ranks “Top Stories” News in Search Results
We don’t often hear about how Google ranks their news related results nor how the “Top Stories” are chosen for desktop and mobile users. Usually when someone from the search team comments on the news results, it is to say they use their own algorithm for news. But John Mueller in the Google Webmaster Office […]
Only 10% of Viewers Thought Last Year’s Super Bowl Ads Were Funny
Online engagement with Super Bowl 50 ads dropped nearly 20% from the previous year, according to new data launched yesterday by video ad tech company Unruly. Unruly’s Science of Sharing: Super Bowl 50 study shows that shares of Super Bowl 2016 ads across social media fell from 9.03M in 2015 to 7.84M last year – […]
Mobile First Index: Google to Notify Sites of Possible Issues via Search Console
In today’s Google Webmaster Office Hours, John Mueller said that they plan to send notices to webmasters via Google Search Console, alerting them that they would be likely to suffer issues when the mobile first index takes affect. While those who use responsive design likely won’t have many or any issues, those with other mobile […]
SEO Weather Reporting Tools & Google Ranking Experiments
SEO weather reports – the trackers that track a number of keywords in the search results, and report on the volatility in those searches – have become a pretty popular way for webmasters and SEOs to kind of gauge what is happening in the search results on a daily basis. The topic came up about […]
No Need to Change Canonicals from Desktop for Mobile First Indexing
Just a reminder, if you are updating any canonicals, you do not need to update all desktop/mobile canonicals on your site to make the mobile version be the primary URL. We included this information in our Google Mobile First Indexing Guide, but some people are still asking whether they need to switch or not. @shaunmaharaj […]
Bing Places Testing New Local Listing Redesign; Adds Popular Times
Bing Local is testing a major new look for their local listings in the Bing search results, and the redesign is making it appear much closer to how Google displays their own local listings within the knowledge panel in the search results. The box for a local listing in the main column of the search […]