At Brighton SEO last week, I asked Gary Illyes from Google about the value of doing link audits. Ever since Google Penguin switched to the real time version which would discount bad links instead of penalizing a website for having them, the value of link audits has definitely diminished. But does Google still see the […]
Archives for 2017
Google Indexes AMP Version for Mobile First When No Regular Mobile Page
At Brighton SEO, I asked for clarification on an issue that has had mixed responses – whether sites that are using AMP as their only mobile version of a site – would see their desktop or their mobile indexed when Google switches to mobile first indexing. I raised the question with Gary Illyes from Google, […]
Baby Boomers are the Audience Most Advertisers are Missing on YouTube
I admit that I’m a Baby Boomer. And I confess that I’ve been writing about video marketing for more than a decade. But, despite these two facts, I was still surprised to read the counter-intuitive findings in the Strike Social Data Report entitled, “YouTube’s generational divide.” This report examines a year’s worth of YouTube data […]
Google: Ranking Fluctuations With a Site Redesign
When you launch a new redesign of a site, some site owners are still surprised when they launch a fancy new site design – even when the URLs remain the same – and see their rankings change. At Brighton SEO, as part of a larger conversation about HTTP to HTTPS site migrations, Gary Illyes from […]
Still No Plans for a Google Penguin 5.0 Update
Ever since real time Penguin launched in September 2016, many SEOs have wondered if there would be a Penguin 5.0 from Google. At the time of the real time launch, Google confirmed that there would be no more Penguin updates as we knew it, and that still seems to stand today. At Brighton SEO, I […]
Google Penguin Fine Tuned After Real Time Launch
One of the interesting bits that came out of the Brighton SEO Q&A chat I had with Gary Illyes from Google was regarding Penguin, specifically around changes made after the launch of the new real time Penguin. After real time Penguin launched a year ago, Google has had very little to say about it. But […]
Most Google Algo Changes Not Actionable by SEOs
At Brighton SEO, I had the opportunity to chat with Gary Illyes from Google on all things Google search, and I asked about all the Fred updates, which encompasses many different quality algo changes Google has made this year. Google has said before that when major algo changes happen that are actionable by webmasters – […]
Why Brands Don’t Always Earn Featured Snippets for Their Name in Google
Should a brand name automatically own the featured snippet for any Google search query that includes their brand name? And what about if there isn’t a relevant page on the brand’s site to show in relation to the query, but there is on another website? Should it just go to the best and most relevant […]
Nested Structured Data Can Influence Whether Google Shows Rich Snippets
When it comes to Google not showing rich snippets in the search results for a site that has the markup, it is usually for two reasons. Either the structured data is implemented incorrectly or there are quality issues with the site. But according to Google, there is a third reason that Google might not show […]
Google Quality Impact of Using NoIndex on Large Part of a Site
Many SEOs use the noindex page for a variety of reasons, such as for duplicate landing pages for tracking, for crawl budget purposes and for content that site owners are concerned is below a quality threshold. But does Google do anything with those noindexed pages, since they are still crawled by Googlebot, for assessing the […]