Thumbtack, the site that was penalized by Google for “selling” links is now back in the Google index after a week in the penalty box. And while a week being penalized is definitely on the short side, it isn’t unheard of. However, it turns out there was a lot more going on with Thumbtack’s link […]
What Marketers Can Learn From The New York Times Mobile Only Experiment
The New York Times is undertaking an experiment today where they will require all their employees to use only the mobile version of the site, and not the desktop version. With more than half of their traffic coming from mobile devices, they want their employees to be aware of just how important the mobile version […]
Google Adds Documentation for Breadcrumbs
Google has added new documentation to their Structured Data section in Google Developers for breadcrumbs support. Breadcrumbs enable potential visitors to see the page’s hierarchy in the Google search results, and also provides an additional context clue to help a searcher decide if the page likely has what they are looking for. With Google putting […]
Micro-Moments: Google on the New Consumer Behavior
This Spring Google introduced the concept of “micro-moments” to explain the new consumer behavior and how businesses can capture these moments. Micro-moments are the new “I want to know”, “I want to go”, “I want to buy” moments. When people have a need, they reach for the nearest device for information. Consumers are open to […]
France Orders Google to Remove Right to Be Forgotten Results from All Google Sites
France has given Google 15 days to remove all Right to be Forgotten results from all versions of Google, including Google.com rather than just the European domains as Google currently does not. Ever since Google began removing specific results under Right to be Forgotten, they only removed them from the European Google results, while those […]
More Details on Google’s Separate Mobile Index
We have known that Google has been working on a mobile index that would be completely separate from the desktop index. At SMX Advanced last week, Gary Illyes from Google shared many more details about the possible mobile only index that has many SEOs excited. One Content Per URL The limitation of the current index […]
When Disavowing, Check Specific Links as Sites Killing Homepages
If you are doing link audits for clients affected by either penguin or with unnatural link warnings, if you find a dead homepage, don’t assume the entire site is dead. When doing link audits, some people just check the homepage of the site a link is coming from, rather than checking the page itself. But […]
The Importance of URL Structure According to Google
Everyone has had theories for years about URL structure, particularly as it relates to Google rankings. Should you use keywords or no keywords? Should you ever go beyond a single directory or can you safely go three or four deep? The question was raised at SMX Advanced last week about just how important URL structure […]
Sites Penalized by Google Can Still Show Knowledge Panel
When a site is penalized manually, it will not lose its knowledge panel in the Google search results. When I wrote the story on Thumbtack being penalized by Google with a manual action over links, I took a screenshot of the search results and noticed that they still had their knowledge panel to the right […]
Why All Sites Need to Go HTTPS, According to Google
When it comes to deciding whether to take a site secure or not, many webmasters with content sites argue that there is no need for them to go to the expense of making their site secure, since they do not collect any kind of personal data. Google on the other hand has been a strong […]