Whenever there is a new quality raters guidelines released by Google, there is always lots of speculation about what Google does with the data from those ratings. And does that include machine learning? Google confirmed that they use quality raters to evaluate potential changes to the search algos. They push out a change and then […]
Google’s Latest Core Algo Update Still Rolling Out
For those watching the search results to see how well (or not) sites have done with Google’s latest core algo update, you will need to watch for quite a lot longer. Google has confirmed that the algo update is still rolling out. Danny Sullivan from Google has confirmed that the latest update is still rolling […]
New Google Core Search Algo Update: What We Know
Google has confirmed a major algo update in their search results that was released this week. Danny Sullivan from Google confirmed this via twitter after many SEOs noticed major fluctuations in rankings. This week we released a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. Our guidance about such updates remains the […]
Google Testing Reading Time Filter in Search Results
Google is testing a new feature in the search results that allows searcher to filter the search results by the approximate time it takes to read the article. The tool is accessed through the Tools filter. The new filter is a drop down that says “Any duration.” Then the searcher can choose between 3 time […]
Google Adding FAQ, Q&A and How To Verticals to Search Results
At Google Dance Singapore, Gary Illyes from Google revealed a new feature that is coming to the Google search results. The new feature would see specific content from a webpage, including FAQ, Q&A and how-to verticals being highlighted in the search results for those pages. And these rich results take up nearly the entire screen […]
Google Testing New Visual Product Recommendations in Image Search
Google is testing a new visual product search in image search results, adding a new similar items carousel based on the products that were seen in the images for the image search. In this test, instead of automatically loading more images, as usually happens when you scroll down, it instead adds a button to view […]
Google Removes Public Submit URL to Google Tool
Google has removed the public version of their submit URL tool. This tool allowed anyone to submit a URL to Google, as it wasn’t restricted to site owners only, We've had to drop the public submission feature, but we continue to welcome your submissions using the usual tool in Search Console and through sitemaps directly. […]
Google Removes Search Quality Rater Guidelines PDF
A few days after Google released its first new version of the quality rater guidelines of the year, Google has pulled the file from the site. It now goes to a 404 page. Google’s blog post from 2015 about releasing the guidelines from a few years ago still links to the URL where the file […]
Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines Updated: Beneficial Purpose, Creator Reputation & More
It has been a year since we last saw Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines updated, but they released a brand new version over the weekend. Here is what has changed, with commentary about why it is important for site owners and tips they can take away from it to incorporate into their own sites. Once […]
Google Slows Crawling With 5xx Server Errors
When a website starts to serve Googlebot 5xx server errors, how does Googlebot handle the change in server status? The question came up about Google crawl errors, and John Mueller from Google had some interesting comments about 5xx type of server errors and how it impacts Googlebot. That's a very vague question, and a post […]