When Google announced RankBrain, many people were surprised to learn it was the third most important ranking signal. But what does that influence really mean? During a fireside chat at Big Digital Adelaide with Gary Illyes from Google, we discussed RankBrain and the many misconceptions around it. But he said one thing that was quite […]
Vanity Keyword TLD Domain Names Do Not Get Ranking Boost
At Big Digital Adelaide, I asked Gary Illyes about whether people should switch to the so-called vanity TLDs such as .attorney help with rankings due to the presence of keywords in those TLDs for a supposed ranking boost. It is an interesting idea, whether you can gain an additional ranking boost for the TLD keyword […]
Google: Does Not Matter Which 301, 302, 307 Redirect, All Pass PageRank
There is a hot debate amongst SEOs about what type of redirects to use for SEO, particularly when it comes to passing PageRank. At Big Digital Adelaide today, I asked Gary Illyes from Google about the great redirect debate, and whether it really matters whether a site uses a 301, 302 or 3o7 redirect, as […]
Google Ignores Spam Reports from Users Filing Many Bogus Reports
We learned earlier this year that Google does prioritize spam reports from those users with a history of good spam reports, something that Gary Illyes from Google confirmed again today at Big Digital Adelaide. But he also dropped some details for users that file bogus spam reports. The specific question was about competitors filing a […]
RankBrain: Social Sharing and Social Ads Have No Impact on RankBrain
RankBrain is one of Google’s most misunderstood search algorithms and as a result, there has been a vast amount of rumor and speculation about what RankBrain can and cannot do. One of the repeated rumors about RankBrain is that social shares and/or social ads can impact how RankBrain ranks a site, and the more social “impact” […]
Google Still Working on Separate Mobile Search Index
Google is still working on their mobile search index, something Google first confirmed last year, although we haven’t heard much about it for a year or so. The mobile index would be completely separate from the desktop index and would be for searches done on mobile only. Why is Google working on a mobile only […]
Next Mobile Friendly Update Includes Page Speed; Coming in Months
At Search Marketing Summit Sydney today, Gary Illyes confirmed that page speed will be a factor in the next mobile friendly update. Google has long talked about wanting to make page speed a mobile friendly factor, but this is the first time someone from Google has confirmed that it is actually coming. I also asked Illyes […]
Does Google Value AJAX Content Less Than Static HTML Content?
AJAX is still pretty popular for websites, and at Google Dance Tokyo, Gary Illyes and the other Googlers were asked about whether AJAX content was valued less by Google when compared to straight static HTML content, or if Googlebot still has trouble with AJAX – something that many webmaster dealt with years ago. But does Googlebot […]
Google: You Can Ignore Links from Scraper Sites
At Google Dance Tokyo, Gary Illyes was asked about scraper sites during the Q&A. He was specifically asked whether a site owner should be concerned about their site being scraped and republished, and all their internal links in the site were turned into external links from the scraper site pointing to the original site. You […]
Why Google Rewrites Title Tags & What SEOs Can Do
At last week’s Google Dance Tokyo, during the Q&A, Gary Illyes was asked about Google rewriting title tags, and if Google would ever allow SEOs the ability to prevent Google from rewriting them. And Illyes had some interesting responses on both of those. We will never quit rewriting titles. We’ve seen so many sites whose […]