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In this episode, we discuss a possible minor algorithm update, a breakdown of Google’s movie on how search works, understanding user intent and the most recent Google changes and ranking tips!

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Ask Marie an SEO Question

Have a question that you want to ask Marie? You can ask them on our Q&A with Marie Haynes Consulting page and Marie will answer some of the best questions each week in podcast!

It’s well worth the $18 per month.

The following topics are covered in the premium version of this episode:

• October 26-28 – possible minor update
• Full recap of: Required watching for all SEOs: How search works by Google
• Upcoming Google change
• How to rank on Google: 25 step master checklist
• Deadly sins of link building and what you can do to avoid this
• How does Google treat capitalization in HTML attribute names?
• Retailers and manufacturers: how to get the most out of Google’s product Knowledge Panels
• More on the update for Passages and how it relates more to ranking than indexing
• Resources to up your auditing skills
• The latest WordPress update has issues
• How Ahrefs leveraged Twitter to help launch their Webmaster Tools
• Yoast’s new feature allows for enhanced sharing in Slack
• A beginner’s guide to reputation management
• Why you should consider embedding a Google Map on your website
• Easily track GMB category changes in recent months
• Interesting repercussions related to Google My Business profile edits
• My tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO and Local SEO articles

⎋ SUBSCRIBE NOW

Required watching for all SEOs: How search works by Google

This mini-movie released by Google is incredible. In it, they share loads of information that every SEO should know. While we do recommend watching the movie, if you are a premium member of Search News You Can Use, in this section, you can read a detailed account from Marie on the exciting things we learned about how Google fights spam, how the quality raters are used, and Google’s advances in understanding language. We’re especially excited to talk about DeepRank, Google’s code name for the project that got BERT live.

We got a facelift! 

You’re reading this on the new and improved mariehaynes.com! We’re very excited to have this new look and feel of our site that aligns with the MHC brand. Thank you to the team at Kick Point Inc. for helping make this a success! 

We just launched our brand new website! Huge thank you to @kickpointinc and @MapleLeafsHS for making this dream a reality!

Go take a look and let us know what you think 👇https://t.co/ymfLlRlCKP pic.twitter.com/0yNg59Gcf9

— Marie Haynes Consulting (@mhc_inc) November 4, 2020

The next big thing for SEO: understanding user intent

Marie recently published her article outlining all of the recent changes in Google’s Quality Raters’ Guidelines. This tied in nicely with the Search On event and what the future of SEO may look like. If you haven’t already, we definitely recommended checking it out!

AskGoogleWebmasters: How to handle 307 redirects

On this week’s episode of #AskGoogleWebmasters, John Mueller explains why Googlebot does not interact with 307s, as they are, generally, not real redirects.

↩ How to handle 307 redirects!

In this #AskGoogleWebmasters, @JohnMu discusses how a Googlebot interacts with HSTS/307 redirects. Thank you @getvisible for this great question!

See how → https://t.co/t7EPGm03dj pic.twitter.com/JtV8ukgTDA

— Google Webmasters (@googlewmc) October 28, 2020

How Google crawls podcasts 

How does Google crawl podcasts? Via @johnmu: There are 2 aspects: 1) Google shows some podcasts in the SERPs based on tech requirements 2) Pages containing podcast info are typical webpages. For those, make sure you add textual content (like a transcript) https://t.co/N2pztybrEM pic.twitter.com/7JO8q3m7ms

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) November 1, 2020

John Mueller mentions that Google can recognize podcasts based on where they are hosted and if the RSS feed can be found. He points to the Google Help center pages for more information there. Also worth noting, John mentions that Google does not actively index what is being said in a podcast, so there is a benefit of adding a transcript to each post.

Data delay in Google Search Console Coverage Report 

There’s currently a 10 day delay in GSC data which is substantial given that the normal delay is 2 days. While delays are a normal occurrence, Barry worries that it could result in a data loss. Hopefully that does not happen, and this is just another delay in GSC. 

Note: We just checked some clients’ GSC profiles and this issue appears to be resolved. 

Microsoft announces free Analytics tool

This week Microsoft launched a new tool called Microsoft Clarity that is specifically designed to help webmasters visualize their site’s user data through the use of heatmaps, season playbooks, and a new insights dashboard. The sessions playback feature is particularly interesting, as it will show webmasters exactly how a user interacted with their page. 

The new tool is also designed to not slow down your site when tracking is installed, and will be free to all webmasters. 

You can read more about the features of the tool in this article from SEJ.

Here is a look at this week’s Local RankFlux tool from BrightLocal! It is a pretty steady week showing no signs of increase. If you’re experiencing any odd fluctuations, it doesn’t appear to be because of an algorithm update. 

Google My Business showing case statuses!

For those that have been waiting for reinstatements, this could be a big change! However, this is on the account level, so if you’ve submitted multiple requests, you will only see them when looking at a specific account. Ben says he isn’t able to replicate this, but we’ll keep an eye on it to see what happens! 

New: Google My Business Adds Case Statuses to Contact Flow, and it will probably change everything.. ok well at least cure some frustrations. https://t.co/FXdGlI6E0m@rustybrick #LocalSEO

— Ben Fisher (@TheSocialDude) October 28, 2020

The Mechanics of E-A-T: How Google Patents Can Help Explain How E-A-T Works – Lily Ray
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-e-a-t-works-google-patents/385562/
October 28, 2020

Lily Ray and Bill Slawski join forces to discuss the various patents that could explain how E-A-T works. A quick note here: a Google patent doesn’t give an exact explanation of how the algorithm works, nor is it public information as to which patents are and are not integrated into the algorithm. 

It’s clear that Google is capable at measuring E-A-T and various quality factors. If you’re curious about how this all works, or learn more about patents in general, this is a worthwhile article!

Could Google passage indexing be leveraging BERT? – Dawn Anderson
https://searchengineland.com/could-google-passage-indexing-be-leveraging-bert-342975
October 29, 2020

This article is a window into Search and you’ll find lots of good insight related to BERT and BERT-like models. For those of you keen to actively stay on top of the latest (and upcoming!) trends, passage ranking and BERT are amongst the most talked about topics and should be digested.

Emboldened Featured Snippets: A Subtle Hint for SEO Relevance – Brodie Clark
https://brodieclark.com/emboldened-featured-snippets-seo-relevance/
October 28, 2020

New and evolving changes to SERP features are pointed out on the regular and here’s one about featured snippets.

Brodie Clark pointed out that list formats in featured snippets are becoming more common and with that comes bolding of Google’s preferred answer within that list. Listen to him dive into featured snippet formatting in this article! 

Node Identifiers: From Structured Data to Linked Data – Patrick Hathaway
https://sitebulb.com/resources/guides/node-identifiers-from-structured-data-to-linked-data/
October 27, 2020

This is a fantastic article from Patrick Hathaway at SiteBulb about how you can take the next step in understanding and utilizing structured data for SEO.

Patrick provides a detailed explanation of how to interconnect these node identifiers on your site and the key benefits! Patrick goes on to provide a detailed explanation of how to implement node identifiers on your site. 

Exit The Black Hole Of Web Story Tracking – How To Track User Progress In Web Stories Via Event Tracking In Google Analytics – Glenn Gabe
https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/how-to-track-user-progress-web-stories-google-analytics/
November 2, 2020

This latest article from Glenn Gabe is all about how you can use Event tracking in Google Analytics to track how far a user is progressing through their Web Story. As well, there’s information regarding how events and triggers work in order to allow readers who don’t already know this to start testing their own advanced tracking set up.

 If you’re using Web Stories on your site, this article is a must-read for you in order to get a more granular understanding of your user’s engagement with your story, in order to refine the content to improve the user’s experience with it.

Looking to connect with SEO/content marketing people in the following countries for both remote or office-based roles in either our Sheffield or London offices :

-Germany 🇩🇪
-The Netherlands 🇳🇱
-Spain 🇪🇸

Looking for at least 2 years experience in link acquisition!

— Will Hobson (@WillHobson) October 30, 2020

One of the best companies in the digital marketing world is hiring for 20+ roles. I was CEO of this firm for a week, and I can promise it's one of the best places to build a career.

Go get it, friends: https://t.co/Q8dEmMadu0 pic.twitter.com/dXA1Q8U7a4

— Rand Fishkin (@randfish) October 30, 2020

Greenlane is growing. If you're looking for a new SEO gig, we're a great team with great clients. Let's chat!

— Bill Sebald ™ (@billsebald) November 3, 2020

Premium members also get the following:

It’s well worth the $18 per month!

• October 26-28 – possible minor update
• Full recap of: Required watching for all SEOs: How search works by Google
• Upcoming Google change
• How to rank on Google: 25 step master checklist
• Deadly sins of link building and what you can do to avoid this
• How does Google treat capitalization in HTML attribute names?
• Retailers and manufacturers: how to get the most out of Google’s product Knowledge Panels
• More on the update for Passages and how it relates more to ranking than indexing
• Resources to up your auditing skills
• The latest WordPress update has issues
• How Ahrefs leveraged Twitter to help launch their Webmaster Tools
• Yoast’s new feature allows for enhanced sharing in Slack
• A beginner’s guide to reputation management
• Why you should consider embedding a Google Map on your website
• Easily track GMB category changes in recent months
• Interesting repercussions related to Google My Business profile edits
• My tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO and Local SEO articles

⎋ SUBSCRIBE NOW

Note: If you are seeing the light version and you are a premium member, be sure to log in (in the sidebar on desktop or below the post on mobile) and read the full article here.

Part of the challenge of SEO is staying on top of industry news, trends, and techniques There is so much information out there that it is easy to get bogged down in information overload and trying to disseminate what’s truly important from all that noise can be really time-consuming and challenging.

Marie’s newsletter is a game changer because it manages to cut through the fluff and deliver high-quality information that is not only really important for those that do SEO, but it is presented in a format that is really easy to absorb.

If you are looking for a trusted information related to search that is highly actionable I would strongly recommend Marie’s newsletter.

– Paul Macnamara – Offers SEO Consulting at PaulMacnamara.com