Ep. 214 - Dec. 16, 2021 - Light Version

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In this episode, we discuss the recent Google algorithm changes seen across the industry and Marie’s insight on it, the importance of internal linking, keyword cannibalization, a ton of changes within the local sphere, and more!

Another new podcast episode will return next week!

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Ask Marie an SEO Question

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

• What we are seeing with MHC clients
• Changes to Google Search Console’s performance report for News
• Using GSC’s URL Removals tool
• Keyword cannibalization (thread)
• Google Discover tips
• Emails about redirects from GSC being looked into
• New local interface in Search
• GBP bug fixes
• Track calls from GBP
• Duplicate content for local SEO
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

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For those that follow the local SEO space, you may have noticed some murmurs of volatility within the local SERPs. Joy Hawkins from Sterling Sky noted a lot of chatter occurring over at the Local Search Forum regarding shifts within the local pack. Users are observing a number of “newcomers” getting visibility. Joy attributes most of the changes to have occurred on December 6th based on her analysis. Premium members will get a look at the full algorithm news. 

100 things to know about Google core updates

ICYMI, last week we released our blog post and video that discusses 100 things you need to know about Google’s core updates. The team spent a TON of time putting this together, so we truly hope you find it valuable. 

Need help recovering from an update? Not sure why you were hit? Just want to understand Google better?

100 things you should know about Google core updates by @Marie_Haynes answers all of those questions.

Read or watch it here:https://t.co/snbJEzKitz

— Marie Haynes Consulting 🐼 (@mhc_inc) December 10, 2021

No episode December 30th

Every year, MHC closes for the holidays to refresh and reset. Given this closure, there will not be a newsletter or podcast episode on Thursday December 30th. We’ll resume the following week once we’re back! Thank you for your understanding. 

This week’s to watch

This week, we’d like to highlight Praveen Sharma, who is an SEO strategist and consultant based out of India. Praveen is quite active on Twitter and always seems to be sharing great tips and resources in a very digestible way. In addition to this, Praveen also keeps an eye on new features and SERP changes that show up in Google. If you’re active on SEO Twitter, we definitely recommend you give Praveen a follow!

Martin Splitt hosts a new series

SEOs and developers can live together in harmony! At least according to Martin Splitt that is.  

🤔 Imagine if developers and SEOs could work together in harmony?@g33konaut hosts SEOs and Devs, a new series bridging the disconnect between SEOs and developers by highlighting the intersection of their worlds.

Watch the trailer → https://t.co/0PGx8isVOK pic.twitter.com/gG5ufbFJwE

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 9, 2021

A common issue is that SEOs and developers can sometimes be disconnected from each other. We hear about such situations in some of the Google Search Central office hour hangouts. In this new series, Martin bridges that gap between the two professions. Check it out because we know we definitely will be. 

Internal linking best practices (with visuals!) 

Internal links are one of the most important yet under-utilized components of SEO, in our opinion. This resource is truly a phenomenal piece as you can select your site and page type and see actionable recommendations.

Read it, save it, and share it. It’s that good!

Love how dwx has implemented these internal linking best practices for different types of sites and different types of pages within them:

* E-commerce
* Classifieds
* Blogs

Check it out: https://t.co/J0QhWZwP0g pic.twitter.com/Afjq58as4e

— Aleyda Solis 🕊️ (@aleyda) December 9, 2021

Embedding YouTube videos: a tip

Embedding YouTube videos on site can be extremely useful, although it may take your users off-site. Justin Mosebach advises creating an optimized playlist. 

– Related video thumbnails don't show until after the last video's played.
– Users see more of YOUR relevant videos without leaving the page.
– Gets more mileage out of other video content you've paid to produce.
– Increases # of views/watch time to help the videos rank better.

— Justin Mosebach (@jlmosebach) December 7, 2021

Alexa.com is shutting down May 2022

A little piece of Internet history is shutting down. Amazon announced that Alexa.com will close down on May 1, 2022, effectively ending 25 years of confusion about whether Alexa’s ranking meant anything for Google or PageRank. For old time’s sake, here’s John Mueller’s definitive answer to this:

https://twitter.com/JohnMu/status/1160849194988580864

RIP, Alexa.com. We’d say we’ll miss you, but we’d be lying:

Imagine there's no Alexarank
It's easy if you try
No DA below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today.

Imagine there's no AR
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to link or pay for
And no PR too
Imagine all the sites
Living life in peace.

— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) December 9, 2021

Hotels and hospitality listings can officially use posts

Spotted on Google’s Help Centre, a section about hotels was added. We know that previously, hospitality and hotel listings were not able to use posts, but it looks like it might be legitimate and not a bug. This feature was seen by some this summer, leading us to believe it was a bug, but now, it looks like Google has added it to their documentation, making it legitimate. 

We were told this was coming by the hotels team several weeks ago but we weren't allowed to say anything. The suspense has been killing me 🙂 Yes, it's official that hotels can now publish what's new, event, and COVID-19 posts but not offer or product posts.

— Damian Rollison (@damianrollison) December 11, 2021

Tag Pages & Content Tagging For SEO: A Complete Guide – Daniel Smullen
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/tagging-seo/427762/
December 8, 2021

Are tag pages useful? Or can tag pages be detrimental to your SEO efforts? The answer is not so clear cut so we will say “it depends” for now. In case you’re unfamiliar with tagging, a tag is a method by which information can be described and organized by using a keyword or term. Want to know even more? We recommend giving the full article on Search Engine Journal by Daniel Smullen a read-through.

Product Review Snippets Not Working – Oliver H.G. Mason
https://ohgm.co.uk/product-review-snippets-not-working/
December 8, 2021

Oliver Mason recently wrote a case study about an e-commerce site that had seen a drop in their review snippets. After a thorough analysis of this site’s reviews, Oliver found a possible solution. If you are curious to know, we recommend that you read Oliver’s article to find out what the solution was. 

Improving Page Speed for Norse Projects – Dave Peiris
https://tryblackbird.com/blog/norse-projects
November 2021

Blackbird is a new site speed monitoring system that identifies specific speed issues and tracks conversions as these areas are improved. Dave Peiris recently wrote a fascinating case study about an e-commerce retailer using this new system. I’m sure we’re all aware that a slow website can hurt conversions but this new tool seeks to find out by exactly how much. If you’re looking for more ideas for improving LCP load speed accompanied by very specific examples, this article is worth checking out. 

Do Links Still Matter for Rankings? A Study by Ahrefs – Patrick Stox
https://ahrefs.com/blog/impact-of-links/
December 8, 2021

Because there are SEOs that are skeptical over whether links are “dead” or not, Patrick Stox played around with links to test their impact on rankings. With the help of Ahrefs’ heads of content, they disavowed a total of 3,476 links across three of Ahrefs’ blog posts and waited about a month for those links in the disavow to be recrawled. See what happened by reading the article.

Seismic event or overblown rebrand: Local search experts weigh in on ‘death’ of Google My Business – Jamie Pitman
https://searchengineland.com/seismic-event-or-overblown-rebrand-local-search-experts-weigh-in-on-death-of-google-my-business-376941
December 6, 2021

If you’re wondering what the reason for the Google My Business rebrand was for, you’re not the only one. There actually is a reason, and they’ve made a few changes. Read the article to learn all about them. 

Premium members also get the following:

It’s well worth the $18 per month!

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

• What we are seeing with MHC clients
• Changes to Google Search Console’s performance report for News
• Using GSC’s URL Removals tool
• Keyword cannibalization (thread)
• Google Discover tips
• Emails about redirects from GSC being looked into
• New local interface in Search
• GBP bug fixes
• Track calls from GBP
• Duplicate content for local SEO
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent 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.

.@marie_haynes: “She inspires me as the leading expert in EAT and also as a successful business owner. She puts out one of the best and most in-depth SEO newsletters in the industry.”

— Inflow® (@goinflow) March 8, 2021