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In this episode, we discuss content, content and more content. This includes content updates for SEO, completing content audits, good and bad content, unique content and much more!

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

• How to get a knowledge panel
• Content updates for SEO
• Google’s opinion on faceted navigation hasn’t changed
• Have you tried causal impact testing?
• A thread on content audits
• When to serve 500 status code
• If you have a mix of good and bad content.. this one’s for you
• Does unique content affect rankings?
• Importance of providing what users want
• Google on (breadcrumbs) structured data
• Average position in GSC actually depicts your average top position
• A checklist that might help you understand your ranking changes
• If you use Screaming Frog, this one’s for you
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

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There were a few bits of algorithm news this week. The first is that the knowledge graph refreshed again this week on January 12th 2022.

Yet ANOTHER #KnowledgeGraph update

As you can see, the average confidence score is on the up and up, and took a big leap on this latest update.
The "bag of beans" is getting bigger… Maybe pic.twitter.com/KYc6FHfLOg

— 𝄢 Jason Barnard 🇺🇦 (@jasonmbarnard) January 12, 2022

This coincides with a possible unannounced update on the 11th/12th of January. Barry is reporting a lot of chatter on this date in the webmaster forums and the weather tools started to spike a bit. Are the two connected? Did Google’s most recent knowledge graph update assert with more confidence a number of smaller brands, who in turn have begun to rank better? Is the knowledge graph used at all in organic ranking?

These are all hot topics of debate right now, and at MHC we are developing a few theories about how this may be possible.

Premium subscribers can read more.

More on what is and isn’t YMYL

In podcast this week, Marie will be sharing interesting information she learned in studying what the search quality evaluator guidelines have to say about YMYL. Did you know that the raters are told to do different kinds of research depending on whether or not a site is YMYL? She will share her thoughts on how to determine if you are YMYL, why it matters, and what improvements you should focus on depending on what your answer is.

This week’s to watch 

We wanted to take the chance this week to elevate Brodie Clark as our person to watch. Brodie is a freelance SEO, who also speaks and writes regularly on things like featured snippets, SERP features, and structured data. You can find Brodie on Twitter where he’s always sharing helpful tips and the latest changes Google makes to the search results. On top of all that advice he shares, Brodie keeps a timeline on SERP feature changes. All SEOs should have this page bookmarked. Have you ever wondered, “wait, when did Google start doing this?” Because we definitely have, and the first place we check is Brodie’s timeline.

Google adds a page experience report to GSC for the upcoming page experience update

In a recent blog post at Google Search Central, Google announced the timeline of the rollout. To prepare, Google has set up a dedicated desktop section within its Page Experience report to give site owners insight on Google’s good page experience data. Here you can see the percentage of pages on your site that Google deems a good experience and impressions overtime. With this data you can quickly analyze which pages on your site need tweaking and which ones provide a good experience for users. 

To support the upcoming rollout of page experience ranking to desktop, Search Console now has a dedicated desktop section in its Page Experience report to help site owners understand Google’s 'good page experience' criteria. Read more about the rollout https://t.co/FQvMx3Ymaf

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) January 17, 2022

What you should know about topic clusters

Topic clusters are great to organize content and figure out content gaps that you can optimize for. While they can’t magically solve all SEO issues, by strategically creating related content and focusing on strengthening that content, creators have better opportunities to internally link their pages as well as develop a stronger authority on the topic. Those benefits combined, within time, can potentially improve the site’s ranking. 

Topic clusters are the BEST way to skyrocket your SEO in 2022 🚀

Here's why everyone seems to be talking about them…

— Jake (@jsvxc) January 11, 2022

Great advice for indexing issues

If you’re worried about indexing issues, fear not. Google doesn’t index everything and sometimes things just take a bit more time. Rule out any technical issues and maybe take a look at your overall site quality to see if that could be an issue as well.

If you're having indexing issues, this is great advice.

🔶G doesn't index everything
🔶could be related to overall quality of your site
🔶could be a technical issue
🔶might just need more time

Jan 7 help hangout:https://t.co/AuclPrdofS #SEO pic.twitter.com/cx9IJVY7aZ

— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) January 12, 2022

Did you know Google does two types of crawling?

In the January 7th help hangout, John talked about how Google uses two types of crawling. 

Google does two types of crawling – discovery and refresh.

Google adjust how often they do refresh crawls depending on how regularly your content is likely to change.

Jan 7 help hangout:https://t.co/AuclPrdofS #SEO pic.twitter.com/xXRkk3wtfK

— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) January 12, 2022

Changes to Google Tag Manager

Server-side #GoogleTagManager now updated to serve Google dependencies *completely* from the server endpoint. That includes gtag.js, analytics.js, gtm.js and any plugins (e.g. ec.js) that they use AND Zones.https://t.co/My6cvlFTlf

— Simo Ahava (@SimoAhava) January 13, 2022

For those unfamiliar with Google Tag Managers’ server-side tagging (a feature that was made available last April), it allows you to move measurement tags over to Google’s dedicated cloud server. 

This can provide — among other advantages — site performance benefits by processing less on the client side and reducing the need for bloated scripts on the page. Once you’ve got a server container set up, you can now configure it to load Google scripts such as gtm.js and analytics.js. Step by step instructions are available over at Google’s developer docs.

What hours should you list on your GBP?

Should you list your Google Business Profile hours as 24-7? @ColanNielsen weighs in on the pros and cons. Via @SterlingSkyInc https://t.co/iD9hCmo9tt

— Joy Hawkins (@JoyanneHawkins) January 17, 2022

22 Smart Google SEO Tips for 2022 – Cyrus Shepard
https://moz.com/blog/smart-google-seo-tips-2022
January 7, 2022

A new season of Whiteboard Friday started off with Cyrus Shepard giving us 22 great tips for Google SEO. Every single one of the 22 tips are great. After all, it’s Cyrus’ final Whiteboard Friday so you know it’ll be filled with juicy tidbits!

We have just published job openings for quite a few positions in our (@ahrefs ) Marketing team.

Come check them out! 😉

And I would really appreciate a like/RT 🙏, because (as I'm sure you know) finding great people is super hard! pic.twitter.com/PYGaeQWRga

— Tim Soulo 🇺🇦 (@timsoulo) January 13, 2022

FYI @iPullRankAgency is expanding its SEO teamhttps://t.co/3rSNWUukhU

👷🏾‍♀️ SEO Director
👩🏾‍💻 SEO Engineer
😮 SEO Manager
😲 Sr. SEO Analyst
😵 SEO Analyst
🙃 SEO Intern

✅ Remote is A-OK
✅ 💰Ranges are posted

It's a good time for you to come do some work that you're PROUD of!

— Mic King (@iPullRank) January 13, 2022

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:

• How to get a knowledge panel
• Content updates for SEO
• Google’s opinion on faceted navigation hasn’t changed
• Have you tried causal impact testing?
• A thread on content audits
• When to serve 500 status code
• If you have a mix of good and bad content.. this one’s for you
• Does unique content affect rankings?
• Importance of providing what users want
• Google on (breadcrumbs) structured data
• Average position in GSC actually depicts your average top position
• A checklist that might help you understand your ranking changes
• If you use Screaming Frog, this one’s for you
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

⎋ SUBSCRIBE NOW

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