Table of Contents
  1. Intro
  2. SNYCU Podcast
  3. Not a premium subscriber? You're missing out!
  4. News about Google’s Algorithms
  5. Google Announcements
  6. Google SERP Changes
  7. SEO Tips
  8. Google Help Hangout Tips
  9. Other Interesting News
  10. Local SEO - Other Interesting News
  11. SEO Tools
  12. Recommended Reading
  13. Jobs
  14. Want More?
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Ep. 228 - March 31, 2022 - Light Version

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In this episode, Marie discusses the March 2022 product reviews update, AI summaries in Google Docs, Web Stories shown on page 1 of SERPs, improving listicle content, removal of URL Inspection Tool, and the latest SEO news from across the industry.

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

  • More from Marie on the product reviews update
  • Google docs now has AI summaries
  • Web Stories are being shown on page 1
  • Brie Anderson provides some tips on GA4
  • How long should it take for Google to remove an image from Image Search that’s no longer on your website?
  • Here are a handful of quick ways to improve your listicle content
  • ECommerce: how to decide when it’s best to show products or categories/sub-categories on a page
  • Can long standing 404 pages pass link equity if you suddenly redirect them?
  • Google says that alt text is mainly beneficial for Image Search
  • Two updates to server-side Google Tag Manager
  • SEOs weigh in on the best tools to surface sitewide unused CSS and JavaScript
  • Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles
You’ll also have access to all past episodes, including this one.
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News about Google’s Algorithms

Just when we were wondering when the next big Google update was going to arrive, Google announced the release of the March 2022 Product Reviews Update. The release came on Wednesday March 23rd with an updated blog post on the Google Search Central Blog.

For those who are not clear, this is not a core update. The product reviews algorithm runs separately from the core ranking system and focuses specifically on prioritizing in-depth, authentic content for queries that look for product reviews. At the moment, it should only impact the rankings of English-Language product review queries. 

A number of SEOs were reporting on some volatility in the SERPs last week. However, Alan Kent from Google has clarified that this was not related.

Alan also gave some clarification that this update really should only be impacting product reviews on sites (also, of course, these could be misidentified).

Lily Ray took some time to look at the sites that have been impacted so far, and noted that a number of sites are seeing slips if the author has not actually tried the product. This may spell bad news for a lot of affiliate sites who compile content just to send users to affiliate sites as opposed to providing real value.

Looking at the sites we monitor, we are seeing several of our clients enjoy really nice improvements with this update. 

We thought you’d find this one funny, though!

If you are a premium reader, in the next section you’ll be able to read more of Marie’s thoughts on what this update means and how we can understand it better to the benefit of our clients.

In other news, there appears to be quite a lot of movement within the local SEO space. Joy Hawkins is seeing a number of sites that were impacted by the vicinity update seeing movements. Barry is reporting this as a correction to previous issues with that update.

Google Announcements

The URL parameter tool in GSC is going away

Tools are meant to be helpful and make your life easier, but according to Google, the URL parameters tool no longer is, so they’re getting rid of it. No action is required from current users. They’re depreciating the tool in a month’s time. 

Apparently, Google’s crawlers can learn to deal with parameters automatically, and if you want more control, using robots.txt rules or hreflang could be of use.

https://twitter.com/pedrodias/status/1508360588510085121

 

Changes to Search Console error reporting

Don’t be alarmed – these aren’t major changes – but Daniel Waisberg reminds us there has been a name change. They’ve simply added more context to their reporting so you can clearly understand what needs to be fixed. The GSC rich results status reports, GSC URL inspection tool, and Rich Results test will all be impacted. 

Google SERP Changes

Discount coupon codes are surfacing in Google Search shopping pack

This seems to be a very interesting find in the Google search shopping pack where coupon codes are showing up that essentially provide a discount or coupon code users can use on the merchant page (on desktop and mobile). 

 

SEO Tips

This week’s #learnseo Twitter chat featured Dana DiTomaso and GA4

ICYMI – every other week Marie is hosting a Twitter chat to discuss hot topics in SEO. Last week, she was joined by Dana DiTomaso to cover everything we’ve been wanting to know about GA4. 

If you’re new to GA4 like us, we definitely recommend giving this thread a read. Dana walks us through making the switch (she has a course to guide you) and some of the common comparisons between GA and GA4. We especially found the threads on generating YoY reports very useful. Be sure to follow the #learnseo hashtag to stay up to date on expert SEO advice.

Two possible reasons for a page with a noindex tag to be unintentionally indexed 

John responded to a user on Twitter asking about how a URL with a meta robots noindex directive could be showing in the SERPs. John said that this is because Google crawled it while it didn’t have the noindex tag or because the noindex tag was embedded in an invalid way.

Google Help Hangout Tips

Content quality – discovered, not crawled

John Mueller has mentioned these “crawled / discovered – currently not indexed” sections of Google Search Console in the past. If you’re having difficulty getting content indexed, it’s often the case that your website is technically sound and “it’s more that on our side from a quality point of view, it’s something where it feels like the bar is going up…”

Other Interesting News

Upcoming Advanced SEO Webinar

Don’t miss out on the chance to hear from Marie, John, Barry and Jason in an awesome advanced SEO webinar on April 14th. It is a free opportunity to hear from SEO experts (including a Google employee!!) on weathering Google updates. Don’t miss out! 

Local SEO - Other Interesting News

It’s coming up on April 5th!

If you haven’t already, this is a reminder to sign up for LocalU’s virtual symposium. Tickets are still available for the event running from 8:45-5:30 EST. Don’t miss out!

SEO Tools

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Recommended Reading

The Optimal Title Tag Lengths for SEO, Using Science – Cyrus Shepard
https://zyppy.com/seo/title-tags/meta-title-tag-length/
March 24, 2022

You’ll often hear that Google’s desktop display limit for titles is 600 pixels (which is about 50-60 characters). But according to Cyrus Shepard, this can be a misleading statement to blindly follow. Cyrus discusses how traffic was highest for URLs with a title length of around 55-60 characters in length. Short titles had the lowest traffic overall and long titles had more traffic than short titles, but not as much as medium-length titles. Find out more by reading the article!

Jobs

Want More?

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:

  • More from Marie on the product reviews update
  • Google docs now has AI summaries
  • Web Stories are being shown on page 1
  • Brie Anderson provides some tips on GA4
  • How long should it take for Google to remove an image from Image Search that’s no longer on your website?
  • Here are a handful of quick ways to improve your listicle content
  • ECommerce: how to decide when it’s best to show products or categories/sub-categories on a page
  • Can long standing 404 pages pass link equity if you suddenly redirect them?
  • Google says that alt text is mainly beneficial for Image Search
  • Two updates to server-side Google Tag Manager
  • SEOs weigh in on the best tools to surface sitewide unused CSS and JavaScript
  • Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles
You’ll also have access to all past episodes, including this one.
I

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