SNYCU Ep. 240 (June 23, 2022) - Light

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In this episode, we discuss changes to GSC reports, updates to the product rich results support page, interesting SEO tips, a brand new blog from Marie, and the latest in SEO news from across the industry!

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

• Marie’s thoughts and insights this week.
• Developing authoritative content? Check out these 5 tips!
• Setting up custom dimensions in Google Analytics 4
• A lesson in intent!
• Google testing FAQs based on trending searches
• Goodbye to nofollow links on Twitter?
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

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Juneteenth algorithm tremors?

Barry is reporting a lot of additional chatter in the webmaster world forums regarding turbulence over the weekend and following fathers day/Juneteenth (June 19/20th in the US). 

The weather tools also all showed some significant fluctuation. At MHC, we saw a little bit of turbulence on the sites we monitor around the 15-16th, however nothing out of the normal. It is most likely that these swings being reported in the forums are isolated cases and not due to a major change in the algorithm. As we have noted in previous weeks, the better Google gets at directing relevancy changes and intent shifts due to seasonality, the more volatility we will frequently see in the SERPs without there being any actual change to the core search system.  

Analyzing the May core update!

As promised, now that the core update has finished rolling out, Marie and the team have compiled their thoughts for an awesome blog post.

🚨 New content alert 🚨@Marie_Haynes just finished an awesome write up summarizing everything around the May core update as promised! Stay tuned as we will be releasing it soon 👌🏾 https://t.co/25mMZz1nx3

— Marie Haynes Consulting 🐼 (@mhc_inc) June 16, 2022

Give the full article some love and let us know what you think. 

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– Traffic Drop Assessments
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— Marie Haynes Consulting 🐼 (@mhc_inc) June 17, 2022

Google Search Console just got a little simpler!

If you’ve been poking around in Google Search Console, you may have noticed a slight change in your reports. As the tweet suggests, the change is in the way pages, items, and issues are classified (valid and invalid). 

We're simplifying the way we classify pages, items, and issues in Search Console reports. We hope this will help you focus on critical issues that affect your visibility in Search, and will help you better prioritize your work. Learn more at https://t.co/17fv54LhCb pic.twitter.com/8qnwX3kZ6X

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) June 15, 2022

If you’re worried about how this impacts your pages, rest assured, this change is only to the reporting – this does not impact crawling or indexing. 

This is a great change, a lot of thinking went into it! 🤓 But remember: this is "only" a reporting change in Search Console; there are no changes in how Google crawls, indexes, or serves your pages. https://t.co/hpIsKMOZtk

— Daniel Waisberg (@danielwaisberg) June 15, 2022

Update to the product rich results support page

Google updated their documentation for the product rich results support page. They made a slight addition in their “Guidelines” section to emphasize that you should only be using this markup for pages that focus on one single product, including product variants where each product variation has its own distinct URL (green shirt versus blue shirt).

For product pages that include product variants on one page without different URLs, it’s important to be aware of some limitations when using product markup in these instances:

• The page might be ineligible.
• Google Shopping won’t be able to take the user to that specific variant (i.e. the green shirt over the blue shirt). This can cause UX issues when the user already selected the variant they wanted in Google Shopping.

For more information on best practices and limitations for product markup, this article at SERoundtable is a good place to start.

Do algorithm updates run across the globe? 

In one of the newest episodes of #AskGooglebot, Google was asked if an update rolls out globally as soon as it is launched. According to John, the answer is a bit more complicated than a yes or no. Often, Google is capable of rolling updates globally thanks to their advanced algorithms. But other times, Google has to pick a country or a language to focus on first. By being selective with the location, Google is able to work on tweaks and thoroughly understand the effects that it might have on.

Today's #AskGoogleBot question: 👇

When a new algorithm update rolls out, does it roll out in all countries? @JohnMu answers this question here https://t.co/ETPbWt2yXj and shares additional context you'll find super helpful😃 pic.twitter.com/wuxDwsAxUm

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) June 14, 2022

Do 301 redirected links pass full credit? 

Some SEOs often focus on whether a link is passing equity or not, and oftentimes, SEO practices are focused around that. For Google’s John Mueller, whether or not equity is being passed, SEOs should switch their focus to best practices. According to John, when redirecting links, for example, the thought should be on whether that content is being redirected to something similar or of better value. In cases where there are relevant redirects, you’re more likely for Google to honour your setup and appropriately pass link equity (as intended).

Looking for some NLP resources?

Michael King has tweeted out some cool resources for natural language processing for those of you that may be interested. It’s broken up into a variety of sections that includes videos, scholarly papers, courses and how-tos and more. Be sure to preview it:

You can download this resource here: https://t.co/7cBOqo69vO

— Mic King (@iPullRank) June 17, 2022

A quick follow-up on the Thing to Know feature 

Announced at Google I/O in September of 2021 and tested soon after, this SERP feature is said to be present in about 1% of all queries present-day (based on findings by RankRanger who has been keeping tabs on how often this search feature appears in the SERPs, including testing). According to RankRanger, they call that 1% a significant footprint! So, what exactly is it?

It’s been described as something similar to the People Also Ask, Things To Consider, Refine This Search and Broaden This Search. It’s essentially aimed at extrapolating more details about a topic or query and then serving new paths for users which are easily identifiable. 

Product reviews update is still for English only

To date, there have been three Product Review (PRU) updates: the first in April 2021, then a second in December 2021, and finally the most recent occurred a few months ago in March 2022. As with the first two updates, this one has also been confirmed to have only rolled out to English-language pages. 

Alan Kent, a developer advocate at Google, confirmed on Twitter that when the PRU rolls out to more countries, there will likely be a blog post or some kind of announcement letting us know:

There will most likely be a blog or a tweet when something that significant happens (expanding the product reviews rollout to more countries). Rollouts are not just code, but also can involve checking local laws and regulations per country etc. So it can be slow going.

— Alan Kent (@akent99) May 24, 2022

He also confirmed that none of the other PRUs have changed language or geographic scope – all three updates have only impacted English-language pages: 

Sorry it was unclear. No, there is no global rollout notice at this time. None of the recent rollouts changed the language or geographic scope.

— Alan Kent (@akent99) June 14, 2022

Google’s advice has been consistent for each PRU, and each subsequent update to it has apparently been an update based on feedback and internal testing rather than anything brand new. There is official documentation here on how to write a high-quality product review. Even for sites with content in a different language, it is worth following the advice for creating a good product review because Google still says that they’re planning on eventually expanding support to more languages.

State of link-building 2022

We look forward to reading this report from Aira every year on the state of link-building! It’s always intriguing to see what other professionals in the industry are seeing as popular tactics and their insights.

https://twitter.com/paddymoogan/status/1537348781133467648

Interestingly, when asked how effective link-building is in influencing organic search rankings, the average answer was a 7.8 out of 10. This doesn’t mean you should go out and build a ton of links – after all, this would be in violation of Google’s guidelines. Rather, we encourage you to go about this in a natural fashion and build links that are legitimate mentions of you and/or your organization. 

BBB reviews and complaints missing? 

This was quite interesting when it popped on our feed! A user shared in the local search forum that they experienced a drop on the BBB. In fact, they had lost hundreds of reviews.

Did you know that the BBB removes reviews + complaints that are over 3 years old? I had no idea until @keyserholiday shared: https://t.co/66cfu4uJM0

— Joy Hawkins (@JoyanneHawkins) June 16, 2022

Turns out that reviews and complaints on BBB that are over 3 years old are removed! If you suddenly are missing review sentiment in BBB, it might be worthwhile asking yourself how old they are. Shout out to Jason for pointing out this (not so new) information to us!

Why 100% indexing isn’t possible, and why that’s OK – Dan Taylor
https://searchengineland.com/100-percent-indexing-impossible-385773
June 14, 2022

You’ve likely heard in the past that search engines like Google can’t index everything on the web. We’ve also heard this on countless occasions (especially in SEO office hour hangouts with John Mueller). This makes total sense because frankly, the online world is such a vast endless place. However, is this a problem? Do you need 100% indexing? In this amazing article by Dan Taylor, we learn about why 100% indexing is not possible and more importantly, why that is okay.

What Is a 404 Error and How Do You Fix It? – Katherine Nwanorue
https://www.techseojournal.com/post/what-is-a-404-error-and-how-do-you-fix-it
June 13, 2022

This is a great piece of content to share with your entry-level SEOs or for people just getting started with tech SEO. 

In this great little guide, Katherine Nwanorue walks through the basics of 404 errors. Read the full article for more!

17 content optimization mistakes affecting ROI – Himani Kankaria
https://searchengineland.com/content-optimization-mistakes-affecting-roi-385797
June 15, 2022

Himani Kankaria wrote up a very insightful article listing the top content optimization mistakes that SEOs tend to often overlook. The article emphasizes that content optimization goes beyond adding keywords and an FAQ section to the page. Definitely recommend reading this one!

https://twitter.com/exceldaddy/status/1537055054577934346

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:

• Marie’s thoughts and insights this week.
• Developing authoritative content? Check out these 5 tips!
• Setting up custom dimensions in Google Analytics 4
• A lesson in intent!
• Google testing FAQs based on trending searches
• Goodbye to nofollow links on Twitter?
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

⎋ SUBSCRIBE NOW

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.@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