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Episode 83 - May 15, 2019 - Light Version

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In this episode, we'll cover the possibility of a big update looming from Google, a roundup of the noteworthy news from Google I/O, the big changes coming to Chrome, what's in store for image search, and much more.

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In this episode:

Paid members also get the following:

  • Some changes are coming to Chrome
  • Structured data installment: FAQ and How-to
  • The latest development in Google’s Top Stories
  • Could augmented reality be coming to search?
  • Big news from I/O! Changes ahead re: Google Fonts
  • Further details on the Mini-apps announced during the I/O keynote
  • Google Assistant to be become more tailored to the user
  • More from I/O: Google Assistant is getting way faster, check out this demo!
  • Creepers rejoice! Google set to expand incognito mode
  • Chrome developers delivers a collection of handy resources
  • Which is more accurate? URL inspection tool or cached version?
  • Can a paid SSL certificate provide additional benefit in terms of rankings?
  • Commands for over-riding freshness
  • Nice demonstration of the new FAQPage schema and how the rich results look
  • Local SEO: SEOs weigh in on their top 5 suggestions to optimize your GMB
  • Local SEO: In case you missed it, this is a resource not to miss!
  • Are you tired of that same old boring Lorem Ipsum text?
  • Here's a handy tool for developers: a performance budget calculator!
  • My tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO and Local SEO articles

Algorithm Updates

May 9, 2019

There was possibly a small quality update on this day. We had several clients that saw changes in Google organic traffic that deviated from normal seasonal trends at this time. Most of them were up, but a couple were down slightly.

At this point, we can’t see an obvious pattern as to which sites were affected. We will keep you updated if more information surfaces.

Is Google gearing up for a big update?

Our team found this SEJ article by Roger Montti quite interesting. At MHC we have speculated that the rash of Google bugs we have seen recently could be connected to a complete overhaul of Google’s infrastructure.

Roger has some interesting points in his article that support this idea:

  • The big deindexing bug that caused many pages to drop out of the index happened one month following the March 12 update.
  • Google is now rendering with the most recent version of Chrome rather than the outdated Chrome 41. This is a big change.
  • Google’s Panda and Penguin updates which were arguably the biggest changes to the algorithm ever, fell on the heels of the introduction of Caffeine which was a massive infrastructure update.

It certainly is possible that Google has made some massive changes in code and internal processes and that those changes will allow them to rank sites in a dramatically different way. If this is true, we may find that the improvements Google has made will allow them to introduce new ways to algorithmically surface the sites that are of the highest quality and helpfulness.

For now though, this is all a whole bunch of speculation. Also, after we wrote this for newsletter, Search Engine Land published some thoughts from Google, saying that no, nothing was pushed out around infrastructure here. Perhaps all of these bugs and changes are simply coincidental!

Google Announcements

There’s a new Speed Report coming to GSC

Here’s a sneak peak from Google I/O --- side note: unfortunately the link in the following tweet does not work, however, you can sign up here to be involved in the beta.

As Barry Schwartz points out over on Search Engine Land, this will provide SEOs and webmasters with a single hub to find this information, rather than visiting the PageSpeed tools. Even more, it’ll give you historical data to track the progression over time.

Here's a nice roundup of all the new announcements regarding the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) from I/O

Be sure to check out the full Twitter thread for all this great stuff!

What’s coming to Google Image Search

At Google’s I/O May 9, John Mueller and Gary Illyes made announcements of what’s to come for image search. A high resolution image opt-in program via special markup where images can be used in places like image search, Google Discover and AMP and more is on it’s way.

In March, Google tested the ability to swipe up see the article associated to an image. A swipe-up feature will now be released with information on how it will work coming soon.

We can also expect to see 3D images in search. This function will use AR to place them using your mobile camera.

To hear the full announcement, watch the embedded video here.

Coming soon: the ability to opt-in to high resolution images in GSC

More info about the evergreen Googlebot

Are you curious about which features the new Googlebot will support? This link is to a direct comparison of what's supported for Chrome 41(old) and Chrome 74 (new):

SEL published an article as well on what this means for technical SEOs. The news that Googlebot updates will follow Chrome releases within the span of a few weeks is great news for testing purposes. However, Detlef points out the “traditional advice” mostly remains the same: “There will be fewer critical indexing issues to point out for sites running modern JavaScript. Traditional advice, however, will remain largely intact. For example, the new rendering engine does not shortcut the indexing render queue for reactive code.”

Therefore, technical SEOs should continue to inform clients about the benefits server-side rendering so that all user agents can see the rendered content!

Finally, a test has revealed that the new Googlebot is now live!

Big news from I/O! Changes ahead re: Google Fonts

SEO Codelabs for developers

More news from Google I/O -- Code Labs has been updated to teach users how to add structured data, how to test and improve single-page apps (SPA) to make it search-friendly, and how to implement dynamic rendering with Rendertron.

Some of the links in Martin's tweet don't work, but the correct ones are here:

Google SERP Changes

Google Podcasts rollout begins!

The Head of Product for Google Podcasts tweeted this past week about Google rolling out new search functions now available directly in the SERPs:

However, we should clarify that this is not the transcription news that we featured in the most recent podcast episode. It seems that transcripts do not trigger results, instead this is the first step in podcasts being available directly in the SEPRs:

SEO Tips

Martin Splitt clarifies Googlebot's ability/inability to click on elements

The new Googlebot still doesn't click on any elements when it crawls a page, the URLs it discovers are extracted from links.

Google touches on pagination

Google can’t move to the rendering process if your entire site is using the noindex directive

https://twitter.com/pedrodias/status/1126595422649294855

Set properties for all links in a document using the <base> element

Other Interesting News

A journey through the years with Google

This is a rather interesting article which touches on the changes in the SERPs over the years. A few interesting items discussed include the addition of features like star ratings/schema, featured snippets, related questions and other similar items (side note: there a neat little chart in which breaks down the SERP feature by the year it was introduced and how likely it is to now appear in the SERPs). Perhaps most interesting item of them all…

Google has added three new features to Google Sheets, and the "Remove Duplicates" addition is making a lot of people very happy

Mailchimp has announced they're expanding from email to a full marketing platform for small businesses

As of early this week, Mailchimp has shed its skin and is taking aim at all new heights. They currently boast 11 million active customers and a total audience of 4 billion, but those figures should soon grow thanks to their expanded offerings which include things like AI for business intelligence. They’ll tap into their network of 4 billion to help gain insight, allowing them to provide recommendations to users on how and when to market to whom. You can expect all new pricing tiers from Mailchimp, although existing paid customers can maintain their current plans.

Although Amazon is on the rise, small businesses are continuing to grow in the US (it’s reported that SMBs continue to make up 48% of the GDP). That is clearly an opportunity that Mailchimp wants to take full advantage of!

For full details, check out the article from TechCrunch.

Local SEO - Tips

Does adding a service area create a radius or should you add cities between your outer limits?

Over on the Local Search Forum, one member asked whether selecting your service area meant that Google created a radius for your business and if so, do they also automatically include the areas that are contained within. Great question for sure!

Luckily Phil Rozek jumped in and noted that what you’re seeing in the red coverage on your map does not automatically imply that the areas between your edges are covered. He noted that Google does not fully understand the map representations well enough yet, so it’s best to add the inner cities, zips, and areas.

SEO Tools

Generate your different Google IDs (new from BrightLocal)

Recommended Reading

Count ‘em up: 100 things we announced at I/O ‘19 – Alicia Cormie
https://www.blog.google/technology/developers/100-things-we-announced-io-19
May 9, 2019

Another Google I/O has come and gone and the announcements seemed endless! Luckily, Google released a blog post highlighting 100 announcements which is broken down nicely by Hardware, Assistant, AI and ML, Google News and Search, Augmented Reality and Google Lens, and more. This is a light read and one not to miss!


How to use Google advanced search operators to find indexation and technical SEO issues – Dave Elliot
https://builtvisible.com/how-to-use-google-advanced-search-operators-to-find-indexation-and-technical-seo-issues/
May 8, 2019

‘Free tools’ is likely music to your ears. As SEOs and webmasters, most of us can’t have enough in our arsenal. In this article, you’ll find plenty from Google in the form of search operators.


An SEO’s Guide to Writing Structured Data (JSON-LD) – Brian Gormanh
https://moz.com/blog/writing-structured-data-guide
May 9, 2019

Are you one of the many webmasters or SEOs whose brain shuts down when you think about writing/debugging structured data or understanding JSON-LD? Fear not, as Brian Gormanh has produced an accessible guide for understanding JSON-LD structured data syntax and how to generate markup using either an online generator or by writing it yourself with a text editor. He also has some good tips on validating your structured data and how to handle error reports. Bookmark this one because structured data is more and more becoming an essential part of what we do as SEOs and/or webmasters.


Structured Data: A Dirty Little Secret – Dixon Jones
https://dixonjones.com/seo/structured-data-a-dirty-little-secret/
May 2, 2019

Interesting take here on structured data and how to ensure you're using it to work in your favour, not Google's.


11 Ways to Increase User Engagement & Why It Matters for SEO – Carolyn Lyden
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/increase-user-engagement-seo/306677/
May 10, 2019

Engagement comes in various forms. You’ve likely heard of CTR, outside sources (for example, someone linking to your content), and dwell time. This article breaks down 11 tactical ways to increase engagement.


Can You Reverse A 301 Redirect? – Dr. Peter J. Meyers
https://moz.com/blog/can-you-reverse-a-301-redirect
May 7, 2019

In short, yes, you can reverse a 301 redirect. Although, as Dr. Meyers points out, there is a lot more nuance involved depending on the type of redirect and why it was used in the first place. 


Ontologies:Borrow, Build or Buy – Kurt Cagle
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2019/05/07/ontologies-borrow-build-or-buy/#60fbfcbdfdec
May 7, 2019

For those who don’t know, an organization's ontology comprises of “vocabulary and rules that make up the language that you’re using for your business”. A good example of an agreed upon, and shared ontology on the internet would be schema.org. An example of a very poor ontology in SEO as a whole is how there is no consensus on what counts as ‘a ranking factor’. This article from Kurt Cagle is quite theoretical, but is a really good starting point for getting into these concepts and thinking about how you could adopt a more robust ontology for the organizations you are involved with.


Don’t let your website redesign become an SEO disaster – Suganthan Mohanadasan
https://www.suganthan.com/blog/website-redesign-seo/
May 7, 2019

Want to ensure your redesign is seamless rather than disastrous? Laying the groundwork and having a solid plan of action can absolutely help. That means thinking about why you need a redesign before you start work.


Analyze Click Paths in Google Analytics to Improve Conversions – Morgan Jones
https://www.practicalecommerce.com/analyze-click-paths-in-google-analytics-to-improve-conversions
May 8, 2019

Morgan discusses how to monitor the navigation of users on eCommerce sites to avoid bottlenecks to the checkout page.


How to Automatically Categorise Keywords for the Buyer’s Journey – Dan Brooks
https://www.aira.net/how-to-automatically-categorise-keywords-for-the-buyers-journey/
May 13, 2019

If you’re interested in saving time categorising keywords for your buyer’s journey, you should read this article.


Alt-texts: The Ultimate Guide – Daniel Göransson
https://axesslab.com/alt-texts/
October 15, 2017

We thought adding this older article would we wise considering Stephen Kenwright recently said on Twitter, “Here are approx. 50 things I didn’t know about alt-texts and suddenly they’re going WAY up in my priorities”. Take it from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), their very first guideline reads: “All non-text content that is presented to the user has a text alternative that serves the equivalent purpose.” And yet, many people still overlook proper use of alt-text.

Recommended Reading (Local SEO)

[2019] The Ultimate Guide to Fighting Spam on Google Maps – Joy Hawkins
https://www.sterlingsky.ca/ultimate-guide-fighting-spam-google-maps/
April 26, 2019

Joy Hawkins' ultimate guide to fighting spam on the map... need we say more? Joy delivers plenty of great info in this resource which identifies the different ways to research and report spammers. You’ll also find some information on how long it could take for Google to review your edits or reporting. Be sure to check this out!


I Want to Rank Beyond My Location: A Guide to How This Works – Miriam Ellis
https://moz.com/blog/rank-beyond-location
May 7, 2019

How to rank beyond your location is a question most agencies get frequently. This article on Moz’s blog breaks down ranking using five locationally based groups while considering Google’s ranking methods to help clients understand ranking.

Jobs

Want More?

Paid members also get the following:

  • Some changes are coming to Chrome
  • Structured data installment: FAQ and How-to
  • The latest development in Google’s Top Stories
  • Could augmented reality be coming to search?
  • Big news from I/O! Changes ahead re: Google Fonts
  • Further details on the Mini-apps announced during the I/O keynote
  • Google Assistant to be become more tailored to the user
  • More from I/O: Google Assistant is getting way faster, check out this demo!
  • Creepers rejoice! Google set to expand incognito mode
  • Chrome developers delivers a collection of handy resources
  • Which is more accurate? URL inspection tool or cached version?
  • Can a paid SSL certificate provide additional benefit in terms of rankings?
  • Commands for over-riding freshness
  • Nice demonstration of the new FAQPage schema and how the rich results look
  • Local SEO: SEOs weigh in on their top 5 suggestions to optimize your GMB
  • Local SEO: In case you missed it, this is a resource not to miss!
  • Are you tired of that same old boring Lorem Ipsum text?
  • Here's a handy tool for developers: a performance budget calculator!
  • My tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO and Local SEO articles

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Paul Macnamara - Offers SEO Consulting at PaulMacnamara.com

That's it for this episode! Stay tuned for our Youtube video (my channel is here). If you want to follow me on Facebook, here is my page.

 

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