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Episode 85 - May 29, 2019 - Light Version

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In this episode, we have a possible small algorithm update to discuss. We will also cover updates on mobile-first indexing, the favicon controversy, the latest on the recent Google bugs, and much more!

Marie’s Podcast for this episode

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In this episode:

Paid members also get the following:

  • Custom Templates have been introduced for Google Tag Manager
  • Signed up to test the Speed report in GSC? You’ll have to wait a little longer
  • A new video layout in the SERPs has us wondering
  • What is the correct use of FAQ markup?
  • SEO tip for favicons
  • Google clarifies how they handle a 301 and 302 redirect
  • A good lesson in quality
  • Should you create multiple websites for your business?
  • Here's a really great hreflang question
  • SEO lesson in site migrations
  • SEO tip courtesy of Joe Hall
  • Incorrect sitemap or no sitemap at all, which is ‘better’?
  • Jason Brown sees his first case of a company being sued for not having an ADA compliant website
  • Featured snippets can come from hidden content after all (maybe)
  • Order food with Google without a delivery app
  • The top chrome extensions and widgets used by SEO community
  • Bing unveils their easy set-up guide for Adaptive URL submission API
  • Certain queries are showing a green pin on the map for the 3-pack ad. Possibly new?
  • Is your GMB logo/cover photo not showing up?
  • Aleyda Solis approved free SEO tool
  • My tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO and Local SEO articles

Algorithm Updates

May 20-24, 2019

This appears to be a mild quality update. We had quite a few past clients who saw changes in traffic at this time. Most of them had their traffic trajectory change starting between May 20-24. Many of these were on May 23. Given that Barry Schwartz first started noting forum chatter on an update starting May 20, we think that Google likely refreshed E-A-T signals around this time.

It is important to note that when we say, “refreshed E-A-T signals” we don’t know for certain that Google even does this. Our theory is that when we see an unannounced quality update, one or both of the following is happening:

  • Google has slightly changed how they measure and value E-A-T. For example, they may turn up or down the dial on a particular trust signal. Or, they may add a new element of how they determine authoritativeness.
  • Google has reevaluated all sites on the web in terms of E-A-T. It may be that none of the signals have changed, but that Google is recognizing that the business has either improved their E-A-T, or that a competitor is doing a better/worse job.

In this case, we had quite a few clients with minor increases and a couple with really nice increases starting around May 20-23. We also had a few clients see small decreases.

It is hard to evaluate changes that happen in late May, however, as the American Memorial Day holiday can impact traffic patterns. For some of our clients who saw changes, these increases may have been seasonal. For example, some of our clients traditionally have a sale each Memorial Day which means that traffic would increase in the days leading up to the holiday. Many of our clients see much less traffic around this weekend as they are either closed or have reduced hours.

We did spend quite a bit of time reviewing clients of ours for whom we have filed disavows. It is early yet, but we do think it is possible that Google changed something in terms of how they evaluate link signals at this time.

We’ll keep an eye on things and report back if obvious patterns that don’t include seasonality emerge.

May 29, 2019

As we were about to publish newsletter, we saw Barry Schwartz has posted about a possible update starting just this morning. We will be analyzing this next week for you.

Author E-A-T webinar is this week!

Our first E-A-T webinar was a great success! In part two, we will go into great depth in discussing author E-A-T. You can find more information, including a form to ask your questions here.

Date: Thursday, May 30, 2019

Time: 1 pm EST

Cost: Completely free!

This will be a Youtube live video. At 1pm EST on Thursday, May 30, you can join us on our  Youtube Page. We will be covering the following topics:

  • How important is author expertise?
  • How can you tell if your authors have E-A-T?
  • What is the best way to display author E-A-T?
  • How can you build up your authors’ E-A-T?
  • Do you even need authors?
  • Real life examples of sites that improved with core quality updates after implementing our E-A-T suggestions.

Google Announcements

The latest mobile-first indexing news

This is a big step for Google as it means they’re closing the gap even more in making all sites mobile-first. According to Gary Illyes, this has been in the works for a while so he is happy to see it being implemented!

And here’s Aleyda with a highlight from the announcement:

For more on MFI, we recently updated our guide.

Favicons, favicons, favicons! Google is rolling out a bit of a redesign to how Search looks on mobile

And here’s Glenn Gabe on what site owners will want to do (pick their site icon):

Check out Google’s blog for more information on this.

Side note: SEO’s have mixed feelings towards this. Once again the topic comes up of Google trying to ‘cloak’ ads as much as possible. You’ll find Greg Gifford generating some conversation on this over on his Twitter, as well as Dan Barker...and he has a point.

Cyrus says we shouldn’t get too excited about favicons, noting the following:

SEOs have begun to troll the SERPs a little with Bill Hartzer trying to make his own site stand out (which he has deemed is more of an experiment. You can follow his link below to learn about this).

Danny Sullivan isn’t having this though, advising Bill to revert back to his former favicon as it’s going against Google’s guidelines:

https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/1133034130235486209

Many question this ideology for several reasons. Some of the criticism is based on confusion with how small the favicons are (meaning users can’t pick up on the small details) paired with the fact that the URL is not displayed in the SERPs. Thus far, this had been a highly contested item in the community. As Barry Schwartz has revealed, Google has already begun to penalize sites for not abiding by Google’s rules -- one of which was in fact Bill’s!

That recent News indexing bug? It’s resolved

In our previous episode we mentioned that Google was having issues with indexing recent News content. The problem was that many sites didn’t have their content surface if you selected the filter for results within the last hour. Luckily it was resolved the same day, but after the time we published!

Do not expect any loss of data in GSC from the recent indexing bug

Barry Schwartz asked Google if users should expect to see any loss in data or any ongoing impact due to last week’s News impacting bug. Rest assured, Google *expects* there to be no issues:

Another unrelated bug from Google…

No need to worry, this one has been fixed!

Google AdSense ads not displaying

Users are reporting that Google AdSense ads are not displaying on publisher websites, or that their AdSense metrics have been incorrect over the past couple days. This has prompted a number of complaints that the Google Ads team has tried to remedy.

SEO Tips

Verifying GSC using domain properties? Be aware!

Apparently if you verify GSC using domain properties, you don’t have access to old GS (including the disavow tool!)

This also surfaced some other concerns such as:

More on the favicon change to mobile serps, this time from John Mueller

https://twitter.com/JohnMu/status/1133065622215102467

Episode 2 of SEO Mythbusting - All about Googlebot

Episode 2 of SEO Mythbusting features Martin’s guest Cloud Developer Suz Hinton discussing all things Googlebot. It covers what Googlebot is, what it does, what it doesn’t do, and how it works/behaves.

Check out their table of contents:

  • What is - and what is not - Googlebot (crawling, indexing, ranking) (1:02)
  • Does Googlebot behave like a web browser? (3:33)
  • How often does Googlebot crawl, how much does it crawl, and how much can a server bear? (4:03)
  • Crawlers & JavaScript-based websites (9:04)
  • How do you tell that it’s Googlebot visiting your site? (11:12)
  • The difference between mobile-first indexing and mobile friendliness (12:28)
  • Quality indicators for ranking (13:35)

Can eComms win featured snippets?

You can find some interesting metrics within the above article, but if you’re going to take away just one thing, it’s this: create content that answers the question in a few short lines. Case in point, Walmart does not own the featured snippet for “what is Walmart’s return policy?, and it’s surely costing them!

Have a question for John?

https://twitter.com/JohnMu/status/1131910814611451907

Learn more about the dev side of SEO

Google Fonts have defaulted their code to include font-default=swap

If you're not sure what this means, here's a nice explainer:

Google Help Hangout Tips

In case you’re merging sites

Other Interesting News

More of your dynamic content can now be indexed by Google

With the new evergreen Googlebot, Google can now render and index client-side AJAX-style JavaScript POST requests. Unless you're a developer, that might not sound like anything in particular, but it essentially means that Google is now able to index the dynamic content AND the static content on your page.

Brighton SEO talks now available for streaming

Good news for site owners operating on WordPress

If you have a WordPress site, they've just released a beta update to their official AMP plugin that adds an AMP Stories editor to it.

LinkedIn admits they were hit hard by a previous algo update

The Feb 7, 2017 algorithm that they were hit by appeared to be a large core algorithm update which we feel had strongly integrated E-A-T signals. You can read more about algorithm updates over on our blog.

Local SEO - Google SERP Changes

Black labels in the 3 pack? Afraid so

Seeing "People also search for" show up in the middle of the local finder

Hotel pricing chart now found in the SERPs

Google is moving a price graph into the SERPs for some hotel queries. This allows users to see historical pricing trends from within the search results. This feature was tested previously, and it looks like Google is going to be showing it more often.

Local SEO - Tips

Be a better business, stop buying reviews!

Local SEO - Other Interesting News

That GMB review bug caused by a suspension, it's now resolved

We talked about this back in episode 80. Basically, for those businesses who had their GMB suspended then reinstated, their return saw them lose their entire review profile (sometimes upwards of a thousand). It’s taken a full month to fix, but luckily things are back to normal.

Responding to Google reviews in the dental industry

If you work in the dental industry, responding to reviews can be like navigating tricky territory. This forum breaks down how to do this within HIPAA compliance.

Recommended Reading

An SEO’s guide to duplicate content – Richard Baxter
https://builtvisible.com/duplicate-content-detection/
May 21, 2019

“Often it’s not a technical issue causing the duplicate content; it’s a content strategy issue.” Richard delivers an excellent resource for anyone dealing with thin content.

 

10 Basic SEO Tips to Index + Rank New Content Faster - Whiteboard Friday – Cyrus Shepard
https://moz.com/blog/index-rank-new-content-faster
May 17, 2019

Cyrus does it again! In this WBF, he’ll teach you the top tips and tricks to help you get your content indexed faster. So, what are some of the ways to nudge Google and get them working on your side?

 

The Way You Track Rank is Antiquated! Rank Tracking in 2019 & Beyond! – Mordy Oberstein
https://www.rankranger.com/blog/rank-tracking-best-practices
May 22, 2019

A new approach to rank tracking is needed because of the changes to the Google SERP. Oberstein’s reasoning: rank is much more volatile than it was, and SERP features dominate a SERP. Ultimately, “rank data in isolation fails to provide an accurate representation of your success on the SERP.” Why is this important? Many don’t realize how this translates into few results ranking above the fold. If you’re looking for more information about rank tracking problems and solutions, this may be an insightful read.

 

Domain Extensions Experiment: “.com” vs 7 Other TLDs – Kyle Byers
https://growthbadger.com/top-level-domains/
May 21, 2019

Kyle Byers has released an interesting study here comparing tlds and how each domain extension (.com .org. .net. co. .biz. etc.) performs when it comes to memorability and trustworthiness based on a survey of 1,500 people.

 

What to Consider when Creating Tables – Lisa Charlotte Rost
https://blog.datawrapper.de/guide-what-to-consider-when-creating-tables/
May 21, 2019

While not strictly an SEO article, following in Lisa Rost’s “What to Consider…” series, this article looks at the different ways in which to make tabled information easier to digest depending on the context they are put in. 

 

SEO Guide to Angular: Everything You Need to Know – Jamie Alberico
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/angular-seo-guide/303849/
May 23, 2019

This one goes out to all you technical SEOs out there who are familiar with JavaScript. And for those of you who aren’t yet comfortable with but would like to learn more about this subject, this is a really great resource created by Jamie. 

 

How to Manually Add Review Schema Markup to a Review Article – AJ Mens
https://blogpioneer.com/add-review-schema-markup/
May 27, 2019

Looking to increase your CTR dramatically? This article dives into the importance of using structured data markup with your reviews when you publish product reviews on your website.

 

How to take advantage of Google related searches in 2019 – Roey Skif
https://www.tldrseo.com/google-related-searches/
May 1, 2019

If you’re interested in learning all about Google related search, this article discusses how you can understand it and use it to your advantage. While you can’t directly influence Google related search, you can try to leverage the results to improve your SEO.

Recommended Reading (Local SEO)

Rural Local SEO: A Marketing Package Strong on Education – Miriam Ellis
https://moz.com/blog/rural-local-seo
May 22, 2019

In this article, Ellis discusses why not to overlook working with clients in rural areas. She says that with the competitiveness so low in rural areas, a marketing plan can go a long way. If you are a small-to-medium agency, this may be something you want to consider.

Want More?

Paid members also get the following:

  • Custom Templates have been introduced for Google Tag Manager
  • Signed up to test the Speed report in GSC? You’ll have to wait a little longer
  • A new video layout in the SERPs has us wondering
  • What is the correct use of FAQ markup?
  • SEO tip for favicons
  • Google clarifies how they handle a 301 and 302 redirect
  • A good lesson in quality
  • Should you create multiple websites for your business?
  • Here's a really great hreflang question
  • SEO lesson in site migrations
  • SEO tip courtesy of Joe Hall
  • Incorrect sitemap or no sitemap at all, which is ‘better’?
  • Jason Brown sees his first case of a company being sued for not having an ADA compliant website
  • Featured snippets can come from hidden content after all (maybe)
  • Order food with Google without a delivery app
  • The top chrome extensions and widgets used by SEO community
  • Bing unveils their easy set-up guide for Adaptive URL submission API
  • Certain queries are showing a green pin on the map for the 3-pack ad. Possibly new?
  • Is your GMB logo/cover photo not showing up?
  • Aleyda Solis approved free SEO tool
  • 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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