Table of Contents
  1. Intro
  2. SNYCU Podcast
  3. Not a premium subscriber? You're missing out!
  4. News about Google’s Algorithms
  5. MHC Announcements
  6. SEO Tips
  7. Other Interesting News
  8. Local SEO - Google Announcements
  9. Recommended Reading
  10. Jobs
  11. Want More?
Login

SNYCU Ep. 244 - July 21, 2022 - Light Version

Looking for the premium members version? Log in here

In this episode, we discuss SERP turbulence on July 16 (although we think it’s probably not an update), some interesting SERP changes, simple resources to help you learn Python and machine learning to improve your SEO, an important thing for recipe site owners to know and a recent significant widespread indexing problem with Google.

SNYCU Podcast

Marie’s Podcast for this episode

This week Marie goes into great detail on why we should be paying attention to the pros and cons annotations seen in the SERPS. Google is deciphering and understanding unstructured data on pages and this is a big deal.

If you would like to subscribe, you can find the podcasts here:

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Soundcloud

Not a premium subscriber? You're missing out!

It’s well worth the $18 per month. Want to see a sample premium newsletter episode? View it here.

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

  • PAAs returning to normal levels
  • Marie’s Corner – Digging into Google patents discussing first, long and last clicks
  • Info on Python and Machine learning – why Marie is learning more
  • Rich cards showing for celebrity names
  • Changes for product SERPS
  • Problems for recipe sites in the SERPS
  • Does your CMS choice impact your web performance?
  • Serious indexing problems on Google this week
  • Interesting case where hreflang may have helped get pages indexed
  • Interesting case where redirecting links from an expired domain may have caused a penalty (with thoughts from Marie)
  • A good E-A-T tip
  • GSC updates documentation on anonymous queries
  • Facebook to use AI to help Wikipedia
  • Local SEO: google taking action against blackmail attempts
  • Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles
You’ll also have access to all past episodes, including this one.
I

News about Google’s Algorithms

SERP turbulence July 16, 2022?

Barry is reporting seeing a decent amount of chatter around July 16th 2022 on the forums regarding a possible algorithm update. However, as noted, this could be due to the large indexing issues that Google has reported seeing. Moreover, the ranking trackers are not showing any significant spikes. Looking at the sites we monitor at MHC we are seeing we do have several clients with nice increases that start around July 16. We’ll need more time to assess whether these are due to an algorithm update. Our early guess is that this is not actually a change in Google’s algorithms as the 16th was a Saturday, but we will keep you posted.

MHC Announcements

ICYMI – our detailed article on assessing traffic drops

Last week we published a very thorough guide to assessing  Google organic traffic drops. We hope it helps you diagnose problems with your site or your clients’!

Stay tuned for part two of this series which will go into greater depth on assessing whether drops are related to changes in Google’s understanding of intent/relevancy or due to quality issues.

SEO Tips

7 things to know as a tech SEO! 

This is a great thread from an experienced technical SEO:

A few tips we enjoyed were:

  • There’s rarely one clear answer
  • Don’t rely on developers for best practices related to SEO
  • Not everything needs to be fixed
  • Prioritization matters

 

Does your CMS impact your web performance?

Another great tidbit from John Mueller on the Google Search Central account:

The ongoing debate about whether subdomains or subfolders are better

Here’s an interesting case where Aleyda Solis noted big gains after moving content from a subdomain to a subfolder. Google has said in the past that it should not matter whether you use subdomains (i.e. content.example.com) vs subfolders (i.e. example.com/content). However, we commonly have seen reports where subfolders seem to perform better.

Other Interesting News

Say goodbye to Test My Site!

Google’s Test My Site was originally launched to show you page speed insights and more. Before the launch of the page speed insights tool we used to use it for unusual insight such as seeing how a competitors’ site was rendered by Google. 

Also, there was an interesting tip we picked up whereby you could see how Google categorized your site. For example, one of our clients ran a site that contained both medical and legal information. The site had really good legal E-A-T. When we ran the site through Test My Site, the tool told us the site was classified as legal but not recognized as a source of medical information. We focused our efforts on improving medical E-A-T which greatly helped them get recognized as authoritative for medical queries as well.

Local SEO - Google Announcements

The GMB app is no longer available

Recommended Reading

Why Expertise is the Most Important Ranking Factor of Them All – Lily Ray

https://www.amsivedigital.com/insights/seo/why-expertise-is-the-most-important-ranking-factor-of-them-all/ 

July 13, 2022

This was a recap of Lily’s Mozcon presentation including examples of good author profile that exhibit E-A-T.

 

The Future of Link Building: What Got Us Here, Won’t Get Us There – Paddy Moogan

https://aira.net/blog/the-future-of-link-building-what-got-us-here-wont-get-us-there/ 

July 11, 2022

Another Mozcon presentaton in article form. Link building is changing and we need to adapt!

 

How to use 12 micro intents for SEO and content journey mapping – Olaf Kopp

https://searchengineland.com/micro-intents-seo-content-journey-mapping-386544

July 18, 2022

User intent is likely determined by Google well beyond informational, transactional and navigational. We absolutely must be paying attention to understanding and meeting the intent of our users.

Jobs

Looking for a new SEO job? SEOjobs.com is a job board curated by real SEOs for SEOs. Take a look at five of the hottest SEO job listing this week (below) and sign up for the weekly job listing email only available at SEOjobs.com.

 

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:

  • PAAs returning to normal levels
  • Marie’s Corner – Digging into Google patents discussing first, long and last clicks
  • Info on Python and Machine learning – why Marie is learning more
  • Rich cards showing for celebrity names
  • Changes for product SERPS
  • Problems for recipe sites in the SERPS
  • Does your CMS choice impact your web performance?
  • Serious indexing problems on Google this week
  • Interesting case where hreflang may have helped get pages indexed
  • Interesting case where redirecting links from an expired domain may have caused a penalty (with thoughts from Marie)
  • A good E-A-T tip
  • GSC updates documentation on anonymous queries
  • Facebook to use AI to help Wikipedia
  • Local SEO: google taking action against blackmail attempts
You’ll also have access to all past episodes, including this one.
I

Note: If you are seeing the light version and you are a premium member, be sure to log in (in the sidebar on desktop or below the post on mobile) and read the full article here.

Premium Members Login

Lost your Password?