Webcology On Webmasterradio.fm

[Google webmaster trends analyst Gary Illyes, who has been with Google for over eight years working exclusively on search-related topics, participated in an AMA (ask me anything) on Reddit over the weekend. Over the course of the lengthy discussion thread, he covered everything from robots.txt to RankBrain to behavioral signals to image and video search. We’ll save you the trouble of sifting through it all by sharing all the important stuff here. One day after Google said it would be consolidating the data within the Google Search Console’s performance report to the canonical URL, the company decided to start the preview of the consolidated data view on Thursday, a month or so earlier than they planned. Represented as a percentage, click share is an indication of how many clicks your ads received out of the total number of times Google estimates your ads could been clicked. It helps show how effectively your ads are engaging users compared to the competition. Impression share, on the other hand, shows how eff

[In a case related to the New York Times investigation into American company Devumi, a court has ruled that Devumi can no longer operate in the same way as it had been, essentially outlawing the sale of social media followers and likes. The chief executive of cryptocurrency company Quadriga CX has died, and he's apparently the only one with the ability to unlock all his customers' coins. Without their digital keys, his clients lose access to their funds. The company's board of directors said last week it is seeking creditor protection. Joost de Valk announced at YoastCon that the popular WordPress plugin, Yoast SEO, will provide live indexing with both Google and Bing starting next month. They explained on their blog "For Google the details on this are not entirely determined yet, but a Google Search Console account will probably be required." So it seems they aren't clear and for some reason, I doubt it would be the Indexing API because that is highly restricted to specific types of content./>

[Google's John Mueller was asked on Twitter if there is a way in the new Google Search Console to remove old Sitemaps files. He said you can 404 them to remove them. Maybe Google will add a button to delete old Sitemap files there but for now, 404ing them will eventually get them to be removed. A new mic icon. Below are screens from Android on the left and the iPhone on the right, showing Google.com search results. The iPhone doesn’t show the mic, although the keyboard allows voice input. The search phrase is “what percentage of mobile queries are voice searches?” Beyond the microphone icon inside the search box, the major difference — a significant one — is that users will hear a spoken response now with Android mobile web searches rather than simply get a set of “silent” results. This voice response may encourage people to undertake more searches while their eyes are occupied, such as when they are cooking or driving./>

[We saw this coming and now Google officially released a new sign up process for service area businesses, businesses that don't operate out of a specific location(s). Google now lets them specify the locations they service, instead of being stuck without any options. Google is testing a video overlay or lightbox feature to play videos in the mobile search results. In the search results captured by Valentin Pletzer on Twitter he showed how instead of being taken to the video landing page, Google shows the video itself in an overlay. Google has asked the National Labor Relations Board to reconsider rules allowing employees to organize over workplace email without fear of punishment, according to a Bloomberg report on Thursday. The Obama-era precedent restricts companies from disciplining employees who used internal email communication for actions such as circulating petitions, organizing walkouts, or trying to form a union, according to the report./>

[In this episode Jim and Dave shared the mic with advertising legend, Terry O'Reilly. They discussed how brands like Gillette and Nike make the decision to push the envelope in making social commentary in their ads, the risks involved and hot to mitigate then. They went on to discuss how technology is changing the way we live, destroying some sectors and creating new ones. It was an episode you don't want to miss. Web hosting provider GoDaddy is inserting JavaScript code into websites, which could slow down performance or break sites altogether. A snippet of JavaScript code is being added to sites in order to use a technology called Real User Metrics (RUM). Google has finally fixed the exploit with the knowledge panel in their search results. It only took them about three years to do so, but it is fixed. You can no longer create fraudulent knowledge panels with this hack. YouTube announced it is strengthening enforcement of its community guidelines to protect users from people who abuse the platform. Enfor

[A lot of news came out yesterday evening around an old Google knowledge panel exploit that lets you manipulate almost any query to show any knowledge panel. Yes, this is embarrassing for Google but even more so because it is something that was reported back in 2016. Have a lot of pages you want to be removed from the Google index and don't want to use the page removal tool for each URL? Google's John Mueller said you can try to 404 and index all the pages you want to be removed and then submit a temporary sitemap to Google. It might speed things up he said. With social shares on content down 50 percent since 2015, it’s feeling like a lost cause to even consider social media in your content plan. And we’ve all heard the age-old “social sharing buttons are dead” statements. Just like we’ve heard for SEO, content marketing, PPC, and just about every other marketing tactic that still works. The biggest gripes that tag along with social sharing buttons is often from marketers who use them wrong./>

[Google can now link to some content it is showing in their search results in a new way. Instead of just linking to the page, Google can anchor you to the exact spot of the answer you are looking for and highlight the block of text that is most relevant to your query. This only works for some searches on Google mobile, that feature AMP content in the featured snippet block. Google is testing a bigger push for the messaging option within the local panel. Google launched messaging within Google My Business in July 2017. Google is now testing a way to promote messaging more to searchers in the local panel by using a larger message button. A few months ago, Google stopped showing Google Posts in the top location, somewhat above the fold, in the local panel for a business. That seemed to have led to Google Posts performance drastically dropping off. Now, Google may be testing moving the Google Posts back up./>

[Today were joined by Michelle Stinson-Ross, the Director of Marketing Operations at Apogee Results to discuss a plethora of topics. Google has released its annual list of top searches around the world, including overall searches and searches in various categories. Top queries reflect everyday questions, as well as the people and events that made headlines in 2018. Certain events led to people searching for how to improve their everyday lives, Google notes.Google's John Mueller said that moving to a new hosting company doesn't cause ranking declines. Of course he means if the new hosting company doesn't prevent GoogleBot from crawling your site. But in general, moving hosts doesn't have a negative impact on your rankings. />

[Aaseesh from Google responded to a complaint about Google not picking up on a web site's canonical tags. He said that "even if you setup the canonical tags properly, other signals like inconsistent redirects can make Google not select your preferred URL". As you know, Search Engine Land was delisted from Google's search results for most of the day on Friday because a bug in Google's hack sites classifier labeled the site as being hacked. Colin McDermott ran a Twitter poll asking if Google should delist the site or just issue a warning. 2/3rds of those who responded said Google should just issue a warning. DuckDuckGo, a Google competitor, came out with a study that claimed Google's search results create what is known as a "filter bubble," this influencing what you click on and see. Google came to Twitter and defended themselves saying their personalization does not do that./>

[Content, from an SEO perspective, is the connection of entities by relationships. In the statement, “SEO is dead” there is the entity “SEO”, there is the entity “dead” and there is the relationship that one connects to the other and the direction of the said relationship. Google's John Mueller confirmed yesterday in a video hangout that Google does not use the BBB, Better Business Bureaus score or reviews as well as other third-party trust sites in their ranking algorithm. So all that talk about making sure you have a good BBB score with the core updates is really completely unrelated to core search rankings. The other day, Google launched a new portal named web.dev that pretty much has lighthouse, another Google tool, results for your audit. One of the lighthouse results is an SEO score. Google just wants you to link naturally and not worry about linking out. If you want to link to a site because it is something your readers would find useful, then link away. John Mueller from Google said on Twitter "Just l

[Content, from an SEO perspective, is the connection of entities by relationships. In the statement, “SEO is dead” there is the entity “SEO”, there is the entity “dead” and there is the relationship that one connects to the other and the direction of the said relationship. All content is fundamentally like this. Google's John Mueller confirmed yesterday in a video hangout that Google does not use the BBB, Better Business Bureaus score or reviews as well as other third-party trust sites in their ranking algorithm. So all that talk about making sure you have a good BBB score with the core updates is really completely unrelated to core search rankings. The other day, Google launched a new portal named web.dev that pretty much has lighthouse, another Google tool, results for your audit. One of the lighthouse results is an SEO score. So I asked SEOs, should Google be scoring their SEO this way? />

[Long gone are the times of monthly Google PageRank updates, Google dances, and checking Google data centers - and to be honest, I somewhat miss those days. But the question I see asked a lot is how much have things changed? The answer is a lot has changed but fundamentally nothing has changed. Several people have recently reported seeing double featured snippets in Google search results. A double featured snippet is a featured snippet with a second featured snippet beneath it. This arrangement effectively shows information from two websites and advertising in the space normally showing ten websites. Growing up in India, there was one good library in my town that I had access to—run by the British Council. It was modest by western standards, and I had to take two buses just to get there. But I was lucky, because for every child like me, there were many more who didn’t have access to the same information that I did. Access to information changed my life, bringing me to the U.S. to study computer science and o

[Google's Gary Illyes said at PubCon last week that Google finds content mostly through links and XML Sitemaps. He said the number one way is through links, crawling links on the web and the number two way is through XML Sitemaps. Google announced it is now rolling out the Google Lens button within Google Image search results. Google Lens, which was introduced in May 2017, is a visual search tool to help people learn more about images and what they are visually looking at.Google has announced that Maps now provides accessibility information for more than 40 million listings. The company attributes this accomplishment to an initiative launched last year. In July 2017, Google started letting users add accessibility details to business listings. At that time, Google said accessibility information was available to roughly 7 million listings around the world. In a little over a year, that number has increased by over 30 million./>

[Google seems to be testing an ad format on mobile search where they remove the description section from the ad. The ad copy is removed, the only thing you see are the headlines and URL. This was being tested on mobile in the bottom ad units.Facebook announced it’s expanding fact-checking efforts to review the accuracy of photos and videos. Until now Facebook’s fact-checking efforts have been focused on reviewing articles to reduce the spread of false news. Going forward, all of Facebook’s 27 fact-checking partners in 17 countries will also be focused on reducing the spread of misinformation through photos and videos. Amazon will surpass Oath and Microsoft to become the third largest digital ad seller in the U.S. behind Facebook and Google. That’s the latest from research firm eMarketer, which predicts Amazon’s ad growth will more than double this year. As eMarketer notes, the change in projection — up 60 percent from March — is due to a combination of an accounting change and 10 to 12 percent increase in str

[Google has announced the new Google Search Console is out of beta after being tested for over a year. Over the year, Google has done a full open beta invite to all users and has been migrating features from the old Google Search Console to the new version. Google has launched a new type of search engine designed specifically around helping people find data. Simply called “Dataset Search,” the tool provides easier access to millions of datasets across thousands of data repositories on the web. Chrome 69 introduces performance enhancements as well as changes that will affect how users search. Chrome also introduces opportunities for developers to create interesting user experiences on mobile devices.The most dramatic change is a new feature called Omnibox Smart Answers. It allows users to get answers to questions in the address bar without loading a website. These are rich results shown in the address bar. Chrome calls the address bar the Omnibox. And it calls the rich results shown in the Omnibox, Smart Answ

[Google has launched a new type of search engine designed specifically around helping people find data. Simply called “Dataset Search,” the tool provides easier access to millions of datasets across thousands of data repositories on the web. Chrome 69 introduces performance enhancements as well as changes that will affect how users search. Chrome also introduces opportunities for developers to create interesting user experiences on mobile devices. Google has announced the new Google Search Console is out of beta after being tested for over a year. Over the year, Google has done a full open beta invite to all users and has been migrating features from the old Google Search Console to the new version./>

[Google has officially launched their structured data codelab, which allows you to walk through a step-by-step process to make your own structured data for your website. Google's codelab walks you through adding several types of structured data to a simple HTML site, including where to place structured data on a site and how to validate it. Google also announced some important changes to how user management and rights work within the Google Search Console. In a pair of tweets Tuesday morning the president said, “Google search results for “Trump News” shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of…. results on “Trump News” are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. />

[Google trends analyst John Mueller strongly recommended that people migrating from HTTP to HTTPS do so with 301 redirects on a per-URL basis. He said you should not use other types of redirects, such as 303s or others; you should stick with 301 redirects for these migrations. Google has now added a link to the help document for this new report, saying the new report is “more accurate than the old Links to your site report.” Google felt the need to explain this so people would know that a drop in links from the old to the new report doesn’t mean Google sees fewer links to their site, it just means the new report is more accurate. Facebook has a life event feature in which users create a special post declaring the life event and details like the date, description, and even photos. To check it out, go to your name on your personal page on the top left, select “about”, you will find out how to add life events to your personal Facebook page. This will give you an idea more about the life event posts from the user

[​Google Confirms Broad Core Algorithm Update: The Facts & Advice;​ ​Google mobile speed update​ has no impact on general mobile rankings​; Bing Ads rolls out Target CPA & Maximize Conversions​bidding strategies​./>

[Davie Davies reports from MozCon 2018, and he speaks with Rob Bucci, the CEO of STAT Search Analytics talks about his presentation on Near me or Far: How Google May Be Deciding Your Local Intent for You annd Jono Alderson, the Mad Scientist at Yoast who spoke on The Democratization of SEO. />