SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: November 18, 2022
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Google launched a ton of new features across search, maps, shopping and more. Google said rich result manual actions can lead to broader spam penalties. Google said redirects from non-relevant pages won’t hurt the destination page. Google said don’t change your author names on your content randomly. You should be aware of a rise in fake ownership requests for Google Business Profiles. And I posted my weekly video recap, have a good weekend.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Google: Rich Results Manual Actions Can Lead To Removal Of Rich Results & Broader Spam Penalties
Google’s Danny Sullivan said that not only can a rich result manual action result in the removal of your rich results from displaying in Google Search but also it can lead to a wider “broader spam manual action that involves ranking.” - Google Rolls Out Multisearch, Lens, AR, Maps & Other Expanded Search Features
Google announced a bunch of features around Google Search, Google Maps, Google Lens and more that are now rolling out in the US and some other regions. This goes across new features for Multisearch, Google Lens, AR, Maps and much more. - Beware Of Fake Ownership Requests From Google Business Profiles
I am sure many of you have received one or two (or more) requests from Google Business Profiles saying the owner is requested access to maintain your business. I just delete them but I am hearing from Local SEOs that this is becoming more and more of an issue. - Google: Don’t Randomly Change The Author Name, Use Author Annotations & Updated Content Use New Author
Google’s John Mueller was asked about the impact of changing the author’s name on an article. John gave three pieces of advice in response to the question, (1) use author annotations, (2) rewritten content should use the new author’s name and (3) do not randomly change author names. - Google: Redirects From Non Relevant Pages Won’t Cause The Destination Page To Be Less Relevant
Dawn Anderson asked Google’s John Mueller if redirecting a non-relevant page would cause the destination page (where the redirect it going towards) to be less relevant and cause any ranking issues for its relevant queries. John said no, “I can’t think of a way that would have a negative effect there,” he added. - Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Coati Update, More Weekend Tremors, Local Reviews Bug, Google Ads Bribe, Apple Search Delayed & More
This week, we learned that Google’s Panda update at one point in time evolved into what was called the Google Coati update. Google also had another weekend update last week. Google Search Console added a new shopping tab with more… - The New Google Viger Montreal Office
Google shared some photos from its new Viger office which is in Montreal, Canada. Here is the lobby but the office is supposedly jammed packed with reminders of the history of that location.
Other Great Search Threads:
- New to me in Google Ads! Just logged in this morning & noticed these Workspaces. Instead of just sorting by campaign type it lets me create and save filters based on campaign name, bid strategy, label, & more. There ar, Christine Zirnheld on Twitter
- Probably ok, but you’re dancing around the question a bit which makes me worry that there’s much more involved :-). “Email provider” vs “Your email” pages seem fine. “Email provider” vs, John Mueller on Twitter
- Users want to see what you’re promising with a rich result, so it should be visible when the page loads., John Mueller on Twitter
- I work for the Google Search team. Most searches don’t have ads, Danny Sullivan on Mastodon
- It keeps them busy (making these “bad links”), so I’d say that’s a win. Spend your time on improving your site instead & ignore them., John Mueller on Twitter
- No, you should not do link building with sites like that. (reading between the lines, you probably shouldn’t be doing that kind of link building even with sites that hav, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Other Search
Feedback:
Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, you can follow us on Facebook and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
SEARCHENGINES
Google Again Says Ignore Link Spam Especially To 404 Pages
I am not sure how many times Google has said that you do not need to disavow spammy links, that you can ignore link spam attacks and that links pointing to pages that 404/410 are links that do not count – but John Mueller from Google said it again.
In a thread on X, John Mueller from Google wrote, “if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped.” “They do nothing,” he added, “If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link.”
John then added, “I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.”
Asking if it would hurt to disavow, after responding with the messages above, John wrote:
It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).
Earlier this year we had tons of SEOs notice spammy links to 404 error pages, John said ignore them. In 2021, Google said links to 404 pages do not count, Google also said that in 2012 and many other times.
Plus, outside of links to 404 pages, Google has said to ignore spammy links, time and time again – even the toxic links – ignore them. The messaging around this changed in 2016 when Penguin 4.0 was released and Google began devaluing links over demoting them.
Here are those new posts in context:
I’d say add both. Lol
— Jeremy Rivera (@JeremyRiveraSEO) April 11, 2024
Sure. But also, save yourself the work completely :-).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024
Re-reading your initial post – if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped. They do nothing. If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link. I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024
… but still… is this a dumb idea?
— Rebekah Edwards (@rebekah_creates) April 11, 2024
It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024
And in general, Google says it ignores spammy links, so you should too (not new) but this post from John Mueller is:
I would just ignore them, Google ignores them too. Sometimes they’re just more visible in tools, but that doesn’t mean they’re a problem.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 18, 2024
And then also on Mastodon wrote about a similar situation, “Google has 2 decades of practice of ignoring spammy links. There’s no need to do anything for those links.”
Forum discussion at X.
Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Needs Very Few Links To Rank Pages; Links Are Less Important
Gary Illyes from Google spoke at the SERP Conf on Friday and he said what he said numerous times before, that Google values links a lot less today than it did in the past. He added that Google Search “needs very few links to rank pages.”
Gary reportedly said, “We need very few links to rank pages… Over the years we’ve made links less important.”
I am quoting Patrick Stox who is quoting what he heard Gary say on stage at the event. Here is Patrick’s post where Gary did a rare reply:
I shouldn’t have said that… I definitely shouldn’t have said that
— Gary 鯨理/경리 Illyes (so official, trust me) (@methode) April 19, 2024
Gary said this a year ago, also in 2022 and other times as well. We previously covered that Google said links would likely become even less important in the future. And even Matt Cutts, the former Googler, said something similar about eight years ago and the truth is, links are weighted a lot less than it was eight years ago and that trend continues. A couple of years ago, Google said links are not the most important Google search ranking factor.
Of course, many SEOs think Google lies about this.
Judith Lewis interviewed Gary Illyes at the SERP Conf this past Friday.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Core Update Flux, AdSense Ad Intent, California Link Tax & More
For the original iTunes version, click here.
The Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out, almost 6 weeks now, and we saw two shifts of ranking volatility, both mid-week and the weekend before. Google’s Danny Sullivan went on the defensive on search quality and forum listings in the search results. Google’s site reputation abuse spam policy will be fought both algorithmically and through manual actions. Google responded to The Verge mocking its search rankings over best printer. Google Search Console has a new unused ownership tokens page. Some sites may see the Google Indexing API work for a limited time on unsupported content types. And having two sites won’t result in your sites search ranking decline. BingBot now fully supports Brotli compression and will test Zstd compression soon. Google Search is testing thumbs-up and down buttons for product carousels. Google is testing new sitelinks designs. Google Notes on Search may not go away in May. Google Maps no longer supports draft reviews. Google Maps released a bunch of new maps, directions, travel and EV features. Google Ads Demand Gen campaigns now support AI image generation. Google Ads is testing a similar product carousel. Google Ads reminds advertisers that ad customizers are going away. Google Ads is testing a new horizontal ad card format. Google AdSense has these new ad intent formats. Google AdSense publishers are reporting lower RPM earnings since mid-February. Google threatens to drop links to California news publishers amongst link tax bill. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.
SPONSOR: Wix Studio lets digital marketing agencies get all of the benefits Wix has to offer from best-in-class SEO capabilities to 99% up-time with the added value of an extensive client and team management system baked right into the platform.
Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your favorite podcast player to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed:
Search Topics of Discussion:
Please do subscribe on YouTube or subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don’t forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!
-
PPC5 days ago
19 Best SEO Tools in 2024 (For Every Use Case)
-
MARKETING6 days ago
Streamlining Processes for Increased Efficiency and Results
-
SEARCHENGINES6 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 17, 2024
-
SEO6 days ago
An In-Depth Guide And Best Practices For Mobile SEO
-
PPC6 days ago
97 Marvelous May Content Ideas for Blog Posts, Videos, & More
-
SEARCHENGINES5 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 18, 2024
-
MARKETING6 days ago
Ecommerce evolution: Blurring the lines between B2B and B2C
-
SEARCHENGINES4 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 19, 2024
You must be logged in to post a comment Login