SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 17, 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.
There may be a Google search algorithm update running now and over the weekend, it is unconfirmed of course. Google’s John Mueller spoke more about the product reviews update, we summarized those points. Google asked hosting companies not to serve 500 status codes for robot detection interstitials. Google has these location packs that show things to do, airports and transit stops. Google Ads said target CPA is not going away in 2022 and more.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Google Search Ranking Update January 14th & 15th (Unconfirmed)
Friday and Saturday, January 14th and 15th there may have been another unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update. This comes a few days after the unconfirmed January 11th update. There is some chatter but this time, the Google tracking tools are showing much higher volatility. - Google Product Reviews Update Will Expand, May Use Machine Learning & Can Be Incorporated In Core Updates
Google’s John Mueller was asked a series of questions around the product reviews update on last Friday’s video hangout. In short, it will expand to other languages and countries, it probably does use machine learning and eventually it might be incorporated into the larger core updates. - Google: Hosting Companies Should Serve 500 Status Code On Robot Detection Interstitial
Google’s John Mueller posted one of those PSA tweets this morning asking hosting companies that trigger robot detection interstitials to not use a 200 status code. John also said not to place a noindex on that page. If you do these things the pages served with these can be dropped out of the Google index and search results. - Google: Target CPA In Google Ads Not Going Away In 2022
Google’s Ginny Marvin via the AdsLiaison account on Twitter confirmed that target CPA, tCPA, is not being cancelled in 2022. She wrote “we have no plans to sunset tCPA in 2022” after there were some speculation that it might be turned off in 2022. - Google Location Search Pack With Things To Do, Airports & Transit Stops
Google is testing a new layout for location packs that show things to do, airports and transit stops based on the location you are looking at. This is Google mobile search feature that Brian Freiesleben spotted and posted on Twitter. - Vlog #155: Riley Hope On Women In SEO & Automotive Search
In part one Riley Hope and I spoke about her SEO career, how she did her thesis on ethics in SEO and we spoke about the automotive SEO space. In part two we talk about women in SEO and more on the automotive space and search results… - Surprise Birthday Party At The Google New York City Office
Back before COVID had most Google employees working at home, we would see tons photos of birthday parties and cakes for the employees. But now it is more rare with few Googlers working at the office.
Other Great Search Threads:
- Do you look at the “last updated” date at the bottom of a Google Search documentation page? What do you think it means?, Lizzi on Twitter
- I think you’re overthinking it. There’s no magical voodoo-bonus from an old domain. If you want to use an older domain name, use it. But the important part is the website that *you* build, not the domain name.”, John Mueller on Twitter
- Thanks to you, we’ve hit 100 billion all time private searches! https://t.co/qlSaz4j9ZH That’s 100B times: • Your search history wasn’t a data point • What you searched (like cat memes) was your business & only yours • Y, DuckDuckGo on Twitter
- How important are content updates for SEO? Is it possible to keep your Google ranking without refreshing the content? Could content updates give you a boost in Google? I did the research and the short answers are: NO and YES., Alex Buraks on Twitter
- If you want to. SEO is not like a cult that you can never leave :-). I think. ¯_(ツ)_/¯”, John Mueller on Twitter
- There are many parts that make a website awesome – it’s not just the colors, the font, the text, the images, the links, the users, the writers, the world state of mind, etc. You can’t just pick, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Search Features
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.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Won’t Change The 301 Signals For Ranking & SEO
Gary Illyes from Google said on stage at the SERP conference last week that there is no way that Google would change how the 301 redirect signal works for SEO or search rankings. Gary added that it’s a very reliable signal.
Nikola Minkov quoted Gary Illyes as saying, “It is a very reliable signal, and there is no way we could change that signal,” when asked if a 301 redirect not working is a myth. Honestly, I am not sure the context of this question, as it is not clear from the post on X, but here it is:
More from @methode:
– 301 redirect not working is a myth. “It is a very reliable signal, and there is no way we could change that signal”.#SERPConf2024#SERPConf2024International— Nikola Minkov (@n_minkov) April 19, 2024
We’ve covered 301 redirects here countless times – but I never saw a myth that Google does not use 301 redirects as a signal for canonicalization or for passing signals from an old URL to the redirected URL.
Forum discussion at X.
Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.
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.
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