SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: March 14, 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.
Happy Pi Day readers, Google has a bit of an easter egg for the special day. Google said the URL parameter tool is a scary tool to use. Google’s favicon crawler uses Googlebot and Googlebot-Images. Google says hreflang does not change rankings. Google also is testing find places through photos search features. Most SEOs opt to use canonicals to manage faceted navigation. Plus I posted a vlog with David Melamed on the industry and sharing.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Google Favicon Crawler Now Uses Googlebot & Googlebot-Image Token
Google has updated its Google crawler help documentation to specific that the Google Favicon crawler now respects the Googlebot and Googlebot-Image robots rules. Previously, it seemed to just respect its own Google Favicon rules but that was changed or updated a few days ago. - Survey: Most SEOs Opt To Canonicals To Manage Faceted Navigation
Joe Hall posted a poll on Twitter asking what do SEOs use most to manage faceted navigation. The vast majority of SEOs responded that they use “proper canonicals tags.” Others responded they use robots.txt and then some said meta robots tag. But most of the over 300 responses said they use canonical tags to manage faceted navigation. - Google: The Google URL Parameters Tool Is Scary
Google’s John Mueller said (again) that the Google URL Parameters tool is scary. He said this on Reddit, and then suggested the person try to use noindex or robots.txt methods as an alternative because the Google Search Console reports will show you issues with noindex or robots.txt but not really with the URL Parameters tool. - Google: Hreflang Does Not Give You A Ranking Boost
Google’s John Mueller said again that using hreflang will not help you rank better and does not change rankings for your site. All it technically does it replace the URL that ranks already with the regionally appropriate URL in Google Search. - Google Search Find Place Through Photos
A few years ago, Google began to roll out a local search feature to search photos of nearby places. Now Google seems to be calling this “find places through photos.” I am not sure if this is in addition to the old version or if this is just renaming the old version of this feature. - Vlog #163: David Melamed About The Earlier Days Of Search Marketing & The Immense Sharing In The Industry
David Melamed, who I’ve known for about 15 years or so, has been in the space for about that long or even longer. David Melamed is now a search marketing consultant for many companies. You can learn more about him on his website at davidmelamed.com. David and I worked on some projects together… - Google Brings Back Pi Day Easter Egg Calculator
If you search for Pi Day in Google Search you will see a calculator come up that has the pie logo sparkling. When you click on that, it will search for pie all by itself. - Make Shift Beds Under Google Staircase
Here is a photo from the Google Brazil office where it seems there are some mattresses or sleeping bags placed under a staircase in that office. I wonder if some Googlers had a sleepover at the Google
Other Great Search Threads:
- Today in “is this new?”…. can you only see significant placements in the Google Ads placement report now? I haven’t done a lot of display recently but I thought you could see way more than this! #ppcchat, Christine Zirnheld on Twitter
- Google business profile Shows option – “Local Time” and “Add your business for free”, Khushal Bherwani on Twitter
- Like so many others I am sickened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the gigantic humanitarian crisis it continues to create. #StandWithUkraine️ At DuckDuckGo, we’ve been rolling out search updates that down-rank si, Gabriel Weinberg on Twitter
- 1/ Our Community Guidelines prohibit content denying, minimizing or trivializing well-documented violent events. We are now removing content about Russia’s invasion in Ukraine that violates this policy., YouTubeInsider on Twitter
- Testing some queries to see if I can reproduce & popped into another test. Some headings are super light gray on desktop (like PAA, Related searches, etc.) I find that test very weird… Why make those headings hard, Glenn Gabe on Twitter
- Maybe? It’s hard to say without knowing what the full setup is. We can pick up SD via iframe, but it adds more complexity, and with that more room for things to break. I also don’t know if, John Mueller on Twitter
- Why do SEO tools still include these “toxic links” reports? They’re smart people, they probably never use it themselves., John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
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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