SEARCHENGINES

Google Says Your Domain Will Never Make Or Break Your SEO

Published

4 months ago

August 15, 2023

Google’s John Mueller said on Mastodon a few tips on domain names, but one line was pretty strong. He said, “your domain name is never going to make or break your SEO.”

Here are the points he made on domains on the topic of dashes in domain names. He wrote, “In the domain name, is the use of dash ( – ) recommended or not?”

It’s fine

Pick a domain name for your brand for the long run, don’t just collect keywords (the common reason for dashes). Build out a domain.

For SEO, dashes are very minimally better in URLs than underscores. Don’t change your URLs for them tho. Don’t use spaces, commas, colons, etc in URLs.

Your domain name is never going to make or break your SEO.

So as you’d imagine, this caused a bit of back and forth on that social network.

Nick replied to John saying, “Domain will never make or break your SEO……however it will help if you get one which will match the main searches. No dash better than dash but dash with the right keywords is better than no dash without good keyword.”

John responded to that saying, “I don’t think either of those are the case. From a branding or marketing POV, *maybe* (eg, if you have the URL in an offline ad, it can be easier to remember). I would venture a guess that the SEO effect is less than the mention of the word on the page, and at that point, is that still worth focusing on? And yes, I know, I know, SEOs sometimes focus on the smallest things, but TBH that’s super-inefficient and gives a bad reputation.”

Another SEO said, “as long as keyword domains work, people will use them. Maybe Google can delete this bonus finally?”

John replied to that, “Do they really work though? I think it’s a lot of “keyword in the domain” plus “there’s a lot of other SEO things we do” — and I don’t think you can separate out the effect of a word in a domain. They can be cool for branding, they can be memorable, but I don’t think you get any measurable SEO bonus out of it. (It would be totally weird to do that, anyone can buy a domain name; it’s not a sign of relevance.)”

So go with or without dashes, but don’t do it for keywords.

Oh, Google has always downplayed the role of domains in ranking and SEO.

Forum discussion at Mastodon.

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Related Topics:Break Domain Google searchengine seo

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SEARCHENGINES

Google Pay Accepted Icons In Google Search Results

Published

11 hours ago

December 3, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Google seems to be testing a Google Pay Accepted label or icon in the Google search results. This label has the super G logo followed by the words “Pay accepted” words next to search result snippets that support Google Pay and notate such in their structured data.

This was first spotted by Khushal Bherwani who shared some screenshots of this on X – here is one:

Here are some more screenshots:

Here is test and without test window for same query. pic.twitter.com/n9cYWBOsro

— Khushal Bherwani (@b4k_khushal) October 20, 2023

Brodie Clark also posted some screenshots after on X:

In continuation from the test from October, Google is now testing out a new Google Pay label associated with organic results. Last month, Google was testing Pay Accepted text, with this month changing it to Pay encrypted checkout. More details: https://t.co/MvFNoPmMDR pic.twitter.com/WDVVc4RbTO

— SERPs Up 🌊 (@SERPalerts) November 30, 2023

I tried to replicate this but I came up short.

This is not the first time Google had similar icons like this in its search results.

Forum discussion at X.

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SEARCHENGINES

Google Discover Showing Older Content Since Follow Feature Arrived

Published

1 day ago

December 2, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Typically, Google Discover shows content that is less than a day old, but it can show content that is weeks, months, or even years old. However, typically, Google will show more recent content in the Discover feed. Well, that may have changed with the new Google follow feature.

Glenn Gabe, who is a very active Google Discover user, noticed that since the Follow feature rolled out, he has been seeing content that is weeks and months old way more often than before the follow feature rolled out. Glenn wrote on X that “this could also be playing a role. i.e. Google isn’t providing as much recent content, but instead, focusing on providing targeted content based on the topics you are following.”

It makes sense that if you follow a specific topic and if Google Discover only shows the most authoritative types of content, it might be hard for Google to find new content on that topic. So it does make sense that Google may show older content more often for that specific topic you follow.

Here are screenshots Glenn shared:

Google Discover Old Stories Follow

Google Discover Old Stories Follow2

Have you noticed this in your Discover feed?

Forum discussion at X.

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SEARCHENGINES

Google Core Update Done Followed By Intense Search Volatility, New Structured Data, Google Ads Head Steps Down & 20 Years Covering Search

Published

2 days ago

December 2, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Google Core Update Done Followed By Intense Search Volatility, New Structured Data, Google Ads Head Steps Down & 20 Years Covering Search

Google’s November 2023 core update finally finished rolling out this week, and it was the longest core update rollout. Then, a day later, we saw more intense Google search ranking volatility and chatter. Google added new organization structured data and also added a new profile page and discussion forum structured data, both with Search Console and Rich Results test support. Google’s crawl rate setting is going away soon. Google Search Console went down a couple of times this week. Google spoke about the SEO value of bringing back 404 pages for links. Did you see the Google patent for what appears to be SGE? Microsoft is working to bring GPT-4 Turbo to Copilot and Bing Chat. Google Ads won’t allow personalized ads for consumer finance topics in February 2024. Google Local Service Ads has new impression metrics. Google Ads released its Ads API schedule for 2024. Google is testing Gray accepted labels in the search results. Google is testing line separators between sitelinks. Google is testing an interview label for news results. Google local photos is testing hearts and other emotion reactions. Google is testing removing the cache link from the search result listings. Google’s head of search ads, Jerry Dischler, is stepping down after 15 years. And I’ve been covering the search industry and search for 20 years now. And if you want to help sponsor those vlogs, go to patreon.com/barryschwartz. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Sponsored by BruceClay, who has been doing search marketing optimization since 1996 and also has an amazing SEO training platform.

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