SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: February 28, 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 took action in the Russia invasion of Ukraine with some new ad policies and restrictions. Google’s local pack map is now interactive and no longer a static map photo. Google is hosting an SEO workshop with Google internal SEO experts. Google is testing placing the search bar filters and options at the top right side of the search box. As a reminder, the top stories box no longer has an eligibility requirement. Plus I posted a new vlog interview today.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Google Search Local Pack Is Now Interactive (Not A Static Map)
Allie Margeson from Whitespark noticed that the Google local pack in the search results is no longer a static map. The map is now interactive and lets searchers zoom in and out, move the map around, hover over businesses to see the names and reviews and even click on the map to go to a specific local business. - Google Internal SEO Experts Hosting SEO Workshop – Is That Okay?
David Mihm pointed out on Twitter that Google is hosting a partner workshop event named “Drive Traffic to Your Website with SEO.” The interesting bit is that the workshop says it is “hosted by one of Google’s internal SEO experts, this workshop will give you a behind-the-scenes view into how Google approaches SEO for its own sites.” - Google Tests Search Bar Filters & Options On Top Right Side
I am seeing multiple reports of Google placing the search bar filters, you know, the bar that says “all, videos, news, images, more, etc” which is normally placed under the search box, is being tested on the right hand side of the search box. It doesn’t look like a bug but Google has had many weird quirks recently. - Google Blocks Search Ads From So-Called Donetsk People’s Republic & Luhansk People’s Republic
Google has posted a new legal requirement policy that blocks search ads related to what is going on with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The policy says that entities and individuals who are restricted cannot create or use a Google Ads account or have Google Ads used on their behalf for those who are located in or reside in so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR). - PSA: Google Top Stories Eligibility For All Pages, Not Just AMP Or Good Page Experience Scores
This is just a reminder, since I covered this back last April but I forgot myself, there is really no top stories eligibility requirements in Google Search anymore. It use to be that you needed to have AMP pages to be eligible in top stories on mobile. But that went away and you also do not need to have good page experience to be in top stories either. - Vlog #161: Taylor Kurtz On SEO Gratitude & Getting Up Early To Work
Taylor Kurtz (@realtaylorkurtz) is the Founder of Crush the Rankings and he stopped by my office to talk SEO. Crush the Rankings is now about four years old and he started this company based on him working on a site that was ‘black listed’ in Google… - Making A Video At Google For Edible Food Surplus
Here is a photo from a video production company at a job they had at the GooglePlex, the Google headquarters, where they shot a video recording some Google chefs on the top of edible surplus food.
Other Great Search Threads:
- I don’t think it’s sustainable to rely on the indexing requests for organic changes – it’s sometimes a sign that we’re not convinced of the site overall, and just getting a page indexed won’t change that. It’, John Mueller on Twitter
- To be honest, I don’t think either heading makes the site more relevant to users. It makes it clearer to Google what you want Google to think your page is about, but you’re going to have to do a lot more tha, John Mueller on Twitter
- Googlebot looks at the links on a page and may use them to determine which other pages to crawl. It doesn’t “leave” a site, it only ever looks at individual pages. Link to sites that you think provide valu, John Mueller on Twitter
- Do you have an example of a “good directory”?, John Mueller on Twitter
- Earning from EU hugely drop in past week, WebmasterWorld
- No, not really. We discover lots of URLs, on all kinds of sites, that were don’t crawl. It’s normal that were don’t crawl it all. Of course if your site is very slow, that’s still a problem to check out., John Mueller on Twitter
- There would be more to the story than just 2 domain names, so I’d recommend looking into the bigger picture, and the details. In general, just duplicating content from one country is not a good way to show, John Mueller on Twitter
- There’s no requirement from our side. Noindex, 404, 200, hidden – are all options. If you feel they’re coming back soon, keeping it hidden means you can just make it pop back in. Keeping it live with a “back in, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
- Google Maps, Apple Maps, and smartphones are at the forefront of modern war, AppleInsider
- Local Pack Update Allows Searchers to Interact with the Featured Map, Whitespark
- Ukraine, Core Web Vitals and Local Rankings, Local Inventory Ad Click Surge, Near Media
- Google temporarily disables Google Maps live traffic data in Ukraine, Reuters
- Who Is Policing the Location Data Industry?, The Markup
- Why Are My Google Business Profile Posts Getting Rejected?, Sterling Sky Inc
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.
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)
-
MARKETING7 days ago
Streamlining Processes for Increased Efficiency and Results
-
SEARCHENGINES6 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 17, 2024
-
PPC7 days ago
97 Marvelous May Content Ideas for Blog Posts, Videos, & More
-
SEO6 days ago
An In-Depth Guide And Best Practices For Mobile SEO
-
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