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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 4, 2022

Published

2 years ago

January 4, 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 Search Console’s international targeting setting can take weeks to kick in. Google said if you are migrating to a new domain, don’t also remove AMP at the same time. A reminder that error like pages or out of stock or no delivery pages can trigger soft 404s in Google Search. Google is testing a blue header in the search results. Google local shows bike sharing icons with quantity and car charing icons. Plus more…

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google Search Console International Targeting Setting Can Take Weeks

Google’s John Mueller said that it can take from a week to a couple of months for Google Search to pick up on the international targeting setting you selected in Google Search Console. He said it would likely go faster for news sites but other sites can take up to a couple of months.

Google: Pages That Look Like Error Pages Can Be Considered Soft 404s

Several months ago Google told us that returning a “results not found” type of page can result in Google Search considering that page a soft 404 and thus removing it from the search results. The same is true for “Sorry we don’t deliver to this location” or other negative and error looking pages.

Advice: Don’t Migrate Domains & Drop Google AMP The Same Time

It might not be the best idea to migrate to a new domain name and at the same time also drop your AMP pages. A Google SEO hangout with John Mueller has one case where a site migrated to a new domain back in September and at the same time dropped AMP and has not seen the site’s traffic recover yet.

Google Search Tests Blue Header

Ric Rodriguez has spotted Google testing a blue colored header for the mobile search results. He shared a number of screenshots on Twitter -here is a side by side of a normal white header for the Google Search bar compared to the blue header for the Google search bar.

Google Local Results Displays Bike & Car Charging Icons In Local Results

Google is now showing bike icons for the bikeshare data it shows in the local search results, including the local pack and local listing for a bike share location. Google also shows the quantity of bikes that are available at that location. And Google is also showing electric car charging icons.

Google’s User Agent Horse Wears A Mask – But It’s A Bit Hoarse

So John Mueller of Google shared a photo of his cardboard cut out the other day and I was super upset that it was without a mask. John then shared that the User-agent horse had a mask – so all is good

Other Great Search Threads:

I saw “Shops” in mobile serp. And shows ecommerce sites in “Shops” feature. Is this new? CC @rustybrick @JohnMu #mobile #shop https://t.co/GZEMEz7R6e, khushal Bherwani on Twitter

Adsense, Firewalls, and Windows Servers – Minimize Claw Backs, WebmasterWorld

It’s like a filter for the display in the search results, it doesn’t remove from indexing, and doesn’t do anything with redirects, canonicals, etc. The only expansion it does is for http/https/www/n, John Mueller on Twitter

This should be studied as a great example of community driven/engaged link building. Willing to bet the names on this list are getting mentioned a TON of other places as well., Joe Hall on Twitter

1 of the things that’s not typical about the ‘COVID SERP’ is how well it goes “vertically” into the topic. It breaks down the subtopics that comprise the overall topic so that exploring it is easy. This is NOT how Google, Mordy Oberstein on Twitter

Adsense revenues ‘disappearing’, WebmasterWorld

hreflang only swaps out URLs, so implementing just one language/country version does nothing., John Mueller on Twitter

It’s an approximation. There is no single, accurate “speed number” – no testing tool can give you that., John Mueller on Twitter

SEO Mystery: Why isn’t https://t.co/njNTKQQJPu ranking for “reddit” – one of the highest volume keywords on the entire internet? (instead ranking https://t.co/nJkMvgfd3x – which typically ranks #2 – and is NOT what most people are s, Cyrus on Twitter

Well, for many of them, you have to know that they exist first, if you want to search for them. It’s not a matter of links, it’s a matter of awareness. Also, the whole world doesn’t revolve around se, John Mueller on Twitter

Search Engine Land Stories:

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Google Won’t Change The 301 Signals For Ranking & SEO

Published

11 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

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

Published

2 days ago

April 23, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

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
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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

Published

3 days ago

April 22, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

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.

Forum discussion at X and image credit to @n_minkov.