SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: November 25, 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 Thanksgiving everyone – we got some search news for you. Google is testing a new people also ask interface. Google Business Profiles suggested service areas is live. Did you know former Google spam boss, Matt Cutts, fought to prove Google Search can be spammed, and more recently, he also worked for Twitter on the lawsuit against Elon Musk. Finally, I posted the weekly video recap – hope you like it.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Google: 60% Of The Internet Is Duplicate
And you think you have a duplicate content problem on your site? Google said, “60% of the internet is duplicate.” Gary Illyes posted this slide at the Google Search Central Live in Singapore the other day. - Google Business Profiles Now Offering Suggested Services Areas
When you create a Google Business Profile and now go into creating service areas, Google may now offer you a list of suggested service areas in your region. Just be careful because these suggested service areas are based on your current location, not the location of the business. - Google Tests New People Also Ask User Interface
Google is testing a new design, layout, and user experience for the people also ask box in the Google Search results. This interface has results side by side and stacked on top and then when you click on a result, it loads the answer in a shaded box. - Matt Cutts Fought With Sergey Brin & Larry Page On That Google Search Can Be Spammed
Some of you may know that in the early days of Google, Google’s co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page would say Google Search was immune to search spam. Matt Cutts, the former Google search spam lead, said recently on Reddit that he actually had to fight with the co-founders to prove that Google was indeed spammable. - Gary Illyes Eating Japanese Dishes
Just because some of us cannot get enough of Gary Illyes (of Google)’s smile – here he is smiling while eating some Japanese dishes, specifically tsukemen, soba, and tonkatsu. - Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Weekend Updates, E-A-T For All Queries, Google Updates Documented, New Spam Policy & More
Google probably did yet another weekend search ranking algorithm update, I see a pattern here. Google’s Hyung-Jin Kim said E-A-T is used for all queries, not just YMYL. Google documented its notable search updates, they now call systems… - GoogleBot Can Now Crawl From Outside The US – Not Fully
Gary Illyes from Google announced at the Google Search Central Live in Singapore yesterday that Googlebot, Google, can now crawl from outside of the US. He said, according to reports, that the system to handle this is currently live but may not be used in all cases or it may not be used at all for your site.
Other Great Search Threads:
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
- Google’s duplicate detection algorithm is broken, ZipTie
- How To Fix “Blocked due to other 4xx issue” in Google Search Console, Onely
- Puppeteer on The Edge: SEO Use Cases with Cloudflare’s New Rendering API (beta), iPullRank
- The Leading Characteristics of Review Writers, Review Readers, and Successful Owner Responses, Moz
- What, How, and Why for Review Schema, seoClarity
- How to Fix Orphan Pages for SEO, Practical Ecommerce
- SEO Podcast #9: How To Build Your SEO Network, Be Consistent & More SEO Life Hacks With Anatolii Ulitovskyi, SEOSLY
- 3 Important Google Updates to Understand — Whiteboard Friday, Moz
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.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
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.
-
PPC6 days ago
19 Best SEO Tools in 2024 (For Every Use Case)
-
MARKETING7 days ago
Ecommerce evolution: Blurring the lines between B2B and B2C
-
SEARCHENGINES5 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 19, 2024
-
SEARCHENGINES6 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 18, 2024
-
WORDPRESS6 days ago
How to Make $5000 of Passive Income Every Month in WordPress
-
SEO6 days ago
2024 WordPress Vulnerability Report Shows Errors Sites Keep Making
-
WORDPRESS6 days ago
10 Amazing WordPress Design Resouces – WordPress.com News
-
WORDPRESS7 days ago
[GET] The7 Website And Ecommerce Builder For WordPress
You must be logged in to post a comment Login