SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: September 2, 2021
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 may have pushed an algorithm update on September 1st, we have a story showing the SEO chatter and tracking tools picking up on the update. Google added shipping and return annotations to both paid and free shopping and search results. Chrome beta can really push your competitors when your customers are visiting your website. Google added new documentation on how to optimize your feed for the Chrome follow feature. John Mueller of Google said he uses Bing to debug Google. I posted the big Google webmaster report for September – go check it out.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Was There A Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On September 1st?
There are some signs of the start of a Google search ranking algorithm update that kicked off on September 1, 2021. The truth is, it seemed like an update touched down for a short period of time and then slowed down. There are not a huge number of complaints, but the tools are picking up on the fluctuations in the Google search results. - September 2021 Google Webmaster Report
Well, I got to say, the last month was an interesting one for webmasters, marketers and SEOs in the Google organic space. We finished off the prolonger link spam update, safe browsing was removed from the page experience update, which should have been fully rolled out by now but Google did not confirm. Oh and that update might be bigger than just a tiebreaker but it is still pretty small. - John Mueller Often Debugs Google Using Bing
John Mueller, a Google search advocate, who we all know so well if you read this site. He said he will use Bing to debug Google issues. He said on Twitter “I often use Bing when debugging.” - Google Adds Shipping / Return Annotations To Shopping & Search Results
Google announced it has added new shipping and return annotations in Google Search and Shopping results. This works across both the free and paid listings. - Google Adds Documentation On Chrome Follow Beta Feature
Google had added a new section to the Google Discover help documents around markup you can use to define your RSS feed for Chrome to use for the “follow” feature. In May, Google Chrome announced an RSS reader like feature for Chrome named Follow. - Chrome Beta Can Display Competitors When Customers Are On Your Site
Part of the latest version of the Chrome beta, not out to the masses yet, is a feature named “continuous search.” Continuous search basically will show you search results along the top of the page when you are browsing web sites. Essentially, it can show your competitors sites when people are looking at your site. - SEO Perfume
Here is a bottle of perfume designed for SEOs. It was shared by Malte Landwehr on Twitter where the bottle says “sexist SEO alive” with the label Bluebox, Eau De Parfum on the bottom.
Other Great Search Threads:
- A birthday #GoogleDoodle for Polish doctor, immunologist & microbe hunter Rudolf Weigl 🔬 Through research of bacteria carried by body lice, he developed the first effective vaccine against epidemic typhus & helped save, Google Doodles on Twitter
- Did you catch the recent update to Google’s Featured Snippet results? It related to bolding of content in the snippet, allowing users to locate important text and answers faster. The same update actually applies to some PAA, Brodie Clark on Twitter
- Hreflang just swaps out URLs, there’s no mechanism to block URLs from being shown only in certain locations (regions, countries, states). Maybe you can do something with GMB entries (I don’t know)? Normal web, John Mueller on Twitter
- I’m part of a test where the borders on Top Stories are removed. Neat. cc @rustybrick https://t.co/vvP6i6Lzuj, Shalom Goodman on Twitter
- Occasional server errors are not a problem, they’re pretty common across the web. Search is pretty good at dealing with that., John Mueller on Twitter
- robots.txt is a long standing way to prevent crawling. People absolutely make mistakes with it, as I’m sure you know. But to be crawled or not is a, Danny Sullivan on Twitter
- September 2021 AdSense Earnings and Observations, WebmasterWorld
- Web search is so ingrained in our daily behavior that some may argue it’s a solved problem with little room for innovation. I disagree — learn more about how our @Microsoft #Bing team is making search more modern, intuitive, Jordi Ribas on Twitter
SEO
- SEO Split-Testing [Case Study] “Replacing “You’ll Love in 2021” with “Online” in the Title Tag for Category Pages“, Semrush
- Tested: Is Joomla Good For SEO In 2021?, Seobility Blog
- YouTube SEO: How to Optimize Videos for YouTube Search, Jeff Bullas
- “If your page isn’t indexed, other things don’t matter” – Interview with Renata Gwizdak, Onely Blog
- Google E-A-T: Authority of Content, Its Author, and The Website Where It Lives, Wellspring Digital
- Multilingual Image SEO: Reflecting your audience for maximum success, Hallam
- Word Count Content Study 2021, Embryo
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 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.
-
PPC5 days ago
19 Best SEO Tools in 2024 (For Every Use Case)
-
SEARCHENGINES7 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 17, 2024
-
SEARCHENGINES6 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 18, 2024
-
SEARCHENGINES5 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 19, 2024
-
MARKETING6 days ago
Ecommerce evolution: Blurring the lines between B2B and B2C
-
SEO6 days ago
2024 WordPress Vulnerability Report Shows Errors Sites Keep Making
-
WORDPRESS5 days ago
How to Make $5000 of Passive Income Every Month in WordPress
-
WORDPRESS6 days ago
10 Amazing WordPress Design Resouces – WordPress.com News