SEARCHENGINES
Product Reviews Update, Search Console, Local & More
Here is the large Google webmaster report for April 2022 – catching you all up on what you may have missed in the past month related to Google search and SEO topics. We had a confirmed Google algorithm update, the July 2022 product reviews update that kicked in Friday and the tools just picked up on this morning. We had a large indexing outage, several unconfirmed updates and Google made their own algorithm update landing page.
Google has updated its search quality raters guidelines last week, which is always big news in the SEO world. Google Search Console updated its help documentation around anonymized queries. Google Search Console Insights now works with Google Analytics 4 and you can verify your properties again using DNS CNAME. Also, that new video indexing report is now rolling out, slowly and to some.
We also covered tons of SEO topics and user interface changes such as people also ask disappearing and returning, things to know going away on desktop, the new perspectives and so much more.
Google announced a bunch of Merchant Center changes and on the local side, the Google My Business app stopped working. Plus Google is testing new AR prototypes and they announced earnings.
There is just so much more but the chatter in the ongoing WebmasterWorld thread is super light right now.
Here are the more important stories I pulled out for you all:
Google Algorithm Updates:
- July 2022 Google Product Reviews Update Rolling Out – Everything We See So Far
- July 2022 Google Product Reviews Update Kicked In Friday Afternoon
- Tracking Tools Now Picking Up On The July 2022 Google Product Reviews Update Volatility?
- Google Search Algorithm Update On July 16th Or Was It Related To The Indexing Issue
- Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On July 10th – Not Confirmed
- Google Search Ranking Update Volatility July 5th & July 7th
Other Important Google News:
- Google Search Indexing Issue On July 15th – Google Not Indexing New Content
- Google Updates Search Quality Raters Guidelines On July 28th
- Google Creates A Landing Page With Major Ranking Updates Timeline
Google Search Console:
- Google Search Console Anonymizes Tons Of Queries; Updates Help Doc After Ahrefs Study
- Google Search Console Insights Finally Supports Google Analytics 4
- New Verification Of Google Search Console Via DNS CNAME
- Google Search Console Video Index Report Rolling Out Very Slowly
- Possible Bug With Google Search Console Performance Report For Videos On Desktop
Google SEO:
- Google: Age Verification Requirement May Prevent Site From Surfacing In Google Discover
- Google Super Basic Video On SEO
- Unique IP Addresses Do Not Give You A Google Ranking Advantage, Google Says Again
- Google Signed Exchanges For Desktop, Top Stories and News Now Live
- Google: Search Query Pages Are Equivalent To Low Effort Category Pages
Google User Interface:
- Google Discover Stories With TikTok, Facebook, YouTube For Destination Queries
- Google Now Test Interactive Card Knowledge Panel Box Layout
- Google Search Tests Rich Cards Layout With Net Worth, News, Videos & More
- Google People Also Ask Back To Normal Levels
- Huge Drop In Google People Also Ask
- RankRanger: Google Things To Know No Longer Showing In Desktop Search
- Google’s Top Ranked SERP Feature Leads To Critic Reviews & Product Review Articles On Mobile
- Google’s Interesting Finds SERP Feature Goes Missing From The Search Results – Maybe It Wasn’t Interesting To Users Anymore
- Google Perspectives Search Results
- Google Highly Rated By Users Search Carousel
- Google Tests List View Top Stories With News Taking Over Web Results
- Google Tests Explore More Search Refinement For Product Queries
- Google Search Displays Return Period In Search Results Snippets
- Google Tests Search Bar With Refinements Mixed With Vertical Navigation
- Google Hotel Listings New Featured In Section
- Google Popular Products Section Gains Videos
- Google Product Results Carousel With Highlights
- Google Products Carousel Displays Product Reviews Under Appears On These Lists
- Google Product Results Tests Customer Favorites, Most Mentions Of & More Labels
- Google Search Trending Topics News Box On Mobile
- Google Search Updates Suicide Prevention Box With New Options
- Google Search Tests Get There, Weather & Map Cards
- Google Search Timer & Stopwatch Stop Ticking
Google Merchant Center:
- Google Merchant Center Now Allows Login Required & Restricted Purchase Free Listings
- Google Merchant Center Website Needs Improvement Policy Update: No Longer Disapproved
- Google Merchant Center Adds Auto-Tagging For All Free Listings Across All Of Google
Google Business Profiles & Local:
- Google My Business App No Longer Available
- Google Taking Action On Recent One-Star Review Scams & Blackmail Threats
- Google Business Profiles Messaging FAQs For Automated Responses To Customers
- Google Business Profile Tests Expandable Menu In Web Search
- Google Pushing Business Profile Verification Over Video
- Google Business Profile Toggle To Hide Address To Customers
- Google Maps May Remove Selfies, Blurry Or Poor Quality Images
- Google Tests “Reviews Aren’t Verified” Label
- Google Posts Now Expire After 6 Months
- Google Maps To Add Aerial Views, More Biking Details & More
Other Misc Google:
- Google Analytics 4 Now Supports UTM Term, UTM Content, Conversion & Bounce Rate Metrics
- Google Tests New AR Prototypes – Watch Out Google Glass
- Google Ads Revenue Up 13.5% & Microsoft Bing Ads Revenues Up 15% But Slowed Growth
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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.
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