SEARCHENGINES
Google Search Essentials Replaces The Google Webmaster Guidelines
Google has replaced the Google Webmaster Guidelines with the Google Search Essentials. The name change is Google’s ongoing efforts to remove the term “webmaster” so that these tools and documentation do not narrow the focus to just “webmasters,” but expands it to publishers, site owners, developers, creators, and so on.
Before I even started blogging (which was in 2003), Google launched the Google Webmaster Guidelines back in 2002 – yes, two decades ago. The name stuck for 20 years but now Google decided it was time to change the name and refresh the guidelines in a very big way.
What Changed
Google changed more than just the name, Google also changed the overall format, added clearer terms and examples and also tried to simplify them for easier consumption. Google explained they updated the:
- Technical requirements: It is a new section to help people understand how to publish content in a format that Google can index and access.
- Spam policies: Google updated its guidance for its policies against spam, to help site owners avoid creating content that isn’t helpful for people using Google Search. Google explained that most of the content in these spam policies has already existed on Google Search Central in the “Quality Guidelines”, Google did make a few additions to provide clearer guidance and concrete examples for issues like deceptive behavior, link spam, online harassment, and scam and fraud.
- Key best practices: Google published new guidance with key best practices that people can consider when creating sites, to create content that serves people and will help a site be more easily found through Google Search.
The new spam section has content on:
- New deceptive behavior related-topics such as misleading functionality
- New section on other behaviors that can lead to demotion and or removal, such as
online harassment, and scam and fraud - Consolidated topics related to link spam and thin content
Drilling in, here is the list of changes from Google:
SEO Community Diving In
Here are some of the observations made from the SEO community on the changes here, mostly from Marie Haynes and Glenn Gabe:
Under technical requirements:
“There are actually very few technical things you need to do to a web page; most sites pass the technical requirements without even realizing it.” pic.twitter.com/toF3W6cBxm— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) October 13, 2022
Nice that Google added “Spammy” to autogenerated content. It used to just say “autogenerated content intended to manipulate search rankings. Again, this is a tough area for Google with AI writing software on the move. 🙂 pic.twitter.com/YppvHrEg0i
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) October 13, 2022
Spam policies can lead to an entire site being ranked lower or completely omitted from Google search. pic.twitter.com/ud80KOAfRh
— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) October 13, 2022
Google also included “Thin” in the guideline for affiliate pages. They did have “thin” in the description in the past, but I think it’s a good idea they added “thin” in the specific guideline title. Avoids confusion with affiliate content vs. thin affiliate content. pic.twitter.com/aWGdMCQH2Y
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) October 13, 2022
Also, “Misleading functionality” is new. “Site owners intend to manipulate search ranking by intentionally creating sites w/misleading functionality & services that trick users into thinking they would be able to access some content or services but in reality can not.” pic.twitter.com/h6yPyUxosM
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) October 13, 2022
The first key best practice is to create helpful, reliable people first content.https://t.co/F8Xnaclkzs
Looks like this document is the former core update questions questions plus more😍 pic.twitter.com/kJc9pLrZDO
— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) October 13, 2022
They added new questions
-do you have an existing audience?🤔
-does your content clearly demonstrate expertise? pic.twitter.com/k14KiKxNZF— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) October 13, 2022
Does your site have a primary focus?
Does content fulfill searcher’s goal?
Will the reader leave feeling satisfied? pic.twitter.com/9ceRXni5Dp
— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) October 13, 2022
And more questions to ensure we’re not creating content just for search engines.
These look like they are the helpful content update questions. pic.twitter.com/yYRKw5Cmcv
— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) October 13, 2022
Don’t worry. Google doesn’t hate SEO. pic.twitter.com/EYn2NTmsJh
— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) October 13, 2022
“our systems give even more weight to content that aligns with strong E-A-T for topics that could significantly impact the health, financial stability, or safety of people, or the welfare or well-being of society.”
— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) October 13, 2022
There are more key best practices
Use words ppl would use.
Place them in prominent places.Make links crawlable.
Tell people about your site, like in forums related to your topic. pic.twitter.com/pdwKGxI8h3
— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) October 13, 2022
And lastly
Follow best practices for images, videos, structured data and JavaScript
There’s a lot more under “how your site appears” as well. pic.twitter.com/YqS4U2rraJ— Dr. Marie Haynes🐼 (@Marie_Haynes) October 13, 2022
That nothing’s changed. pic.twitter.com/cqBl7IYvM6
— Rohan Ayyar (@searchrook) October 13, 2022
Relevant new section about what G considers spam:
“A site that claims to provide certain functionality (for example, PDF merge, countdown timer, online dictionary service), but intentionally leads users to deceptive ads rather than providing the claimed services”
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) October 13, 2022
it’s essential you look at this 👀 https://t.co/l1r31o38Ix
— Lizzi (@okaylizzi) October 13, 2022
An update on Google’s Webmaster Guidelines …
… they’re now called Search Essentials, and split into technical requirements, spam policies, and key best practices. The content is largely the same as before. Check them out, & update your links :-). https://t.co/gOTnj7QvC0
— ⛰ johnmu is not a cat ⛰ (@JohnMu) October 13, 2022
It wouldn’t be a bad thing, but regardless, pretty much nobody in the corporate world calls themselves a “webmaster” anymore. It’s outdated terminology. https://t.co/6hSMsNSm7v
— ⛰ johnmu is not a cat ⛰ (@JohnMu) October 13, 2022
Yeah, some of those have a lot of historical significance, I think “webmaster” never really got there, people moved on fairly quickly. (That said, even things of historical significance can be improved – just because something’s old doesn’t mean it’s still appropriate today)
— ⛰ johnmu is not a cat ⛰ (@JohnMu) October 13, 2022
How does that contradict that?
— ⛰ johnmu is not a cat ⛰ (@JohnMu) October 14, 2022
(and first good morning, and the statement that you are not a cat must be true, as you are an early bird 😀)
— Rüdiger Dalchow (@RuedigerDalchow) October 14, 2022
thanks that clarfies it for me. 🙂 Never really understood why to waste time on chasing low-quality links anyway.
— Rüdiger Dalchow (@RuedigerDalchow) October 14, 2022
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
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.
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Search Topics of Discussion:
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SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 19, 2024
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 is testing more ad formats for its search ads. BingBot is testing new compression methods. Google said it is unlikely your rankings would drop just because you have two or more sites. Google says the indexing API might work for unsupported formats. Google said hyphenated domains are not bad by themselves. And I posted the weekly SEO video recap.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
-
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Core Update Flux, AdSense Ad Intent, California Link Tax & More
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… -
Google Tests More Google Ad Card Formats
Google is testing another ad format, another card like format, for its search ads. We previously saw the vertical and tall ad cards, then the carousel horizontal card format and now here are just plain horizontal ad cards. -
Google: It’s Unlikely Your Rankings Dropped Because You Have Two Websites
Google was asked if having two websites and Google finding out about them would cause the websites to drop in rankings. John Mueller from Google said that is “not likely,” adding that many people have several websites and that is fine. -
Google: Indexing API May Work For Unsupported Content But…
Gary Illyes from Google said in the recent Google SEO office hours the Google Indexing API may work for unsupported content formats, but that you shouldn’t be “surprised if suddenly it stopped working for unsupported verticals overnight.” -
Google: Are Hyphenated Domains Are Bad For Google Ranking?
The topic of using hyphens in domain names is one of the oldest SEO topics we have in this space. Heck, in 2004, SEOs said there was a specific Google ranking algorithm that filtered out domains with hyphens in them (Google did not by the way). -
Bingbot To Test Zstd Compression After Fully Gaining Full Brotli Compression
Fabrice Canel from Microsoft announced that BingBot now fully supports Brotli compression and will soon be testing zstd Zstandard compression, a lossless data compression, for its crawler. -
Google Cloud Socks
Google loves to print socks for its various swag and here are two variations of socks from the Google Cloud team. I like the white socks because they look more retro but here are nicer versions as well.
Other Great Search Threads:
- From a practical POV, you can specify your prices using structured data on the page, with a merchant center feed (which many ecommerce systems can make for you) or manually in merchant center., John Mueller on X
- I passed this on. I don’t think there’s anything special going on here, but the feedback on this being confusing is good to pass on., John Mueller on X
- If you have older reports that are still helpful, you’ll just need to click the View “button” and access ones you want to remain active., AdsLiaison on X
- The way I see this is more that there are things which can be recognized & ignored, but a site might still be appropriate to show (I don’t know this site/query). Folks get bad SEO advice, and if that can be neutralized granularly without broader effects, , John Mueller on X
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Search Features
Other Search
Feedback:
Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.
SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 18, 2024
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 Ads notified advertisers that some ad customizers will stop working soon. Google discontinued the limited use video carousel markup. Google Maps has new directions and travel features, plus a bunch of new EV features. Google Notes on Search might not end in May 2024 despite what people suggest. Google Business Profiles asked businesses to register their defibrillators, their AEDs.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
-
Google Notes On Search Won’t Necessarily Go Away In May
There have been some people noticing that the Google Notes On Search labs experiment has an end date of May 2024 and thus they are expecting Notes on Search to be turned off by then. Just because it has that end date listed, it does not mean the labs experiment will end on that date. -
Google Maps Releases New Directions, Travel & EV Features
Google has announced a number of new travel features with Google Maps and Travel around driving alternatives, trains and buses, travel impact mode and then some new EV driving direction features. Google says these features are to give you more “sustainable choices.” -
Google Ads Reminds Advertisers Some Ad Customizers Will Go Away May 31st
On August 31, 2021, Google notified advertisers it would drop support for expanded text ads for responsive search ads. Google is now reminding advertisers that Ad customizers for text ads, expanded text ads and Dynamic Search Ads will stop serving after May 31, 2024. -
Google Drops Video Carousel Markup
Google has discontinued its support for video carousel markup and has thus removed it from its video structured data help documentation. Initially, Google tested video carousel on a limited number of sites and is now saying that it “ultimately found that it wasn’t useful for the ecosystem at scale.” -
Google Business Profiles Register Your Defibrillator (AED)
Google sent out emails a couple of days ago to businesses asking them to register their Automated External Defibrillator (AED) with Google Business Profiles. Google said, “you could save lives” if you do it. -
Google NYC Earthquake Reaction Video
A couple of weeks ago we had an earthquake in the New York region and I finally found a video from the Google NYC office of the reaction of some Googlers while the earthquake happened. These Googlers were recording a video and felt it but were unsure if that was a real earthquake.
Other Great Search Threads:
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Search Features
Other Search
Feedback:
Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.
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