Errors on your website are generally a bad thing – and while Google has always said that website errors aren’t a good thing – they’ve never specifically stated that those errors will play any role in your website’s crawl & indexing rates. However a recent question has gotten confirmation that 5xx errors will cause a slow […]
Category Archives: SEO Talk
Google’s Multi-Billion Dollar Fine Bad News For Company, Good News For Everyone Else
Google got hit with one of the largest fines in corporate history with the European Union demanding 2.42 billion euro (2.7 billion dollars). So what’s the cause? Google has been favoring its own “Google Shopping” service over other similar services, a practice which the EU has determined to be anti-competitive. These services allow users to […]
Google Promises to Give Webmasters Voice Search Analytics
Those of you who follow me on Facebook probably saw my post a few days ago talking about the effects that voice search is having on the world of SEO. Fact is that voice search popularity is steadily increasing. Even Forbes has stated that 2017 is the year of voice search. As such you can […]
Google Confirms: SSL Ranking Boost Won’t Be Getting Any Stronger
Way back in 2014 Google announced the SSL ranking boost which gave a small ranking boost to all websites who switched over to HTTPS instead of HTTP. Since then talk about the SSL ranking boost has never really subsided – with people constantly looking to SSL as a quick way to increase their website rankings, […]
Google Confirms: Domain Name Age Doesn’t Affect Search Rankings
The SEO community frequently talks about domain name age and debates it’s importance within the Google algorithm. As such it was inevitable that someone would finally ask John Mueller for an official answer, and John responded with his usual detailed reply: “no“. @_newsbulletin @methode no — John ?.o(???)o.? (@JohnMu) April 12, 2017 Check out more SEO […]
Submit New URLs To Google Straight From The Search Results Page
Remember the days when you would utilize various online services to submit your website to search engines? Thankfully this isn’t really required anymore and in-fact Google has made it easier than ever to submit your URL to them. Simply run a search for “submit to Google“, or anything similar. You will then be be shown a […]
Google Confirms: Quality Blog Comments Signify A Healthy Website
It’s always great to hear a confirmation from Google that helps showcase a positive ranking signal – and Gary Illyes latest tweet essentially gives us just that: DYK quality comments can be a signal of a healthy website? pic.twitter.com/Yugh9AhBWz — Gary Illyes ?( ? )? (@methode) March 10, 2017 Comments on a blog have always […]
Google Confirms: Don’t Use URL Fragments
The SEO community has long known that URL fragments such as http://www.example.com/page.html#something cannot be properly crawled by Google. As such Googlebot will only see page.html, regardless of what content may be dynamically displayed via Ajax as part of the #something fragment. This was confirmed by Google’s John Mueller via a Twitter post early this morning: @ryansiddle […]
Google Confirms: PageRank Is Still Being Used
Google’s PageRank came about, as we know it anyway, has been around for almost two decades – and Google’s Gary Illyes recently reminded us that it’s still very much alive. In a “DidYouKnow” tweet he states “DYK that after 18 years we’re still using PageRank (and 100s of other signals) in ranking?“. Check out the tweet […]
DuckDuckGo Provided Over 4 Billion Search Results in 2016
If you haven’t been paying much attention to DuckDuckGo as a webmaster – now is THE time to start. According to the latest statistics – DuckDuckGo has had 4 billion searches in 2016, and these numbers are set to only go up throughout 2017. In fact on January 10th of 2017 DuckDuckGo served up 14 million […]
Google & Bing Raise Sitemap File Size Limits to 50mb
Google and Bing both announced today that they have raised the file size limits on their sitemaps from 10mb up to 50mb. The 50,000 URL limit hasn’t changed however. Here is an excerpt directly from the Sitemap.org protocol: You can provide multiple Sitemap files, but each Sitemap file that you provide must have no more […]
Google Confirms: AMP Pages Don’t Require XML Sitemaps
Google’s John Mueller confirmed on Twitter that AMP pages do not require an XML sitemap to be picked up by Google. Simply making use of the rel=amphtml link is all that Google needs to find your AMP pages. @Kfowler325 @Kfowler325 No need for sitemaps for AMP pages — the rel=amphtml link is enough for us. — […]
Google Rolls Out New Tool to Test Your AMP Pages
Now that Google search results are fully AMP powered – blog owners will want to make sure they run valid AMP pages for their latest posts if they wish to obtain the display boost given to AMP-powered pages on mobile devices. To help all the new webmasters make sure their AMP pages are utilizing the […]
Google Penguin 4.0 Is Among Us
Google has finally updated Penguin, the algorithm responsible for penalizing sites using spammy or black hat techniques in an attempt to game the system. The new update, deemed Penguin 4.0, brings with it a series of important changes. The most prominent one being that Penguin is now a real-time algorithm – meaning you no longer have to wait […]
Google Confirms: Search Results Are Officially AMP Powered
AMP pages have been slowly taking over search results, and more and more people have noticed the new pages, which often load in mere seconds. As of today Google has announced that AMP pages are now displaying for all users across the world! That means that, when available, you will see a website showcasing exactly […]
New Schema Markup Added For Courses
These days almost anything can be learned via online courses or instructional videos, and Google is acknowledging that with the release of a new schema markup specifically for courses! Shoutout to Aaron Bradley who spotted this first and shared it on Twitter. Google introduces rich snippets for courses (before #schema.org/Course live) – https://t.co/IqslsDCHiD h/t @suzukik […]
Google Announces A Mobile Interstitial Penalty Coming Jan 10th, 2017
Have you ever clicked through on a search result using your mobile phone only to find your page covered by an interstitial ad prompting you to download that websites app instead of browsing the mobile website? Annoying isn’t it? Google thinks so also , so starting January 10th, 2017 Google has announced they will roll […]
Google AdWords Call-Only Ads Now Display Business Name
Call-only ads in Google AdWords have been extremely popular since their launch – however one constant complaint from advertisers has been the lack of business name display. This finally appears to be changing as Josh Leibner of Red Ventures pointed out on Twitter a few days ago: Google .@AdWords Call-Only Ads are now pulling Business […]
Google Confirms: Adult Links Are Not Automatically Spam
Google’s John Mueller recently confirmed on Twitter that links coming from adult websites are not automatically viewed as spam. Assuming those links are natural links, and do not violate Google’s link guidelines, there is nothing wrong with them. @Marie_Haynes Adult sites aren't automatically spam, and links from them not automatically unnatural / problematic. — John […]
Add Schema Markup To Any Page Using The JSON-LD Schema Generator
JSON-LD is a relatively new, easy-to-use, JSON-based, link data format that allows you to easily and quickly add Schema structured markup tags to just about any page or website without modifying any of the HTML structure. The biggest benefit to JSON-LD is that the specified Schema markup is entirely separate from the HTML code – […]