While XML sitemaps are the gold standard for SEOs, since they can be submitted to Google for indexing purposes, what about using both XML and HTML sitemaps on a site together? Would there be any kind of ranking boost specific to the use of both? The question came up in today’s Google Webmaster Office Hours […]
Archives for July 2016
No Google Penalty for Not Linking Out to Other Sites
If you never link to any other sites from your own site, could it be considered a penalty? While most know that linking out to high authority sites doesn’t make a site seem higher quality, recent outbound manual actions have definitely made it so that some site owners are a little bit leery of linking […]
Google Separating First Search Results for Well Known Entities
Google is separating out the first result for some search queries when someone is searching for well known entities, such as people, brands or companies. Here is an example. They all seem to appear when there are news listings above the “official” site. These aren’t restricted to just the official sites for the brand […]
Bing Testing Rating Percentages in Search Results
Bing is running an interesting test in the search results, and for a minor change, it really stands out when I see it. They have added the addition of a ratings and reviews percentage score, in bright orange to match the color of the stars. Here is an example for a reviews site: And here […]
Google Podium Posts Expands to Regular Search Results
Google Posts – a feature Google had initially launched for political candidates in the US – has no expanded to other areas of the search results. Dr. Pete Meyers spotted Google testing it for a non-political search in the search results, this time for a charter school in New York. Here is how it appears […]
Could SEOs See Keyword Planner Tool in Google Search Console?
In today’s Google Webmaster Office Hours, I asked about the recent change in the Google AdWords Keyword Planner, a tool than is used by many SEOs for keyword research. AdWords changed the tool from showing traffic information for individual keywords to search variants instead. This means that AdWords is now grouping together sets of keywords […]
Google Testing Larger Title Headlines in Search Results
Google is running a test right now that many SEOs will love. Google is testing a significantly larger font size for headlines in the search results. This text is very noticeably difference. Here is how it looks: Kiran Nagula was the first to spot this test in the search results. And here is a comparison […]