It is a very bad day if you are one of those ad-heavy, malware-installing lyric sites. Starting today, Google has a licensing agreement with LyricFind to display lyrics in the search results. This licensing also means that songwriters and publishers will earn revenue when their lyrics are displayed. Google has already been showing lyrics in […]
Archives for 2016
Google’s Keyword Planner Now Combines Keywords for Search Volume
Google’s Keyword Planner has been a staple for both advertisers and SEOs to get an idea of traffic volume for keywords. This helps identify the keywords with the most traffic as well as identify keywords that have lower volume, which often means less competition. But a major changes to Google’s Keyword Planner has made those […]
Google Restricts Keyword Planner Access to AdWords Advertisers With Active Campaigns
Do you use Google’s Keyword Planner for keyword research for SEO? Unless you are running an active AdWords campaign, you will no longer have access to use Google’s keyword tool at all. Over the weekend, I began hearing reports that Google has turned off access to those that use the tool without also being an […]
Google Testing Larger URLs in Search Results
Google is testing a larger sized font for the URL in Google’s search results. The new size being tested is actually larger than the description beneath it. It is closer in size to the search results title. Here is how it appears in the search results. The top result is the larger URL while the […]
Each Google Panda Rollout Cycle Takes Months
When Google switched to the long roll out of their Google Panda algorithm, it made it difficult for SEOs to determine “Panda dates”. Since there was no longer an obvious date for each new Panda update or refresh, it became harder to know if a site was hit by Panda or not. Also complicating the […]
Google Adds Rich Results Report to Search Analytics in Search Console
There is a new report for webmasters in Google Search Console. In Search Analytics, you can now get data for all “rich results”. The rich results report includes all rich results, which includes structured data that shows up in Google’s search results for the site’s pages as well as any rich cards. It appears under “Search […]
Google Launches New Local Ads-Pack for Local Businesses, Above 3-Pack
At SMX earlier local this week, Google shared that they would begin showing ads within the local 3-pack. And it seems Google has now gone live. While it was believed the ads would display within the 3-pack, the ads – at least as Google is currently running them – are not within the 3-pack. Instead […]
Google Analytics Expands Hacked Site Alerts for Webmasters
Google has now expanded their hacked site alerts to Google Analytics, meaning site owners who might not check their site regularly and who are not signed up for Google Search Console will still get alerts for the site being hacked when they login to Google Analytics. Last year Google added alerts in Analytics for sites that […]
New AMP Validator for Web & Chrome Extension
The AMP project has a brand new web validator for AMPlified pages to go along with the Chrome extension launched earlier this month. You can either provide an AMP URL or you can paste the AMP code directly into the validator to test it. It won’t find AMPlified for you, so you still need to […]
Don’t Make All Content Q&A For Google’s Featured Snippets
At SEJ Summit Santa Monica earlier this year, Maile Ohye from Google was asked about featured snippets. She mentioned that a good example of content seen in featured snippets at the top of the search results was Q&A type of content where the site is providing information and answers about the topic. This isn’t new […]