If you are trying to land a featured snippet, are you better serving up a brand new page to take advantage of freshness? Or are you better to tweak a currently ranked but older page to make it more appealing as a featured snippet option? While we do see featured snippets change from one site […]
Archives for 2016
Increased Crawl Rate Not Sign of Google Panda or Algorithmic Issue Being Lifted
Many people assume that when they see Googlebot increasing the crawl rate on a site, that it is the sign of an algorithmic issue being lifted – such as Panda or other part of the algo that is impacting the site’s rankings negatively. After all, there must be a reason for Google to be recrawling […]
Google Panda is Still Fundamentally the Same Algo
Google’s John Mueller was asked about the Google Panda and whether the quality content algo had changed fundamentally when it moved to being part of the core algorithm and started it’s slow rollout. He confirmed that yes, it is essentially the same. It hasn’t fundamentally changed. I know the engineers work on these algorithms, so […]
Google: Here’s How to Optimize for Google’s RankBrain
At Big Digital Adelaide, I had a fireside chat with Gary Illyes from Google, and RankBrain was one of the hot topics of the afternoon. While we have seen many articles published on “RankBrain optimization” and “RankBrain SEO”, many are simply based on speculation and assumptions. After all, RankBrain is the newest algo buzzword so […]
Google’s Panda Algo Still Rolling Out Slowly
Google has been extremely quiet about Google Panda ever since they released information and quotes to TheSEMPost in the Google Panda algo guide. Google last said that Panda was doing a slow rolling update, which means SEOs would no longer be able to see a definitive date for when rankings either dropped or increased thanks […]
RankBrain Doesn’t Change Order of Many Search Results
When Google announced RankBrain, many people were surprised to learn it was the third most important ranking signal. But what does that influence really mean? During a fireside chat at Big Digital Adelaide with Gary Illyes from Google, we discussed RankBrain and the many misconceptions around it. But he said one thing that was quite […]
Vanity Keyword TLD Domain Names Do Not Get Ranking Boost
At Big Digital Adelaide, I asked Gary Illyes about whether people should switch to the so-called vanity TLDs such as .attorney help with rankings due to the presence of keywords in those TLDs for a supposed ranking boost. It is an interesting idea, whether you can gain an additional ranking boost for the TLD keyword […]
Google: Does Not Matter Which 301, 302, 307 Redirect, All Pass PageRank
There is a hot debate amongst SEOs about what type of redirects to use for SEO, particularly when it comes to passing PageRank. At Big Digital Adelaide today, I asked Gary Illyes from Google about the great redirect debate, and whether it really matters whether a site uses a 301, 302 or 3o7 redirect, as […]
Google Ignores Spam Reports from Users Filing Many Bogus Reports
We learned earlier this year that Google does prioritize spam reports from those users with a history of good spam reports, something that Gary Illyes from Google confirmed again today at Big Digital Adelaide. But he also dropped some details for users that file bogus spam reports. The specific question was about competitors filing a […]
RankBrain: Social Sharing and Social Ads Have No Impact on RankBrain
RankBrain is one of Google’s most misunderstood search algorithms and as a result, there has been a vast amount of rumor and speculation about what RankBrain can and cannot do. One of the repeated rumors about RankBrain is that social shares and/or social ads can impact how RankBrain ranks a site, and the more social “impact” […]