Despite Matt Cutts categorically saying Google does not use bounce rate data in their search rankings at SMX a couple of years ago, many SEOs still believe that Google does bounce rate, and demotes sites and/or pages that have a higher bounce rate. Someone asked the question to Gary Illyes from Google on Twitter, and […]
Next Mobile Friendly Algo Update the Platypus Update?
Those at SMX Sydney were perhaps given a sneak peak of what the mobile friendly algo will be called when it gets its new signals. According to Google’s Gary Illyes, who may or may not have been joking, it sounds as though it will be called the Platypus update. BREAKING: Google's next iteration of the […]
Answer Box Data Coming to Google Webmaster Tools?
At SMX Sydney Wednesday, Gary Illyes from Google said that they are looking into including answer box data into Google Webmaster Tools. This is great news for webmasters who have sites in search results that often show answer boxes above the organic results. Google is looking to provide data on "web answers" (answer box 2.0) […]
Bing Is Testing a New Site Search in Search Results
It looks like Bing is following Google’s lead and adding a site search bar below some listings in the Bing Search Results. When you search using the “search results from _____” search box, it then returns a list of Bing results using site:example.com. Bing did a test of this a couple of years ago, but […]
Interstitials & Page Speed Next Likely Targets of Google’s Mobile Friendly Algo
Not surprisingly, it looks as though Google will be throwing some new signals into the mix of their mobile friendly algorithm in the future. The initial mobile friendly algorithm was simply a “yes, this page is mobile friendly” or “no, this page is not mobile friendly”, and if it was “yes”, they got the boost […]
Bing Showing Most Recent Facebook Post in Company Knowledge Graphs
Bing has begun showing the most recent Facebook post made by a company when displaying the company’s knowledge graph. Here is an example where Bing is displaying Target’s most recent Facebook post in their knowledge graph. And here are a few more examples. It is interesting that Bing is giving this prominent placement to Facebook, […]
Indexing Not Complete for Google’s Mobile Friendly Algo Boost
We already knew that Google’s new mobile friendly algo had completely rolled out, but it turns out that according to Gary Illyes, Google is still reindexing all the new mobile friendly pages to give them the mobile friendly boost in the mobile search results. This isn’t actually that surprising, because as John Mueller has often […]
Bing Testing Search Results with Ten Sitelinks for a Single Listing
I was doing some random searches on Bing when I came across this massively large organic search result. It featured ten different site links – all with descriotion also included for each one – in the Bing organic search results. Usually when it comes to sitelinks, search engines tend to play it on the side […]
Google Using NoFollow Links on Google’s Homepage
Occasionally Google places extra text beneath the search box, usually highlighting an event, although on some occasions it has been used for disaster relief and to promote Android. Last week during the annual Star Wars Day “May the Fourth be with you”, Google placed a promotional link on the homepage for Google Play, which led […]
Proposed Legislation Would Make It Illegal For Companies to Penalize Individuals for Negative Online Reviews
With more and more stories of contracts including clauses that prohibit leaving negative reviews or threaten fines or lawsuits for doing so, US lawmakers are wanting to make the practice illegal. The law would make SLAPPs – strategic lawsuits against public participation – illegal. There are some states that already have SLAPP laws in place […]