When Google announced that they were bringing AMP to the main organic search results – the “ten blue links” – they specifically said there would be no ranking boost associated with AMP. To clarify, this is not a ranking change for sites. However, many are still questioning whether there is or isn’t a boost for […]
Google Changes AMP Reporting in Search Console
If you have suddenly noticed a drop in the number of errors in Google Search Console for AMP, you didn’t accidentally change something. Google has updated the error reporting in Search Console to prepare for Google showing AMP in the main search results. The change in reporting is made with the upcoming addition of AMP […]
Google Bringing AMP to “Ten Blue Links” in Search Results
Are your sites AMP ready yet? If not, you will want to make it a priority as Google has announced they will be launching AMP in the mobile search results for the ten blue links. Since Google initially launched AMP, they have shown AMP results only in their news section of the search results, and […]
HTTPS Ranking Boost Does Not Vary Depending on the Site’s Industry
Someone raised an interesting question in last week’s Webmaster Office Hours… whether Google varies the amount of the HTTPS based on the industry the site is in. For example, would banking or ecommerce sites get a larger boost for being HTTPS than a regular blog or news site? John Mueller said that Google does not […]
How Google Reports Impressions, Positions & Clicks in Search Analytics
There has been a lot of confusion about Search Analytics, specifically what counts as clicks and how positioning is reported. When various search features are included in the search results, and when some sites may or may not show them, it can be hard for some site owners to figure out what some of the […]
Google Adds “Stay in the Loop” Email Alerts in Search Results
Everyone has done vanity searches for their own name, especially those whose name is connected with their business. Google has just made it a bit easier to track new mentions of your name with the addition of a new “Stay in the loop” feature that they are adding to the search results. When someone searches […]
Bing Adds Judy’s Book Reviews & Zomato to Local Business Search Results
If you have dismissed Judy’s Book as a viable source of reviews for local businesses, you might want to rethink that position. Bing has given Judy’s Book a prominent position in their local knowledge panels in the Bing search results. When you do a local business search – both for restaurants and regular stores, Bing […]
Google Adds Social Media Icons & Links to Local Knowledge Panel
If you are a local business, you will want to check your local knowledge panel – Google is now displaying social media icons and links in their local knowledge panel. These are similar to the ones Google shows in the knowledge panel for big brands. Joy Hawkins, via Ryan Scollon, posted a screenshot this morning […]
Removing Links from Disavow to Recover Google Rankings
Doing disavows and link removals is always an interesting thing. And too often, sites are too aggressive in removing good quality links, which means that not only are sites losing rankings from the spam links artificially boosting the ranks, but they are also losing rankings due to the great quality links being caught in the […]
Using Nofollow on Navigation for Crawl Budget Reasons
Sometimes SEOs use nofollow for crawl budget reasons, particularly for sites that are very large in size or that have a structure that doesn’t tend to be crawled as optimally as it could be. So SEOs use nofollow to prevent Google from following certain links during the regular crawl, in order to direct Googlebot to […]