Recently, the Google RankBrain system has started to garner quite the buzz within the SEO community — but to a large degree, it’s not entirely being understood. We’ve even had some somewhat link-baity post titles that didn’t help things either. And of course, Google didn’t do itself any favors including the word “rank” in the name. So, let’s […]
RankBrain Might Not Be the Third Most Important Ranking Signal
Hot on the heels of Google finally revealing the top 2 ranking factors, Andrey Lipattsev, Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google also dropped another interesting piece of information… Google RankBrain might not be the third most important ranking signal after all, a figure Google stated when RankBrain was first publicly confirmed. Now, part of this […]
Why Spam in Google is a Bigger Problem in Some Languages
Over the years, there have been many comments that web spam is a bigger issues in some languages compared to others, and some old school tactics – such as buying links – still work in non-English search results. Are there more spammers in non-English languages? Is it a matter of lack of competition? Or do […]
Google Finally Confirms the Two Most Important Ranking Factors
When Google originally announced RankBrain, they confirmed that it was now the third most important ranking signal. And while many speculated about what the top two ranking signals were, Google wouldn’t explicitly confirm what those two most important ranking factors were… until now. During yesterday’s WebPromo.Expert Google Q&A, Andrey Lipattsev, Search Quality Senior Strategist at […]
Length of Time Between Googlebot Crawling & Live in Search Results Varies
John Mueller was asked about the timeline between Googlebot recrawling a page and those changes made to those pages are actually reflected in the search results. While most webmasters go with the “wait and see” approach, there are definitely times when a webmaster will sit and hit F5 repeatedly, waiting for the results to go […]
Google Testing Local Results in Knowledge Panel Style Product Listing Ads
Google’s hybrid of knowledge panel and product listing ads have become familiar in the Google search results since we first spotted them last year. Last October they started showing them to mobile users as well. Now they have added another new component – local. When you search for a product that triggers these larger product […]
Google Showing “People Also Ask” For Even More Searches
If it seems that you are seeing “People also ask” boxes in the search results more lately, you aren’t imagining things. Google has sharply increased the percent that the related questions box now shows up in the search results, according to Mozcast data. Google has increased the number of search results displaying “People also ask” […]
Emojis Are Back in Google AdWords Ad Copy
It seems that advertisers are able to still use some emojis in their Google AdWords ad copy. Sasa Kovacevic, the head of PPC at the search agency obsidian.dk sent The SEM Post the screenshot of the lightning bolt emoji in action in AdWords. Here is a copy of the AdWords emoji. Emojis are against Google’s […]
Google’s Goal for AMP: Work for Videos, Blogs, Photos & GIFs
It has been about a month since AMP went live and the dedicated AMP section opened at the Google Webmaster Help forums. And the AMP blog is taking the opportunity to highlight the most common questions they have seen at the help forums. In the Q&A, they do talk a bit more about the future […]
Google Testing Smaller Home Services Ads in Search Results
Google has been doing lots of testing lately with their Google Home Services Ads, and they are testing one more variation to the ad unit that appears at the top of the search results. This time it is a much smaller version of the ad unit, which reduces the amount of space it takes up […]