Does Google treat adult sites differently in the search results when compared to non-adult sites? The question came up last week at SMX West during the AMA with Google’s Nathan Johns, who is part of the search team at Google. Here is the question: How are adult sites evaluated for ranking? Given that most of […]
Nofollow Has Not Changed Since Google Launched It
We don’t hear too much from Google about nofollow anymore, aside from how it relates to the disavow file and scenarios when Google suggests website owners should use it. Nofollow is a link tool webmasters can use on-page to be able to tell Google that they are unwilling to vouch for a link, or that […]
In-Depth Look at Google’s New Zero Result Search Results
Google is now showing zero search results for some types of specific use cases. Zero results search results pages are search results where there is simply an answer in the answer box / featured snippet style, with zero organic search results on the page. For example, if you do a search for “time” or time […]
Bing Adds Trending Carousel Search Feature for Some Websites
Bing has added a new search feature for some of the more popular sites in the Bing search results. They have added a new carousel for “Trending on <Site Name>”. This seems to be a search feature that appears after the sitelinks, or in some cases, after the sitelinks and site search box. It is […]
Canonicals: Sitemap Canonicals Weaker Signal Than Rel=Canonical
Using rel=canonicals on webpages has been the default standard for referencing canonicals. But for larger sites, some have been utilizing sitemaps for showing Google their canonicals. Google has updated their help page on canonicals and it now includes information on how it views canonicals in different formats. Most notably, Google now states officially that canonicals […]
Over 60% of Google Search AMP Clicks Go To Non-News Sites
Google has released some new stats about AMP pages and one of the new stats should really make site owners and publishers take notice. While AMP originally launched as primarily a tool for news sites, the expansion of that to non-news sites has grown tremendously. Dave Besbris, VP of Engineering at Google, confirmed that now […]
Bing Testing Stacked Sitelinks in Search Results
Bing is running an interesting test for sites with sitelinks. Instead of the usual two columns of sitelinks and descriptions, Bing is testing a stacked version that runs across the entire width. Here is what it looks like: Even though this style catches the eye initially, it is actually much harder to quickly skim the […]
Google Chrome to Flag Sites as Not Secure in July 2018
Google has been warning site owners that Google Chrome will begin flagging sites as being “not secure” in a future version of Chrome. And now we know when it will officially begin. Google posted today and both the Google Security Blog and the Chromium Blog that beginning in July 2018, sites that are not HTTPS […]
Google Changes Image Size Requirements for AMP articles
Google has updated their AMP help articles that changes the minimum image size requirements for AMP articles, increasing the size of the image significantly. Originally, Google asked for the image size to be a minimum of 696px wide. The new size is a minimum of 1200px wide, almost double the width. Google also changed the […]
Google Search Console Alerts for Sites Without High-Res Favicons
Google has added a new alert to Google Search Console, this time for favicons for sites that are still utilizing the older and smaller favicons for their site. Paul Macnamara shared the screenshot of the new alert. For sites with favicons that are lower resolution, Google is sending this alert out asking site owners to […]