Google is soliciting applications for their “trusted tester for search” for those who are interested in testing new search tools, documentation and services. They are currently looking for those in these roles: Web-developer App-developer Design / UX SEM SEO Marketing Management Owner Other The survey takes about 5 minutes to fill out and Google will […]
Search Results for: search console
Why Google Shows Old Domain in Search Results Despite 301 to New Site
People have often noticed when they move a site from one domain to another, using a 301 redirect, that it seems that old domain will kick around in the search results for quite some time, even after the new one is indexed. A website changed business & domain name. Pages are still showing in search […]
Google Drops Below 75% of Desktop Searches, Yahoo overtakes Bing as Second Largest Search Engine
For the first time since July 2008, Google has dropped below 75% for their share of US desktop searches, losing ground to the Firefox driven Yahoo Search. Google now owns 73.67% of US desktop searches. In December, that number was 75.14%. It is worth noting that it’s a desktop searches where Google suffered this drop, […]
Google: Avoid Including Redirected URLs in Sitemaps
Google is reminding site owners that they shouldn’t add URLs that are being redirected in the sitemap they submit to Google. The question came up on Twitter about whether it should be avoided or if there was no detrimental effect to having them in a sitemap. John Mueller answered on Twitter and said that sitemaps […]
Google Sending Out Notifications for HTTPS Site Migration Issues
Google is now sending out a new notice to search console users detailing issues that Google has discovered when a site has migrated to HTTPS. The email notice states what percentage of the site is no longer indexed after the HTTPS migrations, with example URLs that were on the HTTP version and not the HTTPS […]
Google Removes Public Submit URL to Google Tool
Google has removed the public version of their submit URL tool. This tool allowed anyone to submit a URL to Google, as it wasn’t restricted to site owners only, We've had to drop the public submission feature, but we continue to welcome your submissions using the usual tool in Search Console and through sitemaps directly. […]
Google Slows Crawling With 5xx Server Errors
When a website starts to serve Googlebot 5xx server errors, how does Googlebot handle the change in server status? The question came up about Google crawl errors, and John Mueller from Google had some interesting comments about 5xx type of server errors and how it impacts Googlebot. That's a very vague question, and a post […]
Google: Don’t Rely on Google Tag Manager for Structured Data
One of the ways to implement structured data on a site is by using Google Tag Manager – GTM – to do so. But John Mueller from Google is warning against using this implementation of structured data. A question came up on Twitter about the Google Structured Data Testing Tool not being able to recognize […]
Why Googlebot Shows Fluctuations on Time Spent Downloading Page Report
When viewing the Google Search Console stats for the amount of time Googlebot spends downloading a page, it is common to see wide fluctuations in that time. But while it is sometimes easy to guess the reasons, sometimes it isn’t always clear. John Mueller from Google answered a question about the report, specifically why there […]
Google Sending New Wave of Mobile-First Indexing Enabled Notifications
If you have a large number of sites in your Google Search Console, chances are good you have received one (or twenty) emails from Google alerting that sites have been switched over to mobile first indexing in the search results. The new notices are identical (aside from a non-relevant footer change) to the ones Google […]