Google dislikes spending precious resources indexing web content on your site that is of no consequence to itself or its users. Inconsequential web content can be present in the form of duplicated pages and irrelevant or repetitive and/or thin text. Even worse, it is a waste of Google’s crawl budget on your site and such […]
New Google AdWords Extension for Mapped Local Product Results
Google is testing a new type of local result, but this time they are styled as local shopping ads, showing on a map where a product can be bought. Moz was the first to spot the change with a query for “gas grills”. It seems to only be a test at this time, as many […]
Google Starts Warning Websites That Redirect Mobile to Homepage
A couple of months ago, Google warned webmasters that they would be showing an alert in the Google search results to mobile users who were attempting to go to an internal page of a website but the website itself redirects all mobile users to the homepage instead. Now, Google has started sending letters to websites […]
Is the Google update mostly SSL implementation issues?
There has been a lot of chatter about a possible Google update happening late Friday and over the weekend. However, while there were two UK link networks that were penalized, it is unclear if there was actually an update or if it is fallout from the panic SSL switches that many websites are in the […]
Google Testing Music Pay Per Click Ads in Knowledge Graphs
Google is testing out new pay per click ads that promote music listening services when a Google search is performed for well known bands or artists. In the knowledge graph for artists on the right side of the page, the ads appear underneath the artist photos and name. Because it appears above the biography, these […]
Using AdWords Sitelinks to Promote Social Media Accounts
If you are a brand running pay per click ads, did you know that your site links don’t have to link to pages on your site? You can use them to promote your social media accounts too. If you are working on building up a social media profile for your brand, you can set up […]
Google Gives Search Algorithm Boost to Secure Sites
We all knew it would only be a matter of time before Google began weighting sites that were using HTTPS a bit higher than non-secure sites. Matt Cutts had hinted about it and Google has been stressing the importance of the secured web for quite some time, so many webmasters were being proactive about the […]
Tycoon Can Sue Google Over Autocomplete Suggestions for His Name
We have all seen funny autocomplete suggestions given when we are searching for something. However it is those autocompletes that has opened up Google to a lawsuit by a tycoon who is unhappy with the particular suggestions that appear when searching for his name. The suggestions for “triad,”, a Chinese organized crime syndicate, occurred in […]
Google is Testing New Family Breadcrumb Knowledge Graph
Google is testing a brand new search knowledge graph which not only has detailed information but also shows breadcrumbs on the search result page. This was spotted by Dan Barker. When doing a search for someone with a famous parent, it showed Owen King as a child of author Stephen King, and also showed the […]
Google+ Now Allows Hangouts to Promote Links, Videos and More to Viewers
One of the major limitations with Google+ hangouts is that it lacked an effective chat feature that allows the hosting person to easily share links with their audience. Google+ is introducing a new Showcase app that allows hosts to share links, videos, merchandise and profiles in the sidebar of the hangout – information that will […]