Google’s SearchLiaison tweeted encouragement to diversify traffic sources, being clear about the reason he was recommending it. Days later, someone followed up to ask if traffic diversity is a ranking factor, prompting SearchLiaison to reiterate that it is not. What Was Said The question of whether diversity of traffic was a ranking factor was elicited … Read more
LinkedIn is launching several new features for people who publish newsletters on its platform. The professional networking site wants to make it easier for creators to grow their newsletter audiences and engage readers. More People Publishing Newsletters On LinkedIn The company says the number of LinkedIn members publishing newsletter articles has increased by 59% over … Read more
Google’s John Mueller clarified that localized duplicate content across regional websites is acceptable. Unique content is still recommended for specific page types. Google doesn’t penalize duplicate content on localized websites. Translating or customizing core content for local markets is acceptable. However, unique content is still needed for certain pages. Source link
Google’s John Mueller responded to a question about whether affiliate links have a negative impact on rankings, touching on factors that affiliate sites should keep in mind. Hypothesis: Google Targets Affiliate Sites There is a decades-long hypothesis that Google targets affiliate sites. SEOs were talking about it as far back as Pubcon Orlando 2004 and … Read more
WooCommerce published an advisory about an XSS vulnerability while Wordfence simultaneously advised about a critical vulnerability in a WooCommerce plugin named Dokan Pro. The advisory about Dokan Pro warned that a SQL Injection vulnerability allows unauthenticated attackers to extract sensitive information from a website database. Dokan Pro WordPress Plugin The Dokan Pro plugin allows user … Read more
Google updated their hreflang documentation to note a quirk in how some websites are using it which (presumably) can lead to unintended consequences with how Google processes it. hreflang Link Tag Attributes is an HTML attribute that can be used to communicate data to the browser and search engines about linked resources relevant to the … Read more
A study conducted by researchers at Harvard University has found that readers are more likely to click on and engage with news headlines that use simple language. The study, published in Science Advances, analyzed over 30,000 experiments involving nearly 9,000 headline tests and 24,000 headlines from The Washington Post and Upworthy. The findings suggest that … Read more
Google announced a new feature for Google Analytics 4 (GA4), rolling out support for custom event data import. This allows you to combine external data sources with existing GA4 data for more comprehensive reporting and analysis. Google’s announcement reads: “With this feature, you can use a combination of standard fields and event-scoped custom dimensions to … Read more
Google removed the Covid-era structured data associated with the Home Activities rich results that allowed online events to be surfaced in search since August 2020, publishing a mention of the removal in the search documentation changelog. Home Activities Rich Results The structured data for the Home Activities rich results allowed providers of online livestreams, pre-recorded … Read more
YouTube will launch a new “Thumbnail Test & Compare” feature for all channels over the next few weeks. This tool allows you to upload and test up to three different thumbnails for each video to see which performs best. How Thumbnail Testing Works The ‘Thumbnail Test & Compare‘ feature lets you upload multiple thumbnail options … Read more
In a recent LinkedIn discussion, Gary Illyes, Analyst at Google, revealed that the search engine takes a binary approach when assessing a website’s lastmod signal from sitemaps. The revelation came as Illyes encouraged website owners to upgrade to WordPress 6.5, which now natively supports the lastmod element in sitemaps. When Mark Williams-Cook asked if Google … Read more
In a LinkedIn post, Gary Illyes, an Analyst at Google, reiterated long-standing guidance for website owners: Use the robots.txt file to prevent web crawlers from accessing URLs that trigger actions like adding items to carts or wishlists. Illyes highlighted the common complaint of unnecessary crawler traffic overloading servers, often stemming from search engine bots crawling … Read more
People are always complaining that there’s something wrong with Google’s search results but what’s going on with search results for queries with the acronym “SEO” is in a class by itself and has to be seen to be believed. Anomalies In Search Results An anomaly is something that deviates from the norm or what’s expected. … Read more
In a series of tweets, Google’s SearchLiaison responded to a question that connected click-through rates (CTR) and HCU (Helpful Content Update) with how Google ranks websites, remarking that if the associated ideas were true it would be impossible for any new website to rank. Users Are Voting With Their Feet? Search Liaison’s answer was to … Read more
Google has announced an update to the attribution models in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to improve the accuracy of paid search campaigns. Google plans to roll out adjustments over the next two weeks to address a longstanding issue where conversions originating from paid search were mistakenly attributed to organic search traffic. According to the company’s … Read more
Google has introduced a feature in Search Console that allows merchants to track their product listings in the Google Search Image tab. This expanded functionality can help businesses better understand their visibility across Google’s shopping experiences. New to Search Console Performance report 📢 you can now see merchant listings performance in the Google Search Image tab. Learn … Read more
Google’s John Mueller responded to a question about whether it’s okay to stop optimizing a desktop version of a website now that Google is switching over to exclusively indexing mobile versions of websites. The question asked is related to an announcement they made a week ago: “…the small set of sites we’ve still been crawling … Read more
Google’s John Mueller answered a question about sitewide impacts on a site with ten pages that lost rankings in the March/April 2024 Core Update then subsequently experienced a sitewide collapse in May. Can 10 Pages Trigger A Sitewide Penalty? The person asking the question on Reddit explained that they had ten pages (out of 20,000 … Read more
