New data from BrightEdge shows significant changes to Google AI Overviews, prioritizing topic-specific sites and a stronger focus on ecommerce ahead of the year-end shopping season. Google Core Update And AIO An interesting insight from the data is that there is more overlap between AIO and Google’s organic search results, that there is more agreement … Read more
Google’s John Mueller affirmed in a LinkedIn post that two site characteristics that could be perceived as indicative of site quality aren’t ranking factors, suggesting that other perceived indicators of quality may not be either. Site Characteristics And Ranking Factors John Mueller posted something interesting on LinkedIn because it offers insight into how an attribute … Read more
Google’s Danny Sullivan explained the recent update, addressing site recoveries and cautioning against making radical changes to improve rankings. He also offered advice for publishes whose rankings didn’t improve after the last update. Google’s Still Improving The Algorithm Danny said that Google is still working on their ranking algorithm, indicating that more changes (for the … Read more
Google recently rolled out two changes that affected website rankings: the August 2024 core update and a fix for a separate ranking problem. These happened around the same time, making it tricky for SEO experts to figure out which change caused what effect on their sites’ search rankings. John Mueller, Senior Search Analyst at Google, … Read more
I’ve worked in digital marketing and SEO for over a decade. Five years ago, I committed entirely to SEO. I became really passionate about it and have since shared thousands of posts on LinkedIn about all things SEO. It was a steep learning curve to cut through the noise and understand the Google ranking factors … Read more
Google recently rolled out its August 2024 core update, which appears to be Google responding to feedback from the community and surfacing more small and independent sites in search results. However, there’s an ongoing problem with Google Search rankings that is impacting a significant number of search results. Google has identified the root cause of … Read more
Google was recently granted a patent on ranking web pages, which may offer insights into how AI Overviews ranks content. The patent describes a method for ranking pages based on what a user might be interested in next. Contextual Estimation Of Link Information Gain The name of the patent is Contextual Estimation Of Link Information … Read more
Back in 2012 Google applied for a patent called “Ranking Search Results” that shows how Google can use branded search queries as a ranking factor. The patent is about using branded search queries and navigational queries as ranking factors, plus a count of independent links. Although this patent is from 2012, it’s possible that it … Read more
Google’s Gary Illyes answered a question about a ranking preference given to sites that use country level domain names and explained how that compares to non-country domain names. The question occurred in the SEO Office Hours podcast. ccTLD Aka Country Code Domain Names Domain names that are specific to countries are called ccTLDs (Country Code … Read more
The June 2024 Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) is out and it shows that websites in the real-world experienced an averaged across the board improvement in all Core Web Vitals (CWV) website performance scores. Some of the improvements are attributable to a change in how Interaction To Next Paint is measured, which will be good … Read more
Since the Times Of India quadrupled its organic growth in the US in 12 months, more ccTLDs (international domains) have been spotted ranking in the US. Image Credit: Kevin Indig More international domains would make sense as Google is testing country labels indicating where the site operates. Google has also expanded Translated Results: Translated Results … Read more
Few concepts have generated as much buzz and speculation in SEO as E-E-A-T. Short for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, this framework has been a cornerstone of Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines for years. But despite its prominence, more clarity about how E-E-A-T relates to Google‘s ranking algorithms is still needed. In a recent episode … Read more
Google’s SearchLiaison responded to a plea on X (formerly Twitter) about ridiculously poor search results in which he acknowledged that Google’s reviews algorithm could be doing a better job and outlined what’s being done to stop rewarding sites that shouldn’t be ranking in the first place. Questioning Google’s Search Results The exchange with Google began … Read more
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
Over the last week, I observed many arguments against digging deep into the 2,596 pages. But the only question we should ask ourselves is, “How can I test and learn as much as possible from these documents?” SEO is an applied science where theory is not the end goal but the basis for experiments. Image … Read more
In a recent Twitter exchange, Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, provided insight into how the search engine handles algorithmic spam actions and ranking drops. The discussion was sparked by a website owner’s complaint about a significant traffic loss and the inability to request a manual review. Sullivan clarified that a site could be affected by … Read more
Google updated their guidance with five changes on how to debug ranking drops. The new version contains over 400 more words that address small and large ranking drops. There’s room to quibble about some of the changes but overall the revised version is a step up from what it replaced. Change# 1: Downplays Fixing Traffic … Read more
In a Google Office Hours podcast, Google’s Gary Illyes answered a question about 404 Page Not Found errors that coincided with a drop in rankings. Fake External 404 Errors There are probably many reasons for 404 errors created by bots. One reason for those error responses could be that they are originating from automated scanners … Read more
