Google has issued new clarification for its site reputation abuse policy, which was launched earlier this year. It targets “parasite SEO” practices where websites leverage established domains to manipulate search rankings through third-party content. Chris Nelson from the Google Search Quality team states: “We’ve heard very clearly from users that site reputation abuse – commonly … Read more
Google’s Search Central team has released a new video in its “SEO Made Easy” series. In it, Search Advocate Martin Splitt addresses common concerns about duplicate content and provides practical solutions for website owners. Key Takeaways Despite concerns in the SEO community, Google insists that duplicate content doesn’t harm a site’s perceived quality. Splitt states: … Read more
In an ironic twist to the ongoing dispute between Automattic and WP Engine, a newly published website on WPEngineTracker.com is displaying a protest message against CEO Matt Mullenweg. Copycat Domain Name Registered Someone registered the domain name WPEngineTracker.com using the words that Automattic’s WordPressEngineTracker.com domain uses to describe itself (WP Engine Tracker) . If people … Read more
Peak shopping periods like Black Friday, Halloween, Christmas, and other holidays attract millions of shoppers online. They also present prime opportunities for ecommerce and retail brands to drive incremental revenue and traffic for the holiday season. According to the NRF, the 2024 holiday forecast is consistent with its forecast that annual sales for 2024 will be … Read more
Google’s John Mueller offered a useful for technical SEO tip for those launching a new site that will help your site get picked up by Google faster by avoiding this one common mistake. High Priority For Site Launch Launching a website is a chance to take everything learned from previous experiences and apply them with … Read more
Shopify has become a leading platform in the ecommerce world, with over a million businesses using it to reach their customers. Notable brands like Netflix Merch Shop, Gymshark, and Kylie Cosmetics have successfully utilized Shopify to streamline their operations and boost online sales. This success has made Shopify an attractive option for new sellers looking … Read more
Google’s Martin Splitt answered a question about malicious bots that impact site performance, offering suggestions every SEO and site owner should know and put into action. Malicious Bots Are An SEO Problem Many SEOs who do site audits commonly overlook security and bot traffic as part of their audits because it’s not widely understood by … Read more
How do you know if your website is doing as well as your competitors in search results? Join us on August 14 for a webinar that will reveal the latest organic search traffic benchmarks, trends, and insights for 2024. This session, brought to you by Conductor, is designed to help you fine-tune your SEO and … Read more
Bing is rolling out a new version of Generative Search that displays information in an intuitive way that encourages exploration but also prioritizes clicks from the search results to websites. Microsoft introduced their new version of AI search: “After introducing LLM-powered chat answers on Bing in February of last year, we’ve been hard at work … Read more
An interview with Google’s SearchLiaison offered hope that quality sites hit by Google’s algorithms may soon see their traffic levels bounce back. But that interview and a recent Google podcast reveal deeper issues that may explain why Google seems indifferent to publishers with every update. The interview by Brandon Saltalamacchia comes against the background of … Read more
According to a recent LinkedIn post by Gary Illyes, Analyst at Google, you should be cautious if Google starts aggressively crawling your website. While an uptick in crawling can be a good sign, Illyes says it may indicate underlying issues. Illyes cautions: “Don’t get happy prematurely when search engines unexpectedly start to crawl like crazy … Read more
Google resolved a site names issue that had been ongoing since September 2023 that prevented a website’s site name from properly appearing when an inner page was ranked in the search results. Site Names In The Search Results A site name is exactly what it sounds like, the name of a website that’s displayed in … Read more
Joost de Valk, the creator of Yoast SEO plugin, has created a new (and free) plugin for solving a site architecture problem that can silently diminish a website’s ability to rank. Site Architecture Site architecture is an important SEO factor because a well-organized website with clear navigation helps users quickly get to the content and … Read more
Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, has confirmed that the search engine hasn’t launched algorithmic actions targeting site reputation abuse. This clarification addresses speculation within the SEO community that recent traffic drops are related to Google’s previously announced policy update. Sullivan Says No Update Rolled Out Lily Ray, an SEO professional, shared a screenshot on Twitter … Read more
Google’s John Mueller says the Search team is “explicitly evaluating” how to reward sites that produce helpful, high-quality content when the next core update rolls out. The comments came in response to a discussion on X about the impact of March’s core update and September’s helpful content update. In a series of tweets, Mueller acknowledged … Read more
Thankfully, there are plenty of steps you can take to protect your WordPress website. Easy WordPress Security Basics When setting up your WordPress site security, there are some basic things you can do to beef up your protection. Below, we will take a look at some of the first things you should do to help … Read more
Google indicated that manual actions were coming to webpages that host third party webpages and according to some, the effects of those manual actions may be showing up in the search results. Site Reputation Abuse Manual Actions Google’s SearchLiaison tweeted late on May 6th that Google was enforcing the new site reputation abuse policy with … Read more
Google’s SearchLiaison confirmed that Google’s site reputation abuse update started on Monday May 6th. Many sites from across the web took down webpages that could be perceived as hosting third-party content for the purpose of ranking in search engines. Site Reputation Abuse An old strategy that’s made a recent comeback is one in which a … Read more
