Last month was incredibly active in so many ways when it comes to Google search and SEO topics. So if you want to catch up quickly on the past month, read this story.
We had the September 2019 Google core update roll out this month, it wasn't as big as previous updates but it was noticed for sure. We saw unconfirmed updates the week of October 3rd, the weekend of the 13th and earlier this month around September 4th. Google said its original reporting skills for ranking got better over the past few months.
Google also updated the rules for showing reviews in search which resulted in what some are calling starmageddon because of the large loss of reviews in Google snippets. Google also made changes to the nofollow link attribute where it is becoming essentially a hint vs a directive Google must comply with, and sitewide nofollows may be ignored.
Google also updated its raters guidelines on September 5th. Began to more heavily penalize subdomain leasing. Google announced GoogleBot's user agent is changing in December, oh it is now running Chrome 77. Google added more snippet controls for webmasters, which is a nice add.
The old Google Search Console is dead now but the performance reports are now way fresher. Oh, if you lost half of your links in Google Search Console, you are not alone.
It was just an insanely busy month, and the ongoing WebmasterWorld thread is still buzzing about last week's unconfirmed Google update.
Here are the stories you may have missed that are important:
Google Algorithm Updates:
- Alert: Google To Release September 2019 Core Update Later Today
- Google September 2019 Core Update Is Live But Seems Slow To Roll Out
- Google September 2019 Core Update Impact Now Being Noticed
- Possible Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On October 3rd
- Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update Signs Heating Up More
- Friday The 13th Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update Chatter
- Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On September 4th & 5th?
- Google: Our Newer Search Algorithms Have Been Promoting Original Reporting In Search
- Google Updates Rules For Displaying Reviews Rich Results In Search Results
- Data Shows A 4-5 Point Drop In Review Rich Results In Google
- Google: The Reviews Rich Results Algorithm Still Rolling Out
- Google Starmageddon vs Sept. 2019 Review Rich Results Update
- Review Rich Results Keep Getting Removed From Google's Search Results
- Everything Google Has Said On The Nofollow Link Attribute Change
- Google Updates The Search Quality Raters Guidelines On September 5th
- Google Now Penalizing Subdomains Leasing, Not Just Subfolder Leasing
- Google To Rename GoogleBot With Dynamic User Agent
- Evergreen GoogleBot Now On Chrome 77
- Google Delivers On Webmasters Request To Control Search Result Snippets
- Google Shortens Title Length In Search By ~5 Characters On Average
- Google May Ignore Nofollow Link From Publishers That Default It
- Google: H1 Tags Are Not Critical For Search Ranking
- Timely: Google Posts H1 Tag Video After H1 SEO Controversy
- Google: Headings Won't Make Or Break Your Sites Rankings
- Google: HTML Sitemaps Not Worthwhile For SEO Purposes
- Google: Meta Robots Nofollow Is A Hint Also
- WordPress To Adopt Google's New rel=ugc in Next Release
- Google: No Need To Disavow Nofollowed Links
- Google: Links Do Not Expire But They May Become Less Important Over Time
- Google: Embedded & Hotlinked Images Do Not Count As Links
- Google On How It Picks The URL It Shows In Search
- Google: Large Sites Should Not Use The Google Crawl Setting
- Google: Optimizing For RankBrain Is The Same As Optimizing For Users
- Google's John Mueller: I Strongly Recommend New Sites Not Use M-Dot URLs
- Google: Some M-Dot Sites In Google Desktop Search May Be Unstable
- Google: Only Thing That Changes With Server Migrations Is GoogleBot's Crawl Rate
- Google: Old Content On New Domains Is Okay
- Your Syndication Partners Should Canonical To You Or They May Outrank You On Google
- Google Search Console Performance Report Data Now Less Than A Day Old
- Old Google Search Console Is No Longer Available
- Google Search Console Link Counts Drops - Cut In Half
- Google Sends Mass Fix Breadcrumbs Markup Warnings
- Google Migrates Change Of Address Tool To New Google Search Console
- Google Is Investigating Spike In Impressions & Queries
- Google Search Console Breadcrumb Report Had Errors
- Google Adds Breadcrumb Structured Data To Search Console Enhancement Report
- Google Search Console Datasets Schema Enhancements Report A Year Later
- Google Hotel Results Now Displays Distance To Attractions
- Google Discover Feed Now Showing Restaurants
- Google Lets Businesses Opt Out Of Online Orders
- Google My Business Guidelines For Practitioners Clarified
- Google Launches Video Key Moments For YouTube Videos In Search
- Google Knowledge Panels With Translation Feature
- Google Has New Movie & TV Search Experience & New Developer Docs For Movie Schema
- Google Featured Snippet Image Carousel To Show More Results
- Google Tests Colorful Dots To Explain Search Results
- Google Search Tests Side Bar Filters New Design
- Google Tests 3.5 Listings In The Top Stories Carousel
- Google Tests Vertical Line Next To Search Results Snippet On Hover
- Google: Our Systems Cannot Determine Accuracy Of Content
Last months recap is over here.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
