Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- January 2016 Google Webmaster Report
December was a pretty quiet month, like usual. Google tends to be shy when pushing out updates, but we did see several potential updates which are linked to below. Google did not go forward with Penguin 4.0 and should be pushing it this coming month... - Google: Self-Signed SSL Certificate Won't Work For HTTPS Ranking Boost
We know Google has an HTTPS Ranking Boost. Initially when it launched, all it checked was to see if HTTPS was in the URL, but it didn't check if it was valid or working... - Google: Decimal Points In URLs Are A Bad Idea
Google's John Mueller answered a question on Twitter asking if it is okay to use a decimal point in your URLs, such as mysite.com/page.goes.here/. John Mueller said you surely can but he said it was a "bad idea... - SEO Extortion Lands An SEO In Federal Prison For 37 Months
We've heard plenty of cases of SEOs extorting their customers by threatening to hurt their rankings or online reputation if they do not pay them a fee or ongoing monthly stipend. Well, this landed one SEO in federal prison for 37 months... - Was There A Google Update Yesterday: I'm Not Too Sure.
There is some buzz around the community that there may have been a Google update, specifically a Penguin update, yesterday. It really seems to all stem from this post by Accuranker which shows a spike in their tracking tools... - Rainbow Over Google San Francisco & Oakland Bay Bridge
Stephen Ng from Google snapped a picture outside of the Google San Francisco office, looking out at the Golden Gate Bridge showing a rainbow arching over the bridge. Yes, Google's San Francisco offic
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Google 'Business Account' Blunder - Transfer Ownership, Don't Export/Import, localsearchforum.com
- Domain Change Plummets Rankings, WebmasterWorld
- Pinterest and SEO, WebmasterWorld
- Report: Twitter Working on Extending 140 Character Limit By End of Q1, WebmasterWorld
- Want to Participate in a Google Study?, localsearchforum.com
