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:
- Vlog #35: William Alvarez On Google Structured Data & SEO Mentoring
William Alvarez (@williamalvarez) is the Director of Organic Search at Catalyst invited me to his office at 3 World Trade Center. The last time i was in the World Trade Center building was before 9/11 for a meeting with an options trading company about building software for their trading platform. So coming back after.. - Google: It Would Be Rare For A Ranking Improvement After Removing Tag/Search Pages From Index
Google's John Mueller said on Twitter that "that would be pretty rare" if you removed your tag and/or search pages from Google's index and preventing Google from crawling them, that it would it would result in a ranking boost for your site. He said you can try it and do what you want but it probably wouldn't result in a positive outcome in Google search. - Google: We Treat Links On HTTP & HTTPS Pages Equally
Google's John Mueller said a link on an HTTP page is just as valuable to Google as a link on an HTTPS page and visa versa. He said on Twitter "we treat links on http the same as links on https sites." - Google Screened Ads Tests Photos
Google Screened Ads - like Google guaranteed ads - is testing showing photos of the professional. Like a head shot of who you are looking to hire to do your job or your work. Joy Hawkins posted a screen shot of this in action. - Google Indexing Its Own Cache Now Fixed
Gary Illyes from Google said it has fixed an issue with the search engine indexing its own cache pages. It took a few weeks after it was reported but Gary said it should be fixed. I checked just now and it was not fixed but maybe the fix takes time to fully roll out. - Google's YouTube Music Studio
Here is a photo of one of the music studios for YouTube at the Google offices. This photo was taken at the Google São Paulo offices and posted on Instagram. Here are more photos below from Instagram o
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- "A big thing we learned... was being reactive to when deals go live that we didn’t know about or expect,”... with the ability to use “the scale of CNN to push it out. They could tap into CNN’s array of social media acc, Glenn Gabe on Twitter
- Also, since last year we had people coming to meetups in Gurgaon from Ahmedabad, Kolkata, and Bangalore, please don't come from far away places for this thing: I promise I'll go to other parts of India this y, Gary Illyes on Twitter
- I'm torn ... I feel there's a lot of work to be done on your end to make this site absolutely fantastic, to make it significantly more than autogenerated / low-quality content. As our systems see, John Mueller on Twitter
- AFAIK you can use the Merchant Center everywhere, it's not limited to the US. Does it work for you?, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Yelp cracks down on ‘review rings’ as Google continues to see widespread mapspam
- Google Ads testing custom dimensions to enable reporting based on your business structure
- SMX Overtime: Managing Google My Business profiles, reviews and more
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- Treemaps Tutorial for Google Analytics, Amazee Metrics
- Announcing MonsterInsights Pretty Links & Google Optimize Updates, MonsterInsights
- Count Google Analytics Sessions Using BigQuery, DELVE
- What’s expected of an analytics professional in 2020?, Digital Analytics Association
Industry & Business
- Alphabet’s Controversial Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, Leaves Company, Forbes
- Google Quietly Expands in New York in Wake of Amazon’s Stumble, Bloomberg
Links & Promotion Building
- 3 Ahrefs Features We Love, Seer Interactive
Local & Maps
- Google Maps' Street View is unknowingly immortalizing deceased family members, CNN
- Google Rolls Out Business Provider Plan to Replace Trusted Verifier Program, Mike Blumenthal
Mobile & Voice
- 21% of Americans use a smart watch or fitness tracker, Pew Research Center
- Guest Mode disappears from Google Home speakers, remains available on Chromecasts for now, Android Police
SEO
- Rules Regulating Low Value Content Intensify, Searchmetrics
- The Important Differences Between SEO and SEM: What You Should know, Search Engine Guide
- What is Google Discover, and how can you increase your chances of being featured?, Econsultancy
- Google SafeSearch and SEO: How To Test If Your Site Is Being Filtered And How To Predict Future Filtering Using The Vision API, GSQI
PPC
- A Deep Dive Into Advanced Pivot Tables for PPC, PPC Hero
- Save time with Responsive Search Ads, Microsoft Advertising
Other Search
- 7 Alternative Search Engines (Tried & Tested), Ahrefs
- Paging Dr. Google: How the Tech Giant Is Laying Claim to Health Data, Wall Street Journal
- Escape from Google: 12 privacy engines reviewedd, Computing
