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:
- Google To Drop Data-Vocabulary On April 6th, All In On Schema.org
Google announced this morning that after April 6, 2020 it will no longer support the data-vocabulary markup for rich results. Google is going all in with Schema.org. Google said "with the increasing usage and popularity of schema.org we decided to focus our development on a single SD scheme." - Google: Here Is Some Of What SEOs Do...
John Mueller of Google was asked "I'd like to become the greatest SEO ever, what would you advise him to study?" John responded "There are so many interesting facets of what SEOs do, I'd recommend trying out different areas to find one those you're passionate about." He then listed off some examples. - Google AMP Stories Expands To Animals, Insects & More
When Google launched AMP Stories, it was mostly to cover people and news events around people. Now it seems to have expanded beyond human beings and to animals, insects and more. - Overthinking Natural Links? Google: If It Is Natural, It Is Natural.
Is it this simple? John Mueller of Google said on Twitter "You're overthinking it. If the link is natural, then it's a natural link." It makes sense to me? I mean, if you are building and forcing new links, is that natural? Is there a gray area? - Video: Google Image Search Ranking & Optimization
Google has released a new video on how image search rankings work. John Mueller of Google answered how to rank images on Google and provided useful tips on the topic. - Google Logo Unicorn Squishy
Here is a random photo I spotted on Instagram of a Google G logo on a unicorn squishy. At least I think that is what it is based on the description of this photo on Instagram. It looks more like a s
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Bing's Entity Explore subdomain www2 is now practically nothing but download spam & piracy, with borderline G. bot cloaking - yet has seen a pretty significant Google traffic surge in 2020. [watch suicide squad online f, Colin McDermott on Twitter
- Local links vs general good quality back links?, Local Search Forum
- No. The number of 404s you have on your site doesn't matter., John Mueller on Twitter
- Stop building black hat links, BlackHatWorld
- That's what's gonna happen if you don't optimize for search" 🤡 https://t.co/wDIPg27YZZ, Daniel Waisberg on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- The latest data on the January 2020 Google core update
- SameSite requirements for cookies: What SEOs and developers need to know
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- Removing Personal Data from Google Analytics, Practical Ecommerce
- The Ultimate Guide to the Google Site Kit WordPress Plugin, Zimbabwe
Industry & Business
- Fines for European privacy breaches reach 114 million euros: report, Reuters
- Supporting AI skills training in Molenbeek, Belgium, Google Blog
- Yandex: Russia’s biggest search engine, is on-ramp for child sexual imagery, Fortune
- Can we ever trust Google with our health data?, Financial Times
Links & Promotion Building
- 7 Local Link-Building Strategies Guaranteed to Boost Your Business, Business 2 Community
- New and Improved Backlinks Export!, Majestic Blog
Local & Maps
- What does the new Google travel app mean for travel agents?, Vertical Leap
Mobile & Voice
- Google app details how Assistant hotword sensitivity works, 9to5Google
- Google Assistant & Gboard's messed up bilingual speech recognition needs company's attention, PiunikaWeb
- Google Users Battle Company Over Alleged 'Assistant' Privacy Violations, MediaPost
SEO
- How to Analyze Local Search Competitors: In Search SEO Podcast, RankRanger
- What is a Local Citation? Local SEO, Hallam
PPC
- Advertisers see early promise in TikTok's self-serve ad platform, Digiday
- Get Work launches Google Ads partnership, Lancashire Business View
