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 Ranks Pages But Overall Site Greatly Influences The Ranking Pages
There is an interesting debate going on in the SEO industry over the past couple of days on if Google ranks pages as individual web pages or if Google ranks websites as a whole. The answer is really both and I'll explain why. - Google To Stop Supporting Data-Vocabulary.org In Search This Weekend
Google on Sunday, January 31, 2021, will stop supporting markup in the format from data-vocabulary.org. Google gave us over a years notice of this change, so this change should not come as a surprise to anyone here. - Google Will Stop Showing Teaser Web Stories In Search & Discover
Google posted on the Google blog that it will try to no longer show "teaser" based web stories in Google Search and Google Discover. Paul Bakaus from Google wrote "A critical ranking signal at Google is the quality of your content. And a one- or two-page teaser for your blog post doesn't tell a satisfying story to a reader, so Google will do its very best to not show these to users." - Entity vs. Query Rank In Google Search
Mark Williams-Cook posted a super interesting example of Google Search showing a different set of ranked results for the same query. The only difference was how the search was conducted. One search was done as a query, typing in the words into the search box. The second was selecting the entity in the search suggestions drop down box. Google ranks the results differently. - Google Tests Red & White Hotel Pricing Pins
Normally when you do a search for hotels in a specific location, Google will show you a hotel search box with pricing pins in a blue background color. Google is testing variations of the colors for those pins both in red and white background colors, and maybe more. - The Industry Mourns The Loss Of Hamlet Batista: A Special & Talented SEO Soul
We lost a special and talented SEO soul yesterday, Hamlet Batista. Hamlet Batista was not just insanely talented in his profession, in our industry, but he was also one of the most giving, caring and loving people that our industry ever knew. And now, with the deepest sorrow, he is with the angels in heaven. - Google Wooden Drum Seats
Here is a photo from December 2018 from the Google Indonesia office. It shows these chairs or seats that look like wooden drums of some sorts. They are covered in Google colored fabrics to make it ea
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Reporting from home, it's @JohnMu! In this January edition of Google Search News 🗞️, we have updates on: Crawling Stats & Index Coverage reports Request (re)indexing Links ...and, Google Search Central on Twitter
- You don't have to be a CIA agent to figure out that something isn't right here. Hmm, I wonder if the World Factbook can help me figure this out... Or maybe that has moved. :) https://t.co/zKmGGug3jk, Glenn Gabe on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
- Apple named world's most valuable brand, beating Amazon and Google, AppleInsider
- Google should benefit big from bump in ads in 2021, MarketWatch
Links & Content Marketing
- 5 Ways to Humanize Your B2B Content Marketing - And Why It Matters, Online Marketing Blog
- How to Disavow Links in Google & Bing, BruceClay
- Link Building vs. Content Marketing: Why the Difference Matters, Siege Media
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
- Google gives recent Pixel device owners more control over Night Sight, The Verge
- How to make Siri listen to you on the right device, AppleInsider
- Tasker 5.11.14 update lets you run existing tasks with your voice, Android Community
SEO
PPC
