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:
- Poll: Is Moz Domain Authority Helpful Or Hurtful To SEOs?
Moz announced massive improvements to how they calculate their Domain Authority, DA, scores. I wrote about the "controversy" around the score at Search Engine Land yesterday. I included a lot of your reaction to the announcement and now I want to poll you all about if you think the score is helpful or hurtful to SEOs in our industry. - PSA: Old Google Search Console Not Closing In March, But Some Features Are
Google's John Mueller issued a "PSA" this morning clarifying that the old Google Search Console is not closing in March. What is closing are some of the old features noted that are going away in March. But the old Search Console will remain active for some time until the other features are ported over. - Google Denies Negative People Or Organizational Associations Can Downgrade Rankings
Google's John Mueller was asked if Google's algorithm can associate negative factors with people or organizations that would lead the unrelated site to be downgraded in their search results. John said he doesn't believe Google has such an algorithm but then explores other possibilities. - Google Maps Adds Hotel Check-In & Check-Out Times
Google announced that hotels can now add their check-in and check-out times to their Google Local, Google Maps and Google Hotel listings. Brad Brewer shared a screen shot of one listing that already has theirs listed. - Google: We Are Good At Ignoring Link Cruft
Google's John Mueller said on yesterday's Google hangout at around the 8:17 mark that Google is pretty good at ignoring link cruft. Basically old, spammy and irrelevant links accrued by the site over the years. This is similar messaging from before but the word "cruft" is newish, I think so I covered it again. :) - Google Expands Thailand Office
Here is a photo from Google's Life at Google Twitter account from a month or so ago of the newly expanded Thailand office. Google said Googlers are exploring and settling into their newly expanded o
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Google Alphabet Q4 Revenues up 22pct to $39.3 billion, WebmasterWorld
- I have a big announcement to make…, Gary Illyes on Twitter
- Build your front end in html / css / minimal javascript w/ graceful degradation so if something goes wrong nothing bad happens… https://t.co/a0nJ7QMTRa, Richard Baxter on Twitter
- Came across this weird and not-easy-to-replicate bug today. Basically, the map does not load in local packs with 3 SABs for logged out desktop users - https://t.co/YvckACcj8o cc:@rustybrick @mblumenthal @JoyanneHawkins… https, Sergey Alakov on Twitter
- Chrome Extension Password Checkup from Google, WebmasterWorld
- Hey #SEO friends. I need some help! I want to build out a grading system, of sorts, for SEO. Here is a spreadsheet where I am looking for what people consider the key aspects of SEO health for a website. Feel free to add yours, JR Oakes on Twitter
- My Maps Not Appearing in Maps App for iOS (iPhone XS, Google Maps Help
- Reserve With Google expands to class bookings - https://t.co/Qm6VzX5F5I cc:@rustybrick @mblumenthal, Sergey Alakov on Twitter
- To be fair, the SEO/crawl-related arguments in the blog post are really the main thing for me, and they're fine. I don't want to derail the post due to an imo small detail.… https://t.co/RAqohnOStj, John Mueller on Twitter
- You can test it with the mobile-friendly test, checking the rendered HTML. If the titles & description meta tags are updated there, then Google will be able to pick them up like that (ideally doing it directly in HTML is still, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Google Search Console to consolidate Search Performance reports to canonical URL
- Pixel problems: Troubleshooting your paid media tracking implementation
- Google My Business supports hotel check-in and check-out times
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- 10 Do’s and Don’ts of A/B Testing Plans, Cognetik
- My Google Data Studio Wishlist, Portent
Industry & Business
Links & Promotion Building
Local & Maps
- Google Local Pack Bug: Broken Map in SAB 3-Packs Shown to Logged Out Users, Sergey Alakov
- Reserve With Google Expands to Class Bookings, Sergey Alakov
Mobile & Voice
- Google Assistant is now your multilingual interpreter, Android Police
SEO
- Introducing: The SEO Marketing Hub, A Free Library of SEO Resources, Backlinko
- Voices of Search Episode 36: January 2019 SEO Winners and Losers, Search Metrics
- Google Webmaster Hangout Notes: February 5th 2019, DeepCrawl
- How to tag your keywords 10X faster and beat your SEO competition, Search Wilderness
- SERP News: AMP Plunges Due to Bug, Featured Snippets Change, RankRanger
PPC
- Sunset of XML support in the Content API for Shopping, Google Ads Developer Blog
- Using Negative Keywords for Paid Search Competitor Strategy, PPC Hero
Search Features
Other Search
