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: Tagging Internal Links With UTM Tracking Parameters Send Mixed Signals
Google's John Mueller said in a webmaster hangout on YouTube yesterday at the 16:56 mark into the video that it can confuse Google if you are tagging your internal links with tracking parameters, such as UTM links. It is actually a common practice to do this but it can cause confusion to Google for indexing if you use too many parameters. - Google UX Playbooks Are Not By Organic Search Team
Over the pass month or two a few people have been noticing PDFs released by Google on the theme of UX playbooks for specific industries such as retail and finance, amongst others. John Mueller of Google was asked about these and said they were released by the Google Ads team and have nothing to do with organic search. - Google Turns On Assistant Calls For Local Businesses After Opting Out
The other week we reported that Google by default has opted in all Google My Business listings to receive calls via the Google Assistant with their Duplex technology. But get this, a local SEO said they went in, removed the opt in (manually opted out) of Google Assistant calls for 200 or so locations and then this week it was all opted in again by itself. - Google Ads Requires Fewer Clicks To Show Mobile Page Speed Scores
Google announced they now require fewer ad clicks to trigger the calculation of mobile page speed scores for an ad's landing page. Google wrote "We've recently updated the mobile speed score algorithm to require fewer ad clicks in order to calculate a score. This means you'll now see a speed score for more of your pages." - Google Ethernet Cables Labeled "Cut Here To Activate Firewall"
Here is a funny picture of an ethernet cable at the Google office supposedly that was labeled on it with the text "cut here to activate firewall." That indeed would work but for some reason, I am not
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Does Google read hidden HTML content?, Reddit
- Is this organic link juice? ( https://t.co/RE3ks5CvjK )…, John Mueller on Twitter
- Yes, we issued a statement about this, below. In short, we have not found any evidence that Google Images was ranking the Pakistani flag in response to this particular search. Many news outlets wrote about an old screenshot fro, Danny Sullivan on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Bing’s holistic view of search on display at SMX West
- Advertisers can now view Google mobile speed scores for more landing pages
- Invest in your best. Send your team to SMX Advanced.
- Bing to require LegitScript certification for addiction recovery advertisers
- Advanced YouTube tactics: Create custom audiences to pursue, and watch that fine print
- How lucrative is local search?
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- Five GA 360 Features You Should Use Right After Turning it On | GA360, Seer Interactive
- How to easily set up custom events tracking in Google Analytics, Free Code Camp
- How to use Google Analytics: 10 top tips, Hallam Internet
- What Google Tag Manager Is and Why You Should Use It, Market Vantage
Industry & Business
- Missed YoastCon 2019? Learn from our takeaways!, Yoast
- Our 7 Golden Rules For Surviving And Making The Most Out Of An SEO Event, Authority Labs
Links & Promotion Building
- Do Links From Pages With Traffic Help You Rank Higher? [Ahrefs Study], ahrefs.com
- How The Office taught us everything we need to know about content marketing, Go Fish Digital
- We Analyzed 912 Million Blog Posts. Here's What We Learned About Content Marketing, backlinko.com
Mobile & Voice
- Best Google Assistant devices for your home: Our top 10, Android Authority
- How to Implement AMP: A Quick-Start Guide to Accelerated Mobile Pages, BruceClay
- Strategy Analytics: 2018 Global Smart Speaker Sales Reached 86.2 Million Units on Back of Record Q4, Strategy Analytics Online Newsroom
- Amazon Alexa and the Search for the One Perfect Answer, Wired
SEO
- 5 Essential Daily SEO Tasks for B2B Marketing in 2019, KoMarketing
- E-A-T confirmed by Google to be an important part of their algorithms, Marie Haynes Consulting
- Google Removal Tool to Remove Pages One A Site You Don't Own, Bill Hartzer
- How To Write A Great Product Description Page, Portent
- Publishing Thousands of URLs at Once - Is It Risky for SEO?, Search Engine Journal
- SEO This Week Episode 107 - Search Stats, Topic Clusters, and Links, Digitaleer
- 7 Outdated SEO Writing Myths That Will Not Die, SuccessWorks
- Why Google Does Not Use CTR, Bounce Rate, and E-A-T The Way You Think It Does, SEO Theory
PPC
- Google Dominates US Paid Search – Can It Be Toppled?, Merkle
- Bing Ads to require certification for addiction services, Bing Ads Blog
- PPC Client Account Revenue Pressures, PPC Hero
Search Features
Other Search
- Introducing .dev domains from Google Registry, Google Blog
