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 Web & Local Search Ranking Algorithm Updates Over Weekend
Starting around Friday, April 23rd or so, there seems to have been an unconfirmed Google Search ranking algorithm both on the web search results side and the local search results side. There is chatter in the SEO forums, coupled with the automated tracking tools picking up big changes, it does seem like we had some sort of unconfirmed update. - Q&A On Google Officially Going Away But Question Hub Not Impacted
Google confirmed with me yesterday that while the Q&A On Google feature is really going away, the Google Question Hub is not going to be impacted by this. The Question Hub is a separate but similar feature of that of the Q&A On Google, hence the confusion. - Google: A Page Needs To Pass Quality Checks For Indexing
Gary Illyes from Google said on Reddit that for a page to be indexed by Google "the content still has to pass quality checks." If that content does not pass the quality checks, Google may not index it even if you manually try to submit the page to Google for indexing. - Google: Breadcrumb Placement Does Not Matter For SEO
Google's John Mueller said when it comes to breadcrumbs, the links you see on pages that tell you where you clicked from, the placement and location of those breadcrumbs don't really matter for SEO. John said "no, the placement doesn't matter for SEO. We use breadcrumbs for crawling (finding internal links) & for rich results (structured data); both don't depend on placement of the breadcrumbs." - Google On How It Recognizes Authors Without Authorship
Google's John Mueller described how Google is able to recognize an author and all of that author's content and mentions across the web, without supporting authorship markup anymore. In short, John said Google can do this when all of the author's articles link back to a central bio page or central location. - Vlog #117: Shimon Sandler Building Your Search Marketing Agency & Keep Clients Spending
In part one, Shimon Sandler and I spoke outside of my house in the cold weather about growing your search marketing agency. We continued that talk outside about how he went out and jumped from being in-house to starting his own search marketing agency. We also spoke about strategies to keep your clients spending money. - Another Android Statue With Mask & Vaccine Bandaid At The GooglePlex
Last week we spotted the Google Play Android statue with a blue mask and bandaid from the vaccine. Well, there are more. Here is another Android statue at the Google offices with a bandaid for the va
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Token example: 404 vs 410. A1: don't sweat it, they're pretty much the same A2: they're slightly different SEO1: ok, moving on. SEO2: OMG MY SITE HAS A 404, I'M FAILING AS AN SEO, JOHN SAID I SHOULD USE 410., John Mueller on Twitter
- The solution is simple: don't make auto-generated websites. It's against the webmaster guidelines., John Mueller on Twitter
- Today’s #GoogleDoodle celebrates Ñ—not only a letter but a representation of Hispanic heritage. #Didyouknow? To save time & shorten words, 12th-century scribes wrote a tiny "n" (a tilde or virgulilla) on top to create, Google Doodles on Twitter
- I was repeatedly laughed at in SEO forums. Who in their right mind would leave a career as a veterinarian to do SEO? My advice: At first, join conversations to learn, not teach. Figure out who the constant naysayers are are, Marie Haynes on Twitter
- No. Why would you do that? Copying someone else will always leave you one step behind., John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Google officially dropped Q&A on Google in search results
- How to gain value from broken backlinks
- Let’s get things straight with the Google page experience update; Friday’s daily brief
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- 3 Ways to Leverage Google Tag Manager for Goal Measurement, Infinity Marketing
- Google Data Studio Introduces Version Control With Report Publishing Feature, CMSWire
- Should You Use Google Analytics, Global Site Tag or Google Tag Manager?, Koozai
Industry & Business
- Alphabet to Introduce Executive Bonuses Partly Tied to ESG Goals, Bloomberg
- Google Search boss Prabhakar Raghavan made $55 million in 2020, CNBC
- Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google became big tech companies by acquiring hundreds of smaller companies, Washington Post
- The Slander Industry, New York Times
- Supporting India during the current COVID crisis, Google Blog
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
- Google Expands Restaurant Online Order Integration, Near Media
- Google My Business (GMB) Terminology - Un-Official, Steady Demand
Mobile & Voice
- Google Assistant on phones is learning to act without a 'Hey Google' prompt, Android Police
- 'Apple Glass' headset production delays make early 2022 launch 'unlikely', Appleinsider
SEO
- Do Google Properties Ignore Core Web Vitals?- Marcus Tober, Searchmetrics
- Sizing large images in web stories, Alan Kent's Blog
- Local SEO Solutions: 11 Tips to Improve Your Site, SEM Rush
PPC
- Updated Google Shopping Ads Best Practices for 2021 Pt. 2: Campaigns, Metric Theory
- 4 Travel advertiser tips to use now, Microsoft Advertising
