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 Proposes Building XML Sitemaps Into WordPress Core
Google's Pascal Birchler, who has been with Google since this past January, but worked at WordPress since 2014 prior to that, published a new project where Google and WordPress want to integrate basic XML Sitemaps in WordPress Core and introduce an XML Sitemaps API to make it fully extendable. - The Google Search Algorithm Is A Lot Of Trial & Error Coding?
A post from a former Google search engineer, Kevin Lacker, from 2006 recounts a conversation this engineer had with the former head of Google search Amit Singhal. It discusses how sometimes these engineers just tried trial and error to see what works, even if it didn't make logical sense. - Google: Links & Title Tags Matter To Ranking
Guess what - in 2019 - it turns out that links and title tags still matter to doing well in Google's search results. We had John Mueller from Google said links matter for PageRank and thus building trust. Gary Illyes from Google say that HTML title tags also matter for SEO. - Google To Pre-Announce Future Core Search Algorithm Updates
Danny Sullivan from Google said Google "probably will" pre-announce future Google core updates. He said this on Twitter when asked if Google will "be pre-announcing broad core updates again?" - GoogleServe Flooring At Google
Google has special flooring at some of the Google Dublin office for the GoogleServe program. GoogleServe is Google's method for Googlers to give back to the communities. Anyway, it looks like someone
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Core updates are diff from better recognizing original reporting -- which, agreed, is very important. We've made & continue to make improvements here, as well as advice earlier this year to publishers & a very helpful discussion, Danny Sullivan on Twitter
- Crawling & indexing frequency depends on so many things (your site + the rest of the web all compete for it), updates play a role but so does, literally, the weather and the state of world peace. Maybe it's an early financial, John Mueller on Twitter
- How do SEO people deal with changing results?, WebmasterWorld
- It could go either way. These experiments sometimes last a bit of time, and if they work out well, we'll open them up; if they don't work out, we'll focus on other things instead.… https://t.co/biy9XhdWiK, John Mueller on Twitter
- That would be neat, but it's really hard to determine when a URL is only visible in certain locales, without crawling from all locales (which both hard for us & hard on sites). Also, it's the WORLD WIDE web. Geesh. 🤷… http, John Mueller on Twitter
- The markup should be for the primary element of the page. If you're primarily reviewing one product, and mentioning others in comparison, that's still primarily that product. If the others are equally relevant, then that's mul, John Mueller on Twitter
- Although the daily hours spent in mobile devices continue to grow, the time spent in desktop hasn’t further decreased but remained flat (makes sense bc we still work mainly in desktop devices). From Mary Meeker’s Internet Tre, Aleyda Solis on Twitter
- I spent about 10 mins looking into the CCN traffic drop.. & have a few thoughts. Disclaimer: a proper SEO analysis requires a lot of time, critical thinking, and internal data - so take this with a grain of salt, but also I get to l, Dan Shure on Twitter
- You can use x-frame-options headers to prevent iframe usage completely: https://t.co/u1N9ahGcVS -- I'd add that if you don't want these pages to be iframed in browsers. I don't know if DMCA would be possible (I can't give legal, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Decompose your ads, not your brand
- Google Trends gets integrated into Data Studio via free third-party app
- Google AMP URLs not letting searchers click through to main site
- SMX East registration is open!
- Google June 2019 core update finished rolling out on June 8
- Google Search Console performance overview report now shows 90 days of data
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- Audit Your Google Analytics Data with Google Data Studio, Charles Farina's Blog
- How to Track Micro Conversions with Google Analytics, Portent
- Storytelling With Data: How to Analyze Data & Communicate SEO Insights, Conductor
Industry & Business
- From offices to libraries, building momentum in Michigan, Google Blog
- Google Speeds Up Shift of Hardware Production Away from China, Bloomberg
- Google Struggles to Give Android Users App Choices, EU Says, Bloomberg
- If feds break up Alphabet, be ready for stock to surge 50%: Needham, CNBC
- Google, Facing More Scrutiny, Overhauls Lobbying and Public Affairs Operations, Wall Street Journal
Local & Maps
- AR Impacts Local Commerce, Disrupting Home Services and Retail, Street Fight
- Google Maps is testing a new safety feature for taxi passengers, The Verge
- Google Maps picks up high-quality traffic info in dozens of nations as part of latest data-set upgrades, Android Police
- Hotel Site Accuses Booking, Expedia of EU Antitrust Breaches, Yahoo Finance
Mobile & Voice
- Google's Pixel 4 could track hand gestures, Engadget
- There are so Many Great Alternatives to Shouting “Hey Google” at Google Assistant, Droid Life
SEO
- 2019 SEO Trends: You Really Should Be Following These 5 Things, Raven Blog
- How to Find the Ideal Blog Post Length with the 20/20 Rule, Conductor
- How To Add FAQ Schema Using Google Tag Manager [Easy Guide], SEM Rush
PPC
- Google vs. Amazon: The Battle for Ecommerce Dominance, WordStream
- Upcoming changes to App campaigns, Google Ads Developer Blog
- How many Google Analytics accounts actually connect Google Ads?, Econsultancy
Search Features
