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 Search Ranking Algorithm Update On September 4th & 5th?
I am seeing new signs of yet another Google search ranking update starting late yesterday, September 4th, through today, September 5th. There is some early chatter in both the WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World forums. There are also some tools that are showing the change as well, not all of the tools because it might be too early for them to pick up on the changes yet. - Google On How It Picks The URL It Shows In Search
For most of the readers here, this is very old news but I loved how John Mueller broke it down in such a simple and clear way. This is how Google picks the canonical URL, the URL it shows in its search results, to searchers. - Google: Some M-Dot Sites In Google Desktop Search May Be Unstable
Google's John Mueller explained in this weeks Google webmaster hangout video that if you have a separate M-DOT site it's more likely that Google might show your M-DOT version in the normal desktop search results. This can be corrected by redirecting Google yourself or going responsive he said. - Google My Business Dropping Distance-Based Service Areas
Google announced it is removing the remaining distance-based service area businesses. It will be converting them to the closest named area. Google said "Service-area businesses currently based on a distance will be automatically converted to the closest named areas, like San Francisco, CA or Islington, London." - Majestic Goes Deeper Into Link Analysis
Majestic made a product announcement yesterday around how the tool can now show you more context around the links the tool analyzes. Dixon Jones, who hasn't worked at the company in a year or so summed it up as "Majestic launched a new release that changed the way we could analyze backlinks, by segmenting every web page into chunks or sections. This allows users to see links in context and see the link density within a small section of any page." - Google Shadow Wall
This is pretty wild, you need to watch the video embed from Instagram. There is this wall at Google NYC that will basically make a shadow of you walking, as you walk past it. It is pretty fun, check
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- It depends! We don't recrawl all sites & parts of sites equally quickly, so sometimes we can get to most URLs within a few days, other times it takes a few months. Usually when it takes longer, it means they, John Mueller on Twitter
- Register your website in #Bingwebmaster tool and use #CrawlControl feature where you can configure hourly crawl control based on the peak usage time for your site and obtain the best results for your site. https://t.c, Bing Webmaster Team on Twitter
- While the functionality isn't available everywhere ("yet", I'm assuming), the documentation on the developer site is complete. So if you're following that, you should be good to go!, John Mueller on Twitter
- Headings are useful for more than just SEO ... in general, if you make it hard for us to recognize a heading, it'll be hard for us to recognize the heading :). Be as clear as possible regarding what your pages, John Mueller on Twitter
- September 2019 AdSense Earnings & Observations, WebmasterWorld
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Microsoft introduces XLOOKUP in Excel – and it’s a big deal for data reporting
- How to become a professional digital marketer
- Google selects canonical URLs based on your site and user preference
- Bloomreach integration for Salesforce Commerce Cloud now available on AppExchange
- Who will you meet at SMX East?
- We audited Google Ad recommendations: What we learned will surprise you
- Video: Marie Haynes discusses Google algorithm updates, penalties and more on E-A-T
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- Creating and Using Custom Alerts in Google Analytics, Reflective Data
- Google Analytics App + Web Simplifies Cross-Platform Measurement, CMSWire
- How Does Google Analytics Work? Complete Beginners Guide [Updated], Monster Insights
Industry & Business
- Google, Industry Try to Water Down First U.S. Data-Privacy Law, Bloomberg
- YouTube to pay $170 million in FTC child privacy settlement, CNBC
- Google Wants to Help Tech Companies Know Less About You, Wired
- The Google Syndrome, Wall Street Journal
Local & Maps
- Google Maps just got a great new feature – but only on iPhone, not Android, BGR
- Google Maps test uses your Assistant voice when navigating, 9to5Google
Mobile & Voice
- E*TRADE Launches Google Assistant Action to Track Stock Portfolio Status But Features Are Limited, Voicebot
- Giving Lens New Reading Capabilities in Google Go, Google AI Blog
- Baidu is Reshaping Smart Speaker and Voice Assistant Market Share in China, Voicebot
SEO
- Understanding Factors that Affect Click Through Rate, DealerOn
- Do SEOs agree on Google ranking factors? How much do links and keywords matter? And what has changed since 2009?, Econsultancy
- How to fix different types of ecommerce expired content, Builtvisible
PPC
- How You Should Actually Be Testing Google’s Responsive Search Ads, Metric Theory
- Is Google "Cowardly" for Selling Brand Keywords to Competitors!?, aimClear Blog
- PPC & KPI Monitoring: How to Diagnose Lost Search Impression Share Rank & Top Impression Share Changes, Adalysis
- Share your feedback about AdMob and Ad Manager mobile app integration, Google Ads Developer Blog
- Rolling out first price auctions to Google Ad Manager partners, Google Blog
Search Features
