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 Mobile-First Indexing Now Used For Over Half Of Google's Search Results
Just about two years after Google announced their mobile-first indexing initiative, to crawl the web as a mobile device first versus crawling the web as a desktop device, Google hit a major mile stone. Over 50% of the search results Google returns globally are from Google crawling and indexing the web using mobile-first indexing. - Poll: SEOs Like The Old Over The New Google Search Console
Most people, by nature, do not like change. I love new tools and playing with new things, but I like consistency and big changes I try to avoid. But also, change can bring really big opportunities. So when I saw the results around most SEOs liking the old Google Search Console over the new one, I was not surprised. - Google: We Can Detect Automated Link Dropping
With all the chatter around links, negative SEO, the tools, etc - Google's John Mueller said that the tools used to do automated link drops are "old school" and thus, Google has probably seen this behavior before. He basically said, Google is good at detecting them and ignoring these types of spam also. - Poll: Most SEOs Don't Offer Guaranteed Success
You hire an SEO to typically improve how much qualified traffic your web site gets. With the aim of driving more conversions and revenue for your business. But do SEOs give guarantees on such performance? The answer is typically no. - Still Having Google News Indexing & Ranking Issues? Start A New Thread
So you know, Google has been working on addressing issues around Google News publishers with being seen in the Google News and web search results. It seems most of the issues are resolved but if you are still having issues, Google wants you to post those details in a new thread. - An SEO Made Google John Mueller Socks
This is funny. Marie Haynes made specialized socks for her SEO team with John Mueller's face on it. Yes, John Mueller from Google has his own branded socks now. Here are some photos of them from Mari
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Malware Hidden in Memes Posted on Twitter, WebmasterWorld
- Report: Google Suspends Plan to Relaunch Search in China, WebmasterWorld
- Facebook Comes Under Fire Again For Use of Access to User Data, WebmasterWorld
- It looks like you're serving these resources with a timestamp (or similar) in the path. Since we may render pages a bit after crawling, if you change the resources quickly, that can break rendering. Ideally, redirect sub-resou, John Mueller on Twitter
- It's normal that not every page ranks for every keyword that a site would rank for. Sometimes the homepage is just seen as being more relevant, and that can change over time as your other pages become stronger on their own., John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- 3 prospecting features for Google Display campaigns
- YouTube ad campaigns target ‘TV screens’ by default, coming to AdWords API in Jan.
- How a physician review site recovered from Google’s ‘medic’ update
- Google’s mobile-first indexing now powers over half of Google’s search results
- Will Google Home Hub ever become a useful local search tool?
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- 2018: The Year in Data Studio Community Connectors, Google Blog
- GA 360 Salesforce Sales Cloud Integration Made Simple, Seer Interactive
- What is Enhanced Ecommerce in Google Analytics?, Builtvisible
Industry & Business
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
- Ending the year on a Fi note, Google Blog
- Go Home Alone Again with the Google Assistant—ya filthy animal, Google Blog
- The era of the camera: Google Lens, one year in, Google Blog
SEO
- Image SEO: 12 Actionable Tips (for More Organic Traffic), Ahrefs
- Yoast SEO 9.3: Fixes and enhancements, Yoast
- Analyzing Search Engine Results Pages on a Large Scale using Python, SEM Rush
- Best SEO Audit Tools for 2019: Evaluate Your Organic Visibility, purevisibility.com
- SEO Tips and Tricks: 4 Pillar Strategy, Raven Blog
PPC
- Merkle Releases Automated Bidding for Amazon Sponsored Brands as the Format Continues to Grow, Merkle
- Unleash your creativity, Google Partners Blog
- Useful changes to your Share of Voice columns, Bing Ads Blog
Search Features
- Google is testing a new search cards UI for movies, music, books, personalities, and more, Android Police
Other Search
- LaterPay, Lessons Learned, Accelerated Mobile Pages Project
