-
Google
- TWO Algorithm Updates JIT for Peak Holiday Shopping
- 755 Link Builders Reveal What Worked In 2022
- E-E-A-T & Other Changes to Quality Rater Guidelines
- Google Trends Adds Local Year in Search
- Official Names Given to Search Features in Visual Elements Gallery
- New Google Search Status Dashboard
- Google Drops the Hammer on Scammers
- Search Console Reporting Lots of Dups in JavaScript-heavy Sites
- Retired Google Crawlers Section Added To User Agent Help Doc
Jan '23 Featured Articles
- 26 Years of SEN & Counting
- by Stephen Mahaney
- A Step by Step Guide to Changing Your Domain Name with Minimal Impact to Your Web Site's Rankings
- If you really truly positively MUST do it, here's how — by John Heard & Keith Saye
- Google Is Good! ...Very Good — but not as good as they pretend to be
- SEN's 2023 Assessment of Google — editorial by Stephen Mahaney
Search & Social Media Updates Digest
Dec '22 Featured Articles
- The SEO Pro's *Complete* Website Audit Checklist: Part One
- The only checklist you'll need! This two part checklist covers everything you need in order to perform a full manual website audit. This is a VERY comprehensive list of specific errors that can potentially cripple a site's performance and rather unique problems we've observed from over 25 years in the business. Leverage this checklist for ALL new projects or for an annual website maintenance audit.
- The SEO Pro's *Complete* Website Audit Checklist: Part Two
- Leverage the second installment of this comprehensive checklist to tackle things like HTTPS and server errors, image and video optimization, mobile compatibility concerns, AMP errors, local search issues and more. There is also a great way to get a VERY clear picture of your site's overall URL structure and organization, which is essential to troubleshoot indexing issues and finding those orphaned pages.
SE Bytes: Member Q&A
Search & Social Media Updates Digest
-
Google
- Google Publishes Guide to Google Search Ranking Systems
- Google Office Hours Experimenting with New Format
- 32% Report Guest Posting for SEO
- Dot Over Commas Preferred for Numerical Separators In Review Snippet Markup
Nov '22 Featured Articles
- 5 Great Keyword Discovery Tools You Can Use for FREE
- Because SEO depends on selecting the best keywords! — by Stephen Mahaney
- Actual Code Real World Website's Are Using to Draw Attention to their Search Listings!
- Your Advanced Structured Data Markup Reference Guide — by John Heard
- And the Award for 'Lame Advice of the Year' goes to...
- Editorial — by Stephen Mahaney
Search & Social Media Updates Digest
-
Google
- Google Spam Update for October '22
- Combined Algo Updates Causing Radical Ranking Swings
- New Features & Reporting Added to Google Analytics 4
- Google Ditches "Webmaster" and Simplifies the Guidelines
- New Structured Data to Help Google Display Your Site Name in Search
- GSC Bug Mislabeled Some Warnings as Errors
- Data Studio is now Looker Studio
- GSC Does Not Track Multisearch Traffic
- More Product Reviews Guidance Added to Google Help Doc
- Remove Result Button Added to About This Result
- Google Says 'Ping Us'
-
Local Search
- Old Reviews Being Released by Google
- Google Adds New Prohibitions to Reviews Guidelines
- GBP Offers 3 New Ways to Help Tour Operators
- Health & Safety Attributes Removed from GBP
-
PPC Advertising
- New Biz Name, Favicon + Sponsored Label for Mobile Search Ads
- Google Tag Adds New Tagging Capabilities to Strengthen Measuring
- Recommendations as an Experiment in the Google Ads Experiment Page
- Lead Generation Sites Report Problems with Performance Max, and then...
- Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for November 2022
- Curated List of PPC Articles for November 2022
Oct '22 Featured Articles
- Seven Steps to Quickly Optimize Images & Boost Your Traffic
- How to build the foundation of your image optimization – by John Heard
- Guide to Advanced Image SEO
- How to get your images ranked in Image Search — by John Heard
- Be Careful That AdBlockers Aren't Blocking Your Images
- 42% of global web users will NOT see your images if you choose the wrong filenames! — by Stephen Mahaney
SE Bytes: Member Q&A
Search & Social Media Updates Digest
-
Google
- Google Product Reviews & Broad Core Updates Completed
- Google Expands Merchant Listings, Structured Data Properties & Adds New GSC Reports
- Show Your Products In ALL Countries Using A Single Feed
- GSC Reports May be Impacted by Updated Review-Type Results
- New HTTPS Report Added to GSC Generating "Scary" Errors
- Minimize A/B testing impact in Google Search
- How To Improve Your Meta Descriptions
- Not New But Newly Listed Google Site Verifier User Agent
-
PPC Advertising
- Updates to Ad Destination Requirements Policy Coming in October
- Top Content Bids To Stop Working in Google Ads This Month
- GA4 Makes "Privacy" Changes To Google Ads Search Queries Report
- Ad Groups Column Options Rolling Out to Google Ads Setup
- Google Updates 'Invalid Traffic' Guidance
- Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for October 2022
- Curated List of PPC Articles for October 2022
Sep '22 Featured Articles
- Google's Launches Helpful Content Update
- More like a ranking signal than a core update, this could be a big deal over the long term by Stephen Mahaney
- Google's Data Grab Masquerading as Minority Empowerment
- Why affinity badges are a precarious double edged sword – by Stephen Mahaney
- John Mueller Tells Us What He Really Thinks
- Editorial by Stephen Mahaney
Search & Social Media Updates Digest
-
Google
- Never Give Up!
- Google Launches 'Helpful Content' Update as New Ranking Signal
- Google Lens Will Make Image Search Mainstream Search
- GSC Video Index Report Rollout Completed
- URL Level Data For Examples URLs Added to CWV Report
- Domain Names Showing Up in Google Image Results
- Google Improves Featured Snippets Using MUM
- New 'Pros & Cons' Structured Data for Product Review Pages
- Google Improves Quote-wrapped Search Results
- Content Guidelines Added To Education Q&A Structured Data Docs
- GSC to Remove International Targeting Report
- Products Section Added To GBP Guidelines
Aug '22 Featured Articles
- Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines
- To truly understand what Google calls high quality content, you must study their Quality Rater Guidelines! — by Stephen Mahaney
- How to Use CSS Sprites to Slash Image Load Time
- When to use them, and when you shouldn't – by John Heard
Search Central Office Hours Digest
-
Featuring John Mueller Q&A - Topics Include...
- √ Why don't the metrics on my webpage reports match?
√ JavaScript & SEO Indexing Problems
√ Are rankings affected by linking out to unsecure sites?
√ Semantics & Voice Search
√ When can you delete your disavow file?
√ Using Google Tag Manager to add structured data
√ Best way to prevent crawling
√ How does Google handle differing attributes for the same URL in multiple sitemaps?
√ How to prevent embeds from being indexed individually when using iframes
√ Preloading SSL via HSTS
√ What to do if you're not ranking for your brand name
Search & Social Media Updates Digest
-
Google
- Quality Raters Guidelines Update
- New "Official" Google Updates Page
- Google Announces July 2022 Product Review Update
- Google Spins "Very Rarely" into "Some" which actually means "Many"
- Search Console Video Index Report Rolling Out Slowly
- New User Agent String For Google AdsBot Mobile Web Crawler
- Auto-Tagging Now Available For All Free Listings in GMC
- Google Merchant Center Policy Update for Free Listings
- 8 Tips for Optimizing Your Ecommerce Site
- DNS CNAME to Verify Site Ownership Now Available in GSC
- NoIndex Pages No Longer Impact Core Web Vitals Score
-
Local Search
- Address Toggle Added to Google Business Profile
- New FAQ Auto-Response Feature on GBP Messaging
- Say Goodbye to the GMB App
- Blackmailers Threatening Restaurants with 1 Star Reviews
- Google Maps Updates Photos and Videos Criteria
- Fake Reviews Run Rampant in Local Service Ads
- Three Cool New Google Maps Features
Jul '22 Featured Articles
- Startpage – Google Results Without Google's Crap!
- Startpage makes your top ranking pages on Google easier to find! – by Stephen Mahaney
- SWOT the Hell out of your Website
- Knowing your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, & Threats makes succeeding a matter of fact! – by Keith Saye
Search Central Office Hours Digest
-
Featuring John Mueller Q&A - Topics Include...
- √ The Many Types of Redirects
√ Having Multiple HTTP Codes on a Page
√ Using PRG to Prevent Passing PageRank
√ How to get Site Links
√ Does Google Have a Website Platform Preference
√ Mismatch: Site Query vs. Search Console Data
√ More Googlebot Crawl Details
√ PDF Files Indexing
√ To Archive or Delete Content
√ Nofollow Internal Links
√ Does CDN Affect Rankings
Search & Social Media Updates Digest
-
Google
- Last Month's Core Update Recap
- Update on Google Updates
- Google is Picking Winners & Congress has Noticed
- Almost Half of GSC Clicks Go to Hidden Terms - A Study by Ahrefs
- Crawl Stats Report Help Doc Updated
- Search Console Will Soon Start Showing If Errors are Valid
- Search Central Documentation Updates
- Clarification on Using Product Markup On Product Variants Pages
- How Google Generates Titles for Docs With Language or Script Misalignment
- New Section Added to Author Markup Best Practices
- New Guidance for Learning Video Markup
Jun '22 Featured Articles
- Why Pay for Images When You Can Use These For Free?
- How to save time & money AND get better images! – by Caitlin Ziolkowski
- Finally! A Secure, Encrypted Email Provider That Doesn't Exploit It's Users
- Tired of being the product instead of the customer? This Email service is for you! – by Stephen Mahaney
Search Central Office Hours Digest
Search & Social Media Updates Digest
-
Google
- Google Announces May '22 Broad Core Update
- Google I/O 2022 Search & Product Announcements
- Video Indexing Report Coming Soon to Search Console
- Google Micromanages Electric Bicycle Speeds
- 6 Tips for Optimizing JavaScript
- Search Console Graph Fluctuations Explained
- Inactivity in GSC May Signal Google to Stop Collecting Data
- Image & Video Sitemap Extension Tags Being Deprecated
- Additional Search Central Documentation Updates
- More Noise Than Signal?