Stephen Mahaney's Articles

Stephen Mahaney

CEO & Founder of Planet Ocean
Washington State / Hawaii

Stephen Mahaney founded Planet Ocean in 1990, published 'The UnFair Advantage Book on Winning The Search Engine Wars' in 1996 (the Web's *original* $97 eBook) and established SearchEngineNews.com--the longest running membership-based publication site on the Internet--in 1997.

Today he splits his time between Kona, Hawaii and the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State.

Articles by Stephen Mahaney

1. Search On '21 Reveals New Features, More Details About MUM
2. New Budget Report in Google Ads
3. Mysterious Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update?
4. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for September 2021
5. Google Adds Some Data, Drops Some Data In Search Terms Report
6. Unique Product Identifiers Now Required on Free Merchant Listings
7. New Ecommerce SEO Guide Documentation
8. Google Reveals How YouTube Recommends Videos
9. Lighthouse 8.4 Upgrades LCD, FID, PageSpeed Insights
10. Page Experience Tutorial - Improving First Input Delay
11. Google Expands 'About This Advertiser' Initiative
12. Is shared hosting ok?
13. How long should it take for a site to get re-crawled and re-ranked after cleaning out low quality pages?
14. What's the best way to redirect a short domain name to a longer one without having duplicate content issues?
15. Titlepocalypse Update
16. The SEO Impact of WordPress Themes
17. Google Shows How to Optimize for Discover's Follow Feature
18. Which page title is Google using for ranking, my original or their autogenerated one?
19. GSC Permanently Loses Performance Report Data for August 23rd and 24th
20. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for August 2021
21. Google Publishes Video on Getting a "Great" Page Experience
22. Reporting Channel for Indexing Bugs in the US Now Available in GSC
23. Titlepocalypse! Google Updates How They Generate Web Page Titles
24. Google Removes Safe Browsing and Ad Experience Widgets from Page Experience Report
25. Behind the Curtains of Google Search Console Insights
26. Large Images in Discover Improve CTR and Increase Traffic
27. 15 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Google Trends
28. Why are most of my site's pages missing in a Google site query?
29. Will changing an IP address or DNS cause us to lose our first page rankings?
30. What's the best type of website for SEO optimization purposes?
31. Why your GMB listing might be filtered out of Google Maps
32. CWVs More Than "just" A Tiebreaker
33. Google Publishes Copyright Guidelines Video
34. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for July 2021
35. Multiple Instances of Fact Check Markup Not Allowed
36. How to Succeed With Google Posts: Case Study
37. Facebook Expanding Access to AR Try On
38. Facebook Pay Extends Availability to Streamline Checkout on Your Site
39. Microsoft Advertising Now Offering Video Extensions
40. Multimedia Ads Now Available on Microsoft Advertising
41. Microsoft Ads Expands Verticals For Dynamic Remarketing
42. Link Spam Update Rolling Out Until Aug 10th
43. Showcase Product Promotions Across More Surfaces during Seasonal Shopping Moments
44. GSC Links AMP Debugging to AMP Page Experience Guide
45. AdSense Releases Faster New Embed Code
46. Google Graphs & Explains Search Traffic Drops
47. Ad Policy Violators: Three Strikes, Yer Out!
48. Google Announces New Privacy Sandbox Timeline
49. Google's Search Rankings Explained
50. How long should a 301 redirect be kept in place?
51. July 2021 Core Update
52. How can product schema be added to a page when the price of the product is variable?
53. Are Local Services Ads a good deal for service type businesses?
54. Are reciprocal links OK if they are relevant and useful?
55. Here's How Long It Takes to Get New Content Indexed
56. Core, Page Experience, & Spam Updates All Rolled-out in June
57. New Guidance - Redirects, HTTP Status Codes, Network Issues, & DNS Errors
58. WordPress 5.8 adds WebP Support
59. Facebook's Publishes Ad Review Process Guidelines
60. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for June 2021
61. AdSense Site Approvals Video Tutorial Series
62. New Tutorial Workflow Shows SMB's How to Advertise on YouTube
63. Google Expands GMB Profile Editing & Adds Pointy for FREE
64. Create A Web Story in 5 Steps in 5 Minutes
65. You Can Now Edit Robots.txt in Shopify
66. RSS-Powered Follow Button Being Tested in Chrome Canary
67. Sunsetting the Generic Rich Results Search Appearance on GSC
68. Google Updates GSC Help Docs For Robots.txt & Structured Data
69. Google Limits FAQ Rich Results to Two Max Per Snippet
70. PageSpeed Insights Showing More Field Data
71. Lighthouse 8.0 to be Released With Chrome 93 in August
72. Google Adds Negative Match Option to RegEx Filter
73. Google Launches Search Console Insights
74. Google Pauses FLoC & Extends Third Party Cookie Support Until Late 2023
75. Yelp Releases New Yelp for Business Features
76. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for May 2021
77. May 7th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
78. May14th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
79. May21st Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
80. May 28th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
81. Project Starline Brings The WOW Factor to Video Conferencing
82. MUM's The Word On Search
83. Breakthrough in Conversation Technology - LaMDA
84. Google Reveals Four Pillars of User Experience
85. Google Wants Everyone to Just Get FLoC'ed!
86. Google I/O Showcases Data-Hungry Apps & Long Overdue Privacy Controls for Android 12
87. 17 Pro-Tips You Need to Know About Core Web Vitals Going LIVE
88. Facebook Rolling Out New Ad Measurement Protocols
89. Indexing Issues Can Now Be Reported to Google
90. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for April 2021
91. Google Discover Nixes Satire
92. The Only Reasons Google Will Remove a Page
93. Algorithm Update - Google Product Reviews
94. Google Updates Cumulative Layout Shift Scoring
95. Page Experience Algorithm Launching Mid-June
96. Google Is Going All-IN on Web Stories
97. April 23rd Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
98. April 16th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
99. April 9th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
100. April 1st Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
101. March 26th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
102. March 19th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
103. March 12th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
104. March 5th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
105. WordPress Elementor Vulnerability
106. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for March 2021
107. Static Headlines Now Available for Dynamic Search Ads
108. Bing URL Submission Plugin for WordPress
109. Bing Upgrades Search to Include Visually Rich Imagery
110. Sketchy One Star "Fake" Review Ratings Win in Court
111. New GMB Review Management Tool
112. Check your Business Profile Performance in GMB
113. Best Practices For Videos
114. Mueller on Image Optimization
115. How To Get Your Products Into Search
116. HTTP/2 Magically Improves Core Web Vital Scores
117. Core Web Vitals: How Prepared Are Leading Industries Today?
118. Google Ads Developer Blog Summary for February 2021
119. Facebook Breaks the News in Australia to Prove a Point
120. Facebook Knew for Years Ad Reach Estimates Were Based on 'Wrong Data' But Blocked Fixes Over Revenue Impact
121. Facebook Puff Piece Stirs Controversy For NYTimes Writer
122. GMB Auto Populating Services
123. GMB Messaging Rolling Out For Desktop
124. Years in Business Feature Added to GMB
125. GSC Changes To Web Story Performance Report
126. Search Console Discover Report Adds Chrome Data
127. Updated Metric Boundaries for Core Web Vitals
128. Use 503 To Avoid Losing Rankings While in Social Statement Mode
129. Official Google Video On Duplicate Content
130. New Manual Action Penalties for Google News and Discover Policy Violations
131. Google Expands Phrase Match To Include Broad Match Modifier Traffic
132. Google Launches Passage Ranking
133. Google Announces Price Enforcements for Merchants
134. February 26th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
135. February 19th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
136. February 12th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
137. February 5th Digest - John Mueller's Hangouts - Search Central Office Hours
138. WebSite Cleanup Tips for a faster, better-indexed site
139. How to relocate a GMB attorney listing
140. Tips for getting listed in People Also Ask
141. Does using the disavow tool indicate to Google that a site might be shady?
142. What, exactly, is Core Web Vitals?
143. DuckDuckGo Hits 100 Million Searches Per Day -- Updates Privacy Protections
144. GMB Updates Flag Review Options
145. Google to Invite Advertisers to Test Alternative to 3rd Party Cookies
146. URL Removal Tool in GSC Doesn't Actually Remove Pages
147. Price Drop Added to Google Rich Results
148. Google to Stop Collecting Ad ID's To Avoid Pop Up Warning in iOS Apps
149. Google Notifies Site Owners About New HTTP/2 Protocol Crawling
150. Google Wants Web Stories, not Web Teasers
151. Google Threatens to Leave Australia
152. WordPress Launches New Website Building Service
153. High-severity Vulnerability in WordPress Plugin Contact Form
154. Facebook Moving UK Users to US Privacy Terms & Conditions
155. Facebook Attacks Apple's Plan to Give Users a Privacy Choice
156. Twitter Relaunching Verified Accounts
157. Update on the Structured Data Testing Tool
158. Noindexed Pages Can Impact Core Web Vitals
159. Google Placing UK Users Under U.S. Jurisdiction
160. Why Ad Heavy Pages Might Still Rank Well in the SERP
161. Copied Content is Sometimes More Relevant
162. Request Indexing Tool Reenabled in GSC
163. Google Rolls Out Dec 2020 Core Algorithm Update
164. Top Google Searches for 2020
165. An Important Message from The Founder of Planet Ocean / SEN
166. Would owning a new top level domain (TLD) with keywords provide a ranking advantage?
167. Are keyword heavy titles a problem?
168. Free Online Video Converter Tools
169. Editorial: Subscribe With Google / The Google News Initiative
170. Google for Jobs is LIVE & Based on Schema Markup
171. Google Launches 'Ad Experience Report Tool' in their Fight Against "Bad" Ads
172. Google Launches Free 'Website' for GMB Participants
173. AdWords Expands Language Options for Structured Snippets Globally
174. Need to Know Details of 'Ads Added by AdWords'
175. SEO for Voice Search: Digital Assistants
176. SEN Celebrates 20 Years!
177. OMG! Here Comes A Whole New Can Of Black-Hat Whoopass!
178. Why is America so polarized? ...it's the Echo Chamber!
179. A Virtual Paradi$e of Low Hanging Fruit
180. How to track customers without hurting your Local Listings in Google
181. Once They Find Your Page How Do You Get Them to Take Action?! Common Mistakes Marketers Make.
182. Once They Find Your Page How Do You Get Them to Take Action?
183. The Missing Link To Writing Effective Ad Copy
184. The Missing Link To Writing Effective Ad Copy
185. How to Easily Analyze your Competition in Seconds Using the Site Strength Indicator Tool
186. The 'Local Search' Gold Rush Begins
187. The Top 12 Link-Offenders You Should Avoid Like A Ticking Bomb!
188. Google's Local Business Center
189. Advanced SEO Tutorials
190. Essential Title Tag Strategies for Top Ranking Pages in 2009
191. Entrepreneurial Thoughts on the so-called Financial Meltdown
192. 7 Ways to Boost Your Sales and Build More Links By Increasing Your Site's Speed!
193. 9 Critical Steps to Evaluating Incoming Link Quality
194. Proof Positive that Run-of-Site 'Paid' Links are BAD for your Website!
195. How to Use Flash in Top Ranking Pages
196. Your 4 Week Step-by-Step Link Building Task Planner
197. Wikia Search Launch
198. The Ultimate Link Building Quick-Start Guide, Part II
199. How to Legally and Instantly Download All of Your Competitor's Top-Secret PPC Keywords!!!
200. How to Leverage Your Company's Most Powerful Asset
201. How to Automatically Build an AdWords Campaign
202. How to Craft a Money Making Home Page
203. There are Some Lists You Just Don't Want to be On
204. "The Most Effective, Yet Overlooked, Marketing Strategy on the Internet"
205. Are you ignoring 350,000 potential customers?
206. Check your Popularity!
207. Guide to Infoseek's ESP Search Engine
208. How to get your pages to "Stick" in Excite
209. The Best Kept Secret on the Internet?
210. Making Money the Easy Way
211. The Best Way to Sell Products or Services On The Internet
212. Mining "Gold" from your "Back-End" Market
213. Creating Web Sites that Load Fast & Sell
214. Once they find your page how do you get them to take action?