Welcome to the first SEO report from me for 2021, which, is actually reporting on December last year. This means I can say the same next month. 🙂

Lots going on this month, so, let’s get to it…

 

Algorithms

It’s here!!!
After talking about the Google search core algorithm update for, it seems, forever, Google has pressed the button and sent it out into the web (see our previous SEO reports to understand more about this Core Update).
3rd December they started to roll out the update and already it is looking like a big update. Early reports are showing positive or negative ranking movements of 50%.
The timing could have been better though, as it was released just before the holiday season so if a website is negatively affected it will not have time to fix.

11th December another large movement, maybe reversing some of the changes from the core update on the 3rd.
It is quite common to see large ranking changes just after a core update as the update generally takes about 2 weeks to completely rollout so can look like lots of updates are running.

 

Page Experience Update

You may remember last month – and indeed several months previous – I discussed this big update coming in the next few months which you should pay attention too.
This new ranking signal from Google will help websites that provide a better page experience – ie: speed the page loads. This ranking boast will only be for mobile search results only and not for desktop searches.

 

Ranking Update v Core Algorithm Updates

As we have just seen a major core algorithm update from Google, I thought It might be handy to explain a little but important difference between a Core Algorithm update and regular search ranking updates.

Search ranking algorithms are updated through-out the year many many times, they are generally (but not always) small changes and don’t affect whole websites but just the pages targeting the keywords.

Core Algorithm updates, however, are only run 3 times a year and are major updates, they affect the whole of the website and not just certain pages of one. This is why they are so important, they can make a huge impact to your website’s traffic.

If your website has been hit negatively after a core update, the chances are you will have to wait until the next one until you can recover. I guess it does give you time to identify the problems and fix them.

 

That’s it for this month, most of the news was taken up with the core update.

Thanks for reading!

Welcome to Novembers edition of our SEO report that only reports on the important updates and things you need to be aware of to help your website perform better.

 

Algorithms

17th/18th November there looks to be a fairly large algorithm update from Google.
24th November there looks to be a small-ish Google algorithm update.
Still know Google Core Update, but, it’s coming! 🙂

 

Homepages

If you are new to SEO you may not realise that your homepage is the most powerful page of your website.
This month Google has said that it is their intention to make all the pages equal when it comes to SEO power. This, I suspect will take a while.

 

Page Experience

I have mentioned this several times now over the last few month’s (see previous SEO Reports), this could potentially be a big update from Google and is definitely something you should be working on now.
In May 2021 Google will start valuing websites on their user experience, things like page speed, to help them rank websites. I highly recommend you prepare your website in advance of this date – read our previous reports to find out what you need to do.

 

Historical Ranking

Google has said that you can still rank for keywords that are no longer on your website using historical data of your website they hold. I have seen this on many sites I have access too whereby the content is deleted and still rank well for the related keywords many months later.
Tip: Don’t forget to add a redirect on these pages ideally to similar products or pages.

 

Google, Don’t Be Evil!

This is the first of a new section in my SEO report highlighting areas of Google that are not really that fair. The criteria for this is that a new update/change from Google which actively negatively affects websites but positively helps Google.

If you would like to see more “Don’t be evil” entries we have a list on our Don’t Be Evil page.

Why now?

I read a lot about SEO and online marketing from many different sources and I am starting to see a change in how Google operates. I don’t know if it has anything to do with founders leaving the company or shareholders putting pressure on the business to perform – financially – better or not.

Just Google?

No, I will report on all search engines that act evil. It’s just Google manages 80% or so of search traffic so they are going to get more lines in the report.

I am hopeful that this section won’t be big and I only report on the odd thing, but, I have a feeling the online World is changing so this list might get large. 🙁

So, with that said, here is the first Evil from Google.

This month it has been reported – proof seen – that Google is taking content from websites and displaying them directly in their search results as Featured Snippets and adding additional links.
Let’s say you are ranking well for the Term SEO Reports and Google have selected a part of the page to display in their search results – this in itself I feel is semi-evil as it stops traffic going to your website, but, this is not new.
They then could add a link to your content to take searchers to your competitor’s website and not yours, therefore, benefiting from your content.
Not cool Google!
It wouldn’t surprise me in the future you will be able to pay to add a link to your website to be added to someone else’s content.

 

Have you heard of Google Web Stories?

This when Google takes part of your content to make their own using AI. They might combine with other websites content – like your competitors – to make a “better” version of the content.
This has been going on for a little while now so again not new.
Google has either been testing or adding to some Web Stories links in your content just like above.

Google has said that they are not indexing Web Stories for search, well, not yet anyway!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to this month’s SEO report, thank you for reading. If you think someone you know would benefit from this report each month please do share. Thank you!

 

Algorithms

Quiet on the Google Algorithm update front this month, but we do know a Core update is on its way so it often gets a little quieter beforehand.

October 28th there looks to have been a small algorithm update.

 

Bing is no more!

That is correct, Bing is no longer a product. But! Welcome to the new world of Microsoft Bing!
That was my best attempt to make the renaming of Bing exciting, I think I may have failed. 🙁

 

Passage Indexing

Ok, this is a big change so a little more detail required from me.
Google has launched Passage Indexing which means when you search for a query not only will Google take you to the page but also the paragraph on that page that answers your query.
Although called passage indexing it isn’t actually just indexing the passage of the page, it will still index the whole page. It really isn’t indexing but more of a change in their search algorithm.

How can we benefit from this?
Split up your content to answer specific queries to help Google find what they need.
Also, try and include a “Sales” link close to the passage – if not in it – to take the visitor to your product/service.

 

Mobile-First Index

If you read my SEO blog post each month you will have read about mobile-first indexing many many times.
I won’t go into it too much detail again but essentially Google will be indexing your mobile version of your website – if you have one – for mobile searches.

“Why have you brought this up again Stu?”
Well, this will be live at the end of March 2021, as they will only be indexing your mobile version there are some things you need to check before this date.

1. Make sure the same copy and images are displayed for mobiles.
2. Make sure all the correct links are in place.
3. Double check you have optimised the mobile content.

You may, however, have already been moved over to mobile-first indexing already like most websites.

 

Links in Comments

A quick one here, if you add a URL in your websites HTML as a comment it will not be used as a ranking factor.
Google will however know it’s there. 😉

 

Google Analytics

Adding the code needed to use Google Analytics does NOT affect your website’s ranking.
Only add if you need it as it does slow your page down a little. There are other options out their too.

 

Apple Search

Lots of rumours about a new search engine being launched by Apple in the coming months.
If they do they have a big task but they do have a lot of phones out there which they could load it on very quickly.

 

That’s it for this month, Google often performs a large update in December so I am expecting the over-due core update to happen then.

Algorithms

Around the 15th of September, there looks to be quite a large algorithm update. Nothin confirmed by Google.

24th September we saw a large update/ranking fluctuations around this date

 

Bugs

September saw many bugs in Google search, a lot more than normal. Nothing we can do anything about, if you are down on traffic maybe wait for a little whilst before changing your SEO.

 

Content v Usability

Google this month reminded us that major ranking factors are based on content whilst a lesser degree of SEO juice is on the usability of a site.
What I mean on this is that although something like the speed of a site is a ranking factor, it isn’t a larger ranking factor.
However, good quality content that answers the query is a strong ranking factor.

 

Affiliate Links

Google this month reminded us that affiliate links are made “nofollow” automatically, old news but good to remind people new to SEO.

 

Local List Reviews

Google this month changed their documentation on if positive reviews affect your local ranking results.
Previously they said that positive reviews could possibly help your ranking results.
Now, it says it WILL help your local ranking results.
Keep reminding your customers to give you good reviews!

 

Schema for free shipping

A new Schema was launched that allows you to specify if your product has free shipping. It will be displayed directly in Google results/shopping.

 

Anchor text

Google can use the surrounding content of a links anchor text as a secondary signal to value that link.
However, the anchor text itself is a primary signal and much more important. Hint hint.

 

Is Word Count a ranking factor?

In a word, No. Short and long content on pages both rank well, if good enough.

 

 

 

Welcome to the latest SEO report highlighting all the important SEO news you actually need to know about to help your website perform better.

And it’s all in a 2-minute read, so, without any delay here it is…

 

Google Core Update

It’s coming…
Yep the latest core update from Google is due very soon. This is their biggest update they perform which is performed 3 or 4 times a year and is due very soon.
I will let you know when it arrives so you can check your ranking positions.

 

Algorithm

We saw algorithm updates on the 1st, 6th and 7th August.

 

Can website comments affect your ranking results?

Generally no but Google has said this month that if you have a considerable amount of adult words in your comments it could make search engine think your site is for adults only.
This would of course not help your ranking for searchers who turn off adult content in their results, something to bear in mind.

 

Would incorrect Headings order affect your ranking positions?

What we are talking about here is if you had a page with a H1 tag followed by H3 then H2 instead of the correct order of H1, H2 then H3.
Google confirmed that this will not affect your ranking positions but they don’t recommend doing it. I personally wouldn’t waste too much time on fixing pages but consider when creating new ones.

 

How many times does Google change your Meta Description tag?

As you know the Meta Description tag is one of the two tags used in search results that you have control over, or so we thought.
Analysis has shown that over 60% of first-page description tags are changed by Google.
You might think why bother creating them?
That 60% are probably for pages that someone who hasn’t manually created them and are not very good so Google changes them to something better.
The Description tag is your best option to increase CTR (click through rate) to your website.

So, keep writing! 🙂

 

Guest Blog Posts don’t help your SEO

That’s what Google has stated this month. Is it their way of stopping you game the system and use guest blog posts? Who knows.
SEO reasons aside guest blog posts are still a very good way to marketing your business and get it seen by a new audience.

 

Can lots of outbound links hurt your website?

If they are normal, related outbound link and not spammy to sites not connected to the site or subject, then you can really have as many as you like and it shouldn’t affect your website.
Your website will not be negatively affected by the search engines.

 

Does the new image licence markup help with rankings?

Recently a new markup was released that allows you to state the license of images on your site. It is a good idea and should help the creator of the images.
But, by adding this markup to your site it will not help it rank any better, sorry.

 

Does having keywords in domain names, help with your ranking?

Google will say that a very small signal is given by the domain name in deciding where your website should rank.
What they did also say is that if they can not crawl the content on the page, say it was behind a paywall, then they might use the domain name more.
Read into that as much as you like. 🙂

 

Sitemaps should include your main pages

That statement might sound obvious but many site owners are not including their main pages and category pages in their sitemap.xml file because those pages are already indexed.
Bing have confirmed that you really really should include them.

 

Do links from Wikipedia help your website rank?

Google has said that there are zero benefits to gaining links from Wikipedia for SEO.
If this is part of your link building technique it might actually be harming your site.
All links from Wikipedia are nofollow so there is no SEO link juice from them. But if you do start randomly adding links there, Google could use this as a signal that you are falsely link building and give you a penalty. Be careful!

 

That’s it for this month, don’t forget to sign up to our newsletter and receive this report directly into your inbox!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Algorithm updates

23/06/20 There has been a Google update which looks to have mainly affected government websites.

6/07/20 There also looks to have been an update around this time, but only a small one.

23/07/20 Another Google update was seen around this date.

 

GoogleBot

The website robot from Google that crawls our sites to help rank them can now add products to your shopping cart.
This is quite a hard thing for them to do and an important update.
Why would they want to do this?
Maybe they would like to know the full buying experience a person has?
Maybe they want to check that the site is really a shopping site?
But more than likely they want to compare the price you are advertising matches the price you actually pay.

 

How to better your image search results

Google has said this month that if you use a stock photo on your site the chances are it will not rank for that image. This is because there will more than likely be many copies of the same stock photo.
If however, you create your own images then they will have a better chance of ranking in image search.

 

Stop The Press!

Link building is aloud again!
For the past several years – maybe longer – Google has said all link building is bad.
This month they have said, “not all link building is bad and there are plenty of ways to build links safely”.

Two things to take from this:

1. Google doesn’t always tell you the whole truth.
2. You should be link building. 🙂

 

404 Pages

Some webmasters are blocking search engines from access/finding any 404 pages. Google this month recommended that you don’t do this and just let them handle what is crawled.

 

Are Links from sites that are lower quality harming your site?

Quick answer: No.
Longer answer: No they are not, don’t worry.

That said, it won’t look good if you get 10,000’s of links from very low-quality sites.

 

WordPress Now Has Sitemaps

From the latest version of WordPress – version 5.5 – it will have automatic sitemaps built into the platform.
You will now not need a plugin to do this.

Talking about WordPress, Bing has released a plugin that automatically indexes new content into their search engine, worth installing!

 

Does having a keyword in the domain name help?

Short answer: Yes
Longer answer: Yes but not for too much longer as Google is looking to address the weight given to domain names. This might only be in local searches, we will see.

 

Will negative reviews harm my ranking positions?

Google this month confirmed that negative reviews will NOT harm your websites ranking positions.

 

Links are NOT the most important ranking factor!

There, I said it.
Content and quality of content are probably the most important ranking factor now.

 

That’s it for this month, please share with family and friends if you think they need some SEO news in their lives!

Algorithm Updates

10th June we saw all our monitoring tools see a spike in search rankings, no confirmation from Google but looks like an algorithm update happened.

18th June we saw a lot of talk in the SEO world about an algorithm update If your traffic volume has changed around that time it could be due to this.

23rd June saw another update, this time it looks like a larger change. Google has not confirmed.

 

Tracking Parameters

Google has said this month that they will not be adding a filter option for tracking parameters in their tools.
These are parameters like:

juicyseo.co.uk?id=advert

You will not be able to filter out traffic using those type of parameters.
However, if you use a traffic monitor tool like WI1.com you can do this and a lot more.

 

How long does it take for Google to trust a new domain?

For this question I am talking about a “new to you” domain as it could have been used by someone else before.
Let’s say the previous owner of the domain got a link penalty, you the new owner would still have that penalty.
After you have cleaned up the links it will take up to a year for Google to trust your website again. Phew!

 

Should I use the Keyword META option?

For many years Google hasn’t used the keyword META field, and to be honest I didn’t think anyone still used it either.
However, it seems that Bing might use them to help rank websites.
There is a little history on this subject, previously Bing has said they don’t use them, then they said they do. Now they are saying they might use them.
My advice hasn’t changed and that is not to use them.
Using them only tells your competitors which keywords you are targeting, why help them?

 

How much content is the right amount on Category pages?

Category pages are really designed to group together content with a similar subject.
That said it is also a page on your website so why not optimise it and target a keyword?
To optimise a category page you shouldn’t stick 1000’s of words purely to target the keywords. Category pages shouldn’t really have that many words so try not to make the pages look unnatural. Be selective with your copy.

 

Should I remove old pages that are spammy?

Spammy pages are spammy pages, it doesn’t matter how old they are.
The best option is to rewrite the content so it isn’t spammy, but if not possible bin it.
Don’t forget to set up a redirect though!

 

Does Structured Data help my rankings?

Sadly not, if only it was that easy. Structured data helps the search engines understand more about your content and makes it easier for them to add to their index.
It does not provide any “authoritative signal”.

 

That’s it for this month, please share with family and friends if you think they need some SEO news in their lives!

 

Algorithm updates

 

Around the 4th May Google released one of their core algorithm updates. As mentioned last month in our SEO report covering April 2020 Google perform these core updates about 3 times a year.

These core updates can affect a very large amount of websites. All the SEO discussions i have read makes me think this one is very large indeed.

Google confirmed that this update was completed on the 19th May 2020. Local algorithm update: There looks to have been an update rolling out over the first week of May 2020.

Although Google has said they did not release a large update. They have also been a smaller update on 20th May, unconfirmed though.

 

 

Speed

 

My favourite SEO subject is back in the headlines once more. Google confirmed that the speed of a website IS a ranking factor, once again.

However, only a very small one.

That said, there are endless stats that show how important it is to have a fast website so please keep working on it!

 

Manual URL submission

 

Google reminded everyone this month that you do not need to manually add your new URL’s to Search Console to get it indexed, they will automatically find it via a sitemap or crawl from a linking page.

If you do need to add them manually as Google is not finding them then there is most likely something wrong with your navigation or internal linking.

That said, if you want the page to index quickly then go ahead and submit manually.

 

Soft 404

 

If you receive a soft 404 message by some of your pages within Search Console this is a sign that you may be linking to them too many times internally.

I’m not sure if Google has ever said that before??

 

Slow Ranking Decline

 

If you are starting to see a slow decline in organic traffic it could be that your content is less relevant for today. Have a look at those pages and make any updates you might need.

This could also be the reason if you are seeing fewer pages being indexed too.

 

My Business

 

If you are a shop and offer curbside pickup to help with the current Caronavirus situation there is now a button you can add to your listings.

This is a good idea if you are a shop owner you really should look into this.

 

 

That’s it for this month’s report, please all stay safe and help your website perform better!

Welcome to this month’s SEO report covering all the important updates in the World of SEO for April 2020. If you missed a previous month here is a link to our Monthly SEO Reports.

As you would imagine the search engines are not making too many changes to their algorithms at this time and instead providing a good search result for Coronavirus searches. Providing useful tips and help to official health websites to rank well for key terms.
Therefore, there are not too many changes to report on, but, changes are coming!

Speaking of coronavirus, searches for the virus are the most searches terms EVER!

 

Algorithms

Every 3 months or so Google performs a core update which can shake the rankings a little. The last one started rolling out on the 13th January (SEO Report for January 2020) so one is due soon.
It can take up to two weeks to fully roll out so you will need to check your rankings through-out those weeks. I will let you know when they release it.

16th April looks to have been a Google algorithm update, not confirmed by Google.

 

Crawling

Google has confirmed that they are not slowing down crawling websites due to the coronavirus – meaning they are not focusing on the virus data more than yours.
If your content isn’t being crawled and not indexed as much, check that your site is not sharing the server with a health site which might get more attention at this time.

 

Sitelinks in search results

If your website is in a position that should display site links of your website but isn’t, it could be due to your sites structure. If the architecture of your website is too flat Google might not display the site links.
Tip: if this is the case install breadcrumb schema and build up the structure to be more layered.

 

Froogle

Now, this is a name from the past!
In case you don’t remember or just didn’t know of Froogle, it was a free version of Google shopping.
Quite a while ago Google thought of the great idea of charging people to advertise on their platforms and closed down Froogle.
Well, Froogle is back!
At least for now anyway. Google says that they were going to bring it back anyway but decided to bring forward due to the coronavirus situation.
So, if you have something to sell, enjoy free adverts whilst you can as I suspect it won’t last forever.

 

Headings

A few months ago Google confirmed that heading tags do not help with SEO. These are the H1 and H2 etc tags.
Back then in our October 2019 report, I recommended that Google have a habit of changing their minds and to keep using them.
This month they said that once you get down to H6 they don’t help your SEO.
So, that means H (heading) tags from H1 to H5 DO help your websites SEO, SHOCK!!! 🙂
Tip: Keep optimising your H1 and H2, maybe not so much the other heading tags though.

 

That’s it for this month, stay safe everyone!

 

Algorithm

This month we have seen large Google algorithm updates – mainly not confirmed by Google – which may have affect your search rankings:

• 10th March
• 17th March
• 24th March

Bing have also confirmed that there has been a lot of algorithm updates through-out March, much more than normal. Recommend checking your Bing search results too!

 

Mobile First Indexing

Google have re-confirmed that ALL websites will be using Mobile First Indexing as of September 2020. Recommend checking why your site hasn’t moved over already and fix any issues before this date as your mobile traffic could be affected.

 

Nofollow

In last months SEO report (and previous reports for that matter) I mentioned that Google could start using nofollow links as signals for their search results algorithm.
Google have confirmed this is now possible – 1st March 2020 was the date – but as yet they haven’t made any changes, YET!

 

Bing

This month Bing had a bug in their indexing which stopped whole sites from being indexed. This was only found out by someone looking at their Bing Webmaster Analytics. From their they requested Bing to look into it.
It pays to check Bing’s Webmaster Tools as well as Googles. I recommend checking all your sites are ok as Bing are NOT contacting website owners if this problem is affecting them.

 

Shopify & WordPress get Google advantage

Many people including some SEO’s think Shopify and WordPress websites get a boost in search engine rankings.
Google have confirmed that this NOT the case.
As if it would be that easy. 🙂

 

Google My Business

Car dealerships can now have multiple entries for each dealership, each car manufacturer and also each department within each.
So, lots of areas there to exploit if you are in this business.

 

Pagination

Google have once again recommend using headers (H tags) for paginated pages, also include title tags on NEXT/PREV buttons, you can make them quite specific to explain the next page.

 

Website Search Results

If your website has internal search results – often CRM’s like WordPress offer this – and you allow Google to index those search pages it will water down the other pages in search engines for your website.
This is to control the crawl budget and will affect larger sites more.

I bet you never thought that?

Don’t forget to test if you are going to do this, identify direct traffic going to your search page and make sure there are replacement pages to serve them.

 

Featured Snippets

A subject i have written a lot about over the last few months is that Google are removing the right hand side featured snippets, often – if not all – not moving to the main search results.
This month I think the update is complete, I have not seen a featured snippet on the right now for a while.

 

AMP

Google have come out and said they do not prioritise AMP pages.
Hmm 😉

Algorithms

2nd/3rd February looks like an algorithm update rolled out. Not confirmed by Google.

7th/8th February had a big algorithm update which lasted for 5 days. This affected a lot of sites.

14th February we saw a smaller algorithm update focusing on local search results.

 

Is Length important?

When it comes to URL length no it isn’t. Google have confirmed that the length of a URL is not a ranking factor.

 

Indexing

An interesting quote from Google this month “Google index lots of pages that do not appear in search results”.
So, don’t think that if your page is indexed, it will be seen by anyone. Always monitor and make your content better than your competition.

 

NoFollow

As per my monthly SEO post covering September 2019, Google announced that they will be using nofollow links differently as of 1st March 2020.
So what will change?
Google says, nothing, in fact you will probably not see anything at all in terms of ranking changes.
We will see!

 

Mobile Indexing

For regular readers of my blog posts you will know all about mobile indexing, if you are new to SEO or this blog I recommend quickly reading up on my monthly SEO posts on this as this subject is getting more serious.
By the end of the year, Google wants all websites to be using mobile first indexing.
I recommend logging into your Google Search Console and fix any mobile problems as quick as possible.

 

Image Licensing

There is now a new Schema mark up for image licensing, if you create images and use licences I recommend you to add the markup to your images.

 

Featured Snippets

The right-hand side featured snippets/knowledge panels in Google search results are being removed BUT not moving to the left-hand side (main listings). This is seeing a 60% decrease in traffic for this search result posts.
More information on this I think will be coming in the near future.

 

Becareful!

The coronavirus is already affecting many people and businesses, please be careful out there!

Algorithms

Lots of talk about an update around 7th/8th January, not seen anything myself though.

A BIG core update from Google was rolled out around the 12th of January. These happen several times a year and can be big, like this one.
It can take up to two weeks to completely roll out.

27th January looks like another update occurred, hard to tell as there are a lot of changes happening at the moment.

 

Text on page

Even if your websites page is to promote a non textual product, like a podcast for example, you will still next text on your page to help it rank.
Quite obvious really but nice to get a reminder.

 

Old style m. Pages

If you have some old versions of your page, say you have converted from m.yourdomain.com to a reponsive site. You should delete the old versions.
Google could still read the old versions and act on them.

 

Keyword Research

Bing this month said in the near future you should not optimise for keywords but for keyword intent.
Google on the other hand said that keyword optimisation isn’t going away anytime soon.
Whichever it is I recommend analysing intend keywords if you are not already, search engines are very clever and know about intent.

 

Structured Data

Nice quick one, structured data doesn’t affect rankings.

 

Featured Snippet

Google have made an update (23rd January) that could affect a lot of sites. Google will now not show the same site again if they are part of the Featured Snippet on the first page.
I have read a lot on this subject and heard from a lot of SEO’s that there can be a higher CTR from the first position after the featured snippet compared to the link in the featured snippet.
I have also seen this with my clients too.
So, now we have to optimise for that position instead! 🙂

 

.GOV

Another quick one, links from a .gov domains don’t give your site more of a ranking boost compared to another TLD like .com.