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!