Search Engine Journal: Google Publishes Guide To Current & Retired Ranking Systems. “A new guide to Google’s ranking systems will keep you informed about which systems Google uses to rank search results and which ones are retired. Additionally, Google introduces new terminology in its latest guide, distinguishing between ranking ‘systems’ and ranking ‘updates.’”
Search Engine Land: Mastodon: The new way to connect with other SEO pros. “Although you can use Mastodon as an alternative to Twitter, there is no such requirement. This article will discuss how digital marketers can join Mastodon, what to expect, and how to use it. I will also highlight a few tips to make it easier for you to absorb the flow of information in Mastodon.”
Search Engine Journal: Google’s John Mueller: “Search Is Never Guaranteed”. “Google Search Advocate John Mueller said, ‘search is never guaranteed,’ in response to a site owner asking why their content isn’t indexed. In the r/TechSEO forum on Reddit, a user is dissatisfied that a website re-publishing identical content is getting indexed faster.”
Search Engine Roundtable: Mastodon Is Using Rel Noreferrer On Outbound Links Causing Visits To Appear As Direct Traffic In Google Analytics. “As I’ve been sharing on Mastodon more, and as activity on the social network surges overall, I’ve been trying to track visits to content from Mastodon…. I ended up testing the tracking situation by sharing some links on Mastodon and seeing how that was tracked in Google Analytics. If you’re a user of Mastodon, and want to analyze traffic from the growing social network, I don’t think you’re going to like what I found.”
Bleeping Computer: 15,000 sites hacked for massive Google SEO poisoning campaign. “Hackers are conducting a massive black hat search engine optimization (SEO) campaign by compromising almost 15,000 websites to redirect visitors to fake Q&A discussion forums. The attacks were first spotted by Sucuri, who says that each compromised site contains approximately 20,000 files used as part of the search engine spam campaign, with most of the sites being WordPress.”
CNET: Study Says Almost 30% of People Are Redoing or Refining Their Google Searches. “Almost 30% of people are having to redo their Google searches, either by refining or extending queries, according to research published earlier this month by SEMRush, an online marketing software company.”
Cointelegraph: Google still promoting crypto phishing sites, warns Binance boss. “Despite Google’s strict policies on crypto marketing for its ads service, scammers have still been slipping through the cracks over the past few years. At times, scam websites have even been displayed higher than legitimate crypto and blockchain projects.”
Search Engine Journal: Goodbye Google Webmaster Guidelines, Hello Google Search Essentials. “Google is officially rebranding the Webmaster Guidelines as ‘Search Essentials,’ which comes with a simplified refresh consisting of only three sections. In addition to making the former Google Webmaster Guidelines easier to understand, Google’s motivation behind the refresh is to move away from the term ‘webmaster.’” Good. I’ve always hated that term and tried to use “Web wrangler”.
Search Engine Journal: Google On The Use Of AI Images. “In a recent Search off the Record podcast, Google’s Lizzi Sassman and John Mueller discussed the use of AI generated images on websites. Some of their opinions might seem surprising given how AI generated text content is treated by Google.”
Search Engine Roundtable: Google Still Working On Getting Timestamps Accurate In Search Results. “Google is still working on getting the timestamps accurate in the search results and news search results. Several publishers, including the Director of SEO at USA Today and the SEO Editor for Wall Street Journal, complained about the inaccurate timestamps in Google Search the other day.”
Tubefilter: TikTok just upped its video descriptions to 2,200 characters. Here’s why.. “The character limit will allow videomakers to include much, much longer descriptions—and therefore potentially many, many more SEO terms. Adding more characters means creators can go from saying they went to a cool bakery in San Francisco to specifically naming the bakery, dishes they had, and maybe even telling a little story about their experiences.”
Search Engine Journal: Google Announces September 2022 Core Algorithm Update. “Google announced a Core Algorithm Update on September 12, 2022. The official Google list of announced updates stated that it will take up to two weeks to finish rolling out. The initial response from the search community was generally positive although some affiliate marketing Facebook groups were noticeably muted.”
Search Engine Land: Google helpful content update is now done rolling out. “Google has confirmed that the helpful content update is now finished rolling out. The update took 15 days to roll out, starting on August 25, 2022 and ending on September 9, 2022. Google has posted it completed today, September 9th. As a reminder, Google’s helpful content update is a sitewide signal. It targets websites that have a relatively high amount of unsatisfying or unhelpful content, where the content is written for search engines first.”
Search Engine Roundtable: Poll: Only 20% Noticed Ranking Changes After Google’s Helpful Content Update. “As we have reported, so far, the Google helpful content update seems pretty minor in terms of what SEOs and tools are picking up, despite what we all thought would happen. Keep in mind, that the update is not done and we do expect more from it. A recent poll by Aleyda Solis confirmed that, showing that only 20% of SEOs noticed ranking changes, either positive or negative, since the update.”
Search Engine Roundtable: Google Provides Examples Of How To Improve Your Meta Descriptions. “Google has updated its meta descriptions help documentation to provide five examples of how to improve your meta descriptions. This was added yesterday, plus Google did some formatting updates to the page.”
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