Search Engine Roundtable: Google Drops The Deadline For Mobile-First Indexing. “On Friday, Google’s John Mueller announced Google is doing away with the deadline for sites to switch over to mobile-first indexing. Some sites just can’t move over yet and Google won’t force them by giving them a deadline that it will continue to push off.”
Bing Blogs: Bing Content submission API is now open to all webmasters. “Evangelizing the new wave of empowering webmasters to have more control on their content which they want search engines and searchers to adopt for, Bing had launched its Bing Content Submission API in Beta mode earlier in May, this year. The API provides the ability for webmasters to notify Bing directly about the changes in their site content in real-time.”
Marketplace: Admit it, you rank your friends by how much they annoy you. Now, Google’s doing it for websites.. “By the end of the month, Google will change how it ranks websites, so that ones that are harder to load are ranked lower. Will that make websites less annoying? Simon Schnieders founded the search engine optimization agency Blue Array. He said Google’s changes are likely to help. The following is an edited transcript of our conversation.”
Mashable: Scammers target YouTube’s smart TV activation sites with help from Google. “Mashable has uncovered a scam that weaponizes the YouTube activation screen on Smart TVs. And the scam would be impossible for the fraudsters to carry out without a huge assist from Google, YouTube’s parent company.”
Fast Company: Local food delivery companies say Google devastated their business. “Say you live in Asheville, North Carolina (like I do), and you get a hankering for some of the city’s beloved BBQ. You might start with a Google search, which provides plenty of options. Clicking on a specific BBQ joint brings up a box with handy information such as a star rating, the address, business hours, and phone number. These restaurant listings, which appear in search and Maps, also often include an item called ‘Order,’ with links to big-name delivery services such as DoorDash and Grubhub. What you probably won’t see are local services like Delivery Now or Takeout Central—companies that were delivering meals a decade or more before the national giants were a twinkle in a founder’s eye.
Search Engine Roundtable: Official Google Crawling Exam. “Google has posted an exam to test your SEO knowledge on crawling. Google said this is to test your knowledge on how Google crawls and indexes websites. This is a true and false test, with explanations on why the answer is right or wrong.”
Search Engine Journal: Image Alt Text vs. Title Text vs. File Names: What’s the Difference?. “In this post, you’ll learn about the differences between the image alt attribute, image title text, and image file name, and find recommendations on how to better optimize them for search.”
Search Engine Journal: Google’s John Mueller Doesn’t See SEO Becoming Obsolete. “If Google’s machine learning algorithms could understand everything about websites on their own, there would be no need for SEO. Mueller doesn’t see the future of search headed in that direction, however. Here’s his full response.”
New York Times: The Slander Industry. “To get slander removed, many people hire a ‘reputation management’ company. In my case, it was going to cost roughly $20,000. We soon discovered a secret, hidden behind a smokescreen of fake companies and false identities. The people facilitating slander and the self-proclaimed good guys who help remove it are often one and the same.”
Search Engine Journal: Learn SEO: The 38 Best Blogs, Resources & Publications. “Today, SEO is more important than ever – and it’s also more complicated than ever. Some of these blogs are for beginners. Many aren’t, but don’t let that scare you away. That just means more opportunities to learn something nifty, right?”
Search Engine Journal: 4 COVID-19 Search Trends & How They Impact SEO. “One unexpected offshoot of COVID-19 has been that more businesses have realized the benefits SEO can provide. Google Search interest in SEO spiked at the onset of the pandemic to its highest level ever and has remained strong as companies try to stay relevant, visible, and viable. Here’s a look at 4 other ways SEO has been impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic.”
Wall Street Journal: Hospitals Hide Pricing Data From Search Results . “Hospitals that have published their previously confidential prices to comply with a new federal rule have also blocked that information from web searches with special coding embedded on their websites, according to a Wall Street Journal examination. The information must be disclosed under a federal rule aimed at making the $1 trillion sector more consumer friendly. But hundreds of hospitals embedded code in their websites that prevented Alphabet Inc.’s Google and other search engines from displaying pages with the price lists, according to the Journal examination of more than 3,100 sites.”
Search Engine Journal: 8 Useful Python Libraries for SEO & How To Use Them. “There are over 100,000 libraries available to use in Python, which can be used for functions from data analysis to creating video games. In this article, you’ll find several different libraries I have used for completing SEO projects and tasks. All of them are beginner-friendly and you’ll find plenty of documentation and resources to help you get started.”
Search Engine Journal: 44 Free Tools to Help You Find What People Search For. “It’s important to know what people are searching for and why. Check out these tools to help target keywords easily and understand users better.” As with all Search Engine Journal articles, it’s extensive, well screenshot, and filled with links.
Search Engine Journal: Google Structured Data Testing Tool Lives On At New Domain. “The loss of the Structured Data Testing Tool didn’t sit well with SEOs and site owners, and their disapproval was heard loud and clear. Google cites user feedback as the motivating factor behind today’s announcement. Here’s what’s happening with the Structured Data Testing Tool and where it can be found going forward.”
