SNYCU Ep. 150 - Sept. 16, 2020 - Light Version

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In this episode we discuss how Google has made strides to ensure users are getting trustworthy information in search, Google discover traffic impacts, another delay in Google Search Console Index Coverage reporting and more!

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In this episode:

Paid members also get the following:

  • Do you need to wait for another core update to run in order to see recovery?
  • Was your Google Discover traffic affected by the August 10 Google glitch?
  • Google talks about their latest investments in information quality and how they're finding new ways to make sure you can find trustworthy info on Search
  • SEO Mythbusting discusses content (ft. Lily Ray)
  • Flashback item: how to prioritize your link building efforts and opportunities
  • How to improve your organic clickthrough rate
  • Handy cheat sheet showing the difference between Featured Snippets and Rich Results
  • How an ‘impression’ triggers in Google Search Console?
  • Google talks .jobs domains and general tips on top-level domains
  • Changes ahead regarding how organic traffic can be classified in Chrome v85
  • Sistrix analyzes Core Web Vitals metrics on various CMS platforms
  • New Google My Business categories are added regularly, are you staying up-to-date?
  • Leverage those GMB attribute keywords -- here’s how!
  • Check out this Knowledge Graph search tool
  • My tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO and Local SEO articles

Algorithm Updates

We did not see evidence of a significant Google update happening during the last week. Barry Schwartz did note that many of the algo weather tools are showing increases on September 15 that look typical of an update. However, he did not find community chatter to support this idea.

As always, you can find our thoughts here on the latest Google algorithm updates.

MHC Announcements

Thank you for 150 great episodes!

We want to say thank you to our subscribers for 150 episodes! We are so grateful for our loyal readers and podcast listeners. Thank you for sticking with us, giving us feedback and helping us grow! We couldn’t do it without you! 

If you want to stay up to date with the latest SNYCU, follow us on Twitter @mhc_inc

Google Announcements

Another delay in Search Console Index Coverage data

The Search Console Index Coverage report was experiencing more delays. This is the second delay in as many weeks. This is only a reporting issue, not ranking, indexing or crawling. Google has not yet reported that this has been fixed at the time of writing, however Barry Schwartz has reported this may be fixed. 

Great reminder here from John. This does not affect indexing. Keep working hard to improve your site. 

Google SERP Changes

SEOs have spotted a featured snippet plus how-to schema hybrid mobile test

Brodie and Glenn have spotted this test in action which sees a website earning 2x the SERP real estate. 

First off, this is a useful reminder that schema can be highly valuable to a website. Even more though, it’s important your schema is implemented correctly and all fields are valid. In the following example, some fields are missing which are causing somewhat less complete (and less appealing) carousel to be seen.

Other Interesting News

Bing removed geo-targeting from Bing Webmaster Tools

This is a pretty big change by Bing. They have removed geotargeting in BWT. Bing recommends using metadata or HTTP headers to notify search engines of your country and language. Read their blog post on this here. 

Ad companies Taboola and Outbrain call off their merger

Back in episode 104 in October of 2019, we first mentioned this merger. These are the companies that place square ads and sponsored content at the bottom of web pages. They were set to have an 850 million dollar merger valuing the company at 2 million but have since called it off due to observing market changes since the pandemic. Ad-based media has largely been impacted since COVID hit where we’ve seen many large companies slash their ad-spending budgets.

Local SEO - News from SterlingSky 

This week has been very quiet on the local news front. Today (Wed) we're seeing a bit of an uptick in the Local Rank Flux, but no indicator as to why, and this will likely move back down again tomorrow - we'll keep an eye on it and let you know if it's something to worry about next week.

Coronavirus related health & safety attributes launch in Google My Business

Google has added 5 new Coronavirus-related attributes to GMB that are now visible on desktop knowledge panels, local finder, and mobile results. This allows businesses to add any of these new attributes that are highly visible in the business listings and knowledge panels.

  • Appointment Required
  • Mask Required
  • Staff Get Temperature Checks
  • Staff Wear Masks
  • Temperature Check Required

Whitespark Local Search Summit Happening NOW

Today (Wednesday the 16th) is day 2 of the 3-day Whitespark Local Search Summit. If you want to watch the rest live, you can register and do so, if you want the recordings - the cost is $99 for access to watch the replays for the next 30 days. This has been chock-full of really great information so far, and is definitely worth watching if you're doing any amount of local search and SEO.

We at MHC will be adding some excellent tips throughout this newsletter and next, but there’s plenty of value in the full talks!

On-page strategies for Local SEO: ranking in multiple cities

Blake Denman of Rickety Roo wrote this guide to on-page local SEO strategies for SEMrush and it's definitely worth looking at if you're trying to rank for cities beyond your zip code, as most local businesses are. He talked about everything from analyzing the landscape to doing keyword research, promoting and publishing and internal linking. Bookmark it!

Google Brand Score tool updated at LocalU.org

Mary Bowling and Carrie Hill have updated the Google Brand Score tool/quiz at LocalU.org with recent changes to GMB and new screenshots to make it easier to understand and benchmark your own brand. As we know Google is the new homepage (h/t to Mike Blumenthal for this concept) we're even more aware of what is ranking for our brands and where we can make improvements to what searchers see in the SERPs. Use this tool on your own brand, and on competitors to find gaps, areas for improvement, and competitive analysis.

Lots of GMB Posts suddenly rejected

There is a technical issue causing photos and posts to be removed from GMB listings. It seems to be that it's happening to listings that just recently got access to the Google My Business products feature. We've seen quite a bit of this across the Local Search Forum and the GMB Product Forums. Google is aware and is working on a fix.

Recommended Reading

Google Entity Carousels: How to Earn Your Spot – Andrea Volpini
https://wordlift.io/blog/en/google-entity-carousels-how-to-earn-the-spot/
September 9, 2020

In this post, Andrea Volpini goes through a case study for how they resurrected a lost branded entry in the entity carousel for the Stamford American International School in Singapore. At MHC we are constantly learning more about how to better optimize the entity recognition of our clients, and this article provided some really helpful insights. 

 

Google’s New Page Experience Signal: An Object-Oriented Approach to UX Ranking Factors, But Will It Have Teeth? – Glenn Gabe
https://www.semrush.com/blog/google-page-experience-signal/
September 10, 2020

As you likely know by now, sometime in 2021 (most likely) you can expect the Core Web Vitals metrics to be integrated into the algo via existing ranking factors. Now that we have that out of the way, Glenn discusses Google’s ‘object-oriented approach’ to building the new page experience signal and dives into the potential power this factor might have. He considers what other future signals could be adopted, along with some notable items that Google employees have said about all of this. Visit the link for more insight on what other signals Google has been testing along with possible future considerations.

 

How to earn your place in Google’s index in 2020 – Bartosz Góralewicz
https://searchengineland.com/how-to-earn-your-place-in-googles-index-in-2020-340498
September 14, 2020

This is an in-depth article about how Google indexes content, how this has changed over time and some major problems that may prevent your site from being indexed properly. In years prior, a majority of indexing problems likely stemmed from JavaScript - The HTML of your page would be recognized but the JS would not. Over the years, Bartosz noticed more JavaScript free sites started struggling to index all of their pages. He and his team decided to build some tools to track these issues and have made these into four main categories, find them in the article. 

 

301 vs. 302 Redirects for SEO: Which Should You Use? – Joshua Hardwick
https://ahrefs.com/blog/301-vs-302-redirects/
September 8, 2020

Learn the rule of thumb in this article between 301 and 302 redirects. There are a lot of great reminders, tips and tests that help you learn the distinction between them. 

Jobs

Want More?

Paid members also get the following:

  • Do you need to wait for another core update to run in order to see recovery?
  • Was your Google Discover traffic affected by the August 10 Google glitch?
  • Google talks about their latest investments in information quality and how they're finding new ways to make sure you can find trustworthy info on Search
  • SEO Mythbusting discusses content (ft. Lily Ray)
  • Flashback item: how to prioritize your link building efforts and opportunities
  • How to improve your organic clickthrough rate
  • Handy cheat sheet showing the difference between Featured Snippets and Rich Results
  • How an ‘impression’ triggers in Google Search Console?
  • Google talks .jobs domains and general tips on top-level domains
  • Changes ahead regarding how organic traffic can be classified in Chrome v85
  • Sistrix analyzes Core Web Vitals metrics on various CMS platforms
  • New Google My Business categories are added regularly, are you staying up-to-date?
  • Leverage those GMB attribute keywords -- here’s how!
  • Check out this Knowledge Graph search tool
  • My tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO and Local SEO articles

Note: If you are seeing the light version and you are a paid member, be sure to log in (in the sidebar on desktop or below the post on mobile) and read the full article here.

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Part of the challenge of SEO is staying on top of industry news, trends, and techniques There is so much information out there that it is easy to get bogged down in information overload and trying to disseminate what's truly important from all that noise can be really time-consuming and challenging.

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If you are looking for a trusted information related to search that is highly actionable I would strongly recommend Marie's newsletter.

Paul Macnamara - Offers SEO Consulting at PaulMacnamara.com

That's it for this episode! Stay tuned for our Youtube video (my channel is here). If you want to follow me on Facebook, here is my page.

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