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In this episode, we discuss massive Google Analytics spikes from bots, a possible algorithm update, Google’s new search icon and what it could mean, how Google could penalize a network of sites, and so much more!

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The following topics are covered in the premium version of this episode:

• Possible Google Update January 27, 2021
• An update to Google Search Console’s Performance report
• Web Stories are best when they tell a full story, not a teaser
• Google can penalize a network of sites for the same Manual Action
• Reminder: data-vocabulary.org markup is no longer eligible for rich results
• Browse structured data changes with ease
• Would Google take issue with multiple internal links to the URL on a webpage?
• Tips for Enterprise SEO
• Do top position rankings in DuckDuckGo mean that Google rankings will follow suit?
• Google updates Ads policy for sexually suggestive themes and what this could mean for organic
• How to flag low rated GMB reviews
• Should multi-location businesses link their GMBs to location pages or the site’s homepage?
• New additions to the GMB Insights metrics
• Unapplied edits visible in GMB and ability to ‘Send edit feedback’
• Google is working on resolving a bug related to GMB
• Digital PR tools you should be considering for 2021
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

⎋ SUBSCRIBE NOW

Huge spikes in bot traffic in GA for many sites January 31

Every Monday morning, the analytics team at MHC reviews each of our clients’ analytics to see if there are patterns suggestive of a Google update happening. On first glance, it really looked like many of our clients were seeing massive improvements in their Google organic traffic. However, it turns out that for each of these sites, the traffic was not real.

If your traffic increased dramatically recently, you can check Google Analytics using the steps suggested below by Steve Lamar. You’ll likely find evidence of a site called “bot-traffic.icu” affecting your numbers. This traffic is not real and will not help improve your rankings. 

This appears to be a more sophisticated bot attack than we have seen in the past. In 2016 when many sites were being hit en masse with referral spam in Google Analytics, the fixes were relatively simple. In this case, it appears that there is no easy answer to stop this from happening or to fix this issue retroactively. However, you can set up a segment that excludes this traffic from your reports.

There are many reports of inflated traffic in Google Analytics hitting Organic Search.

Here's how to find out if your site was impacted and take steps minimize the impact.https://t.co/Y5pvCEOkYW @Marie_Haynes

— Steve Lamar (@StevejLamar) February 1, 2021

Many are asking why a company would spam the web like this? If you go to bot-traffic.icu, you’ll get redirected to a page that is titled, “Cheap Website Traffic”. This page touts that for $0 you can get 6000 hits to your website every month, and for $99.99 they’ll send you a million hits. Gah! The only use we can see for this right now is for unscrupulous folks who are trying to inflate their stats. 

This spam has cost many businesses money and has given extra work to SEOs this week for sure. And we bet that a few of you thought you’d won the lottery with a Google update this week!

Winners and Losers of Google’s 2020 Updates

This article by Lily Ray looks at Sistrix data to tell us about which types of sites did well or poorly with Google updates in 2020. We had three core updates in 2020 – January, May and December. We would encourage you to read the article.

Thank you Hamlet Batista 

Our team was devastated to hear of the passing of Hamlet Batista last week. While many of us did not know him personally, we always looked to him for great articles and advice, many of which we covered in this newsletter. 

To pay tribute, the MHC team donated to this go fund me in support of his family, and have linked it here if you’d like to do the same. 

We want to thank him for all of his teachings he has shared with us, and this newsletter. 

A close friend of ours and his, Lily Ray, wrote a beautiful tribute to Hamlet that we thought we’d share. Her words speak to the person he was, and the contribution he has made to the industry. Rest in peace Hamlet.

Google rolls out (beta) a new icon in Search designed for added context surrounding a site

This is another way Google is aiming to improve the search experience. A new icon will show you information about that site from Wikipedia (another good example of the weight of Wikipedia) or if there is no Wiki info available, it will show when Google first indexed the site, as well as if the site is secure. 

We are interested to see if users will use this function before going to a site. It’s definitely something to pay attention to, but could be a way Google is trying to improve the rankings for sites that aren’t giant authorities. 

Google Search is now rolling out a special icon that provides more information about the source of a result, if your connection to it will be secure, and more. This is a beta feature for now, offered in English in the US. https://t.co/9Vovj6vYcG pic.twitter.com/vL3FZOTvQg

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) February 1, 2021

Glenn has already spotted instances of this live:

OK, I'm seeing the new "about this" feature in the SERPs already. Here are two examples for desktop and mobile. The first (Amazon) has the Wikipedia info and link, the other (Consumer Reports) has info about when it was first indexed. pic.twitter.com/SbiVZ1MxWg

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) February 1, 2021

In Marie’s podcast this week, she has invited Lily Ray to chat for a bit about this. You can listen here.

Google ranks pages but the overall site quality is still very much important

SEOs argue all the time about whether or not page level signals trump site level signals or vice versa. Barry Schwartz put together a compilation of some different opinions on the topic including his own. Take page speed for example, an older page may have enough source to provide an individual page score but a new page on the site at same time may require Google to look at the overall score of the site to determine the rankings. With so many factors at play in rankings, this ends up being an ‘it depends’ situation. 

Your site’s Core Web Vitals “score” won’t be differentiated by page or site type 

According to John, Google’s Page Speed Insights metrics don’t differentiate by site or page type. However, he says that site owners could feel this way given the sites they’re competing against may have similar traits.

Quick Q for @JohnMu: In Core Web Vitals calculations, PSI provides the percentage of importance for each category. Does this ever change depending on use case? For example, news sites and other online publications have the worst CLS.

— John McAlpin (@seocounseling) February 1, 2021

No, we don't differentiate by site or page type. However, in Search, you're usually competing with sites that are similar to yours, so it can sometimes feel a bit like that.

— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) February 1, 2021

Ahrefs tip of the week (Sponsored)

Did you know that you can use Ahrefs to make a quick approximation on how authoritative a domain is? Ahrefs Domain Rank score is a score that Ahrefs creates that is meant to approximate Google’s assessment of authority for a site. 

While Ahrefs doesn’t share exactly how they determine DR, it is primarily connected to the authority of the domains that are linking to them. Ahrefs has shown that a DR usually correlates with the number of keywords a domain has ranking.

Why does this matter? At MHC we’re not a fan of buying links. But we are definitely fans of getting your brand, your authors, and your products mentioned on authoritative sites as this can help improve Google’s assessment of E-A-T for your site. 

Even if you’re not an Ahrefs subscriber, you can check out any website using their Website Authority Checker.

Did you know that we have a free website authority checker tool?

Check it out here 👉https://t.co/lVJzqIImCh pic.twitter.com/RuFbcTp4KQ

— Ahrefs (@ahrefs) February 1, 2021

More on the battle between Google and Australia (plus Google answers some important questions)

Last week we covered the feud between Google and Australia, but now there is more to share. Google has added a notice under Google news that they are willing to support journalism. When you click to learn more, a video with the head of Google Australia discusses how this imposed law will ruin search for Australia. They take this as paying for links as they don’t show full news stories, but where you can read them, and how that undermines how search works. Google News Showcase is Google’s imposed solution under this law to prevent direct changes to the function of search. We’ll keep you posted on any new developments!

Another steady week over on BrightLocal’s Local RankFlux tool! We are seeing everything around a 2.0 average, steadily in the green. Keep in mind, if you are seeing large increases in organic traffic, there is a GSC bug that is giving false reports. More on this in the algorithm section.

How to Fix “indexed, though blocked by robots.txt” in GSC – Patrick Stox
https://ahrefs.com/blog/indexed-though-blocked-by-robots-txt/
January 28, 2021

Patrick provides a great rundown of the potential causes if you want a blocked page indexed by search engines and the most common reason for it — a robots.txt block on the URL — does not apply. Blocks can sometimes occur intermittently, making it more difficult to trace the root of the issue. We definitely recommend checking this out if you’re ever come across this!

The “Google Knows Best” Fallacy – Ryan Law
https://www.animalz.co/blog/the-google-knows-best-fallacy/
January 21, 2021

Ryan Law’s article for Animalz dives into a common idea that “Google knows best” and that most content should be written to serve what Google wants. He explains how by narrowing your tactics to equal only to what is currently ranking content, marketers often miss an opportunity to create better content for queries that currently don’t have content that is up to Google’s standards.  

Content Marketing: A Comprehensive Guide For 2021 – Fio Dossetto
https://ahrefs.com/blog/content-marketing/
January 27, 2021

We’ve all heard it before, “Content is King.” But what kind of content should you be creating when there are so many avenues to pursue? In this recommended reading, Ahrefs dives into what content marketing is and how to get started. 

These are quick and easy ways to discover what kind of content you should be creating for your site. In the recommended reading Ahrefs continues with examples of 5 effective content marketing examples and 15 content marketing tips from real experts in the field.

#SEOJobs: @Roku is looking for a #TechnicalSEO Specialist to join our Web Marketing team. #SEO #WeAreRoku https://t.co/02uSmf36FL

— Natasha Robinson (@natasharobinson) January 28, 2021

#SEOJobs: @Roku is hiring a SEO Specialist (contract) to work with our Web Marketing team. #SEO #WeAreRoku https://t.co/sDTWYhGez0

— Natasha Robinson (@natasharobinson) January 28, 2021

We're hiring @kickpointinc! Whether you are (or want to be) a generalist or you are (or want to become) super specialized in a specific area of marketing, we can help you build a role here that works for your skills and goals. More details on our site. https://t.co/mJ39saZgmx

— Dana DiTomaso (@danaditomaso) January 26, 2021

#Hiring a #TechSEO freelancer for 3 month rolling contract – #WFH in England for agency’s enterprise #SEO work.
👍Apply with your CV jobs@clockworkTalent.com with your day rate ASAP#sneakpeekjobs @clockworkTalent #seojobs #digitaljobs pic.twitter.com/Rn1dhaq26Z

— Natasha Woodford (@TashaWoodford) February 1, 2021

Premium members also get the following:

It’s well worth the $18 per month!

The following topics are covered in the premium version of this episode:

• Possible Google Update January 27, 2021
• An update to Google Search Console’s Performance report
• Web Stories are best when they tell a full story, not a teaser
• Google can penalize a network of sites for the same Manual Action
• Reminder: data-vocabulary.org markup is no longer eligible for rich results
• Browse structured data changes with ease
• Would Google take issue with multiple internal links to the URL on a webpage?
• Tips for Enterprise SEO
• Do top position rankings in DuckDuckGo mean that Google rankings will follow suit?
• Google updates Ads policy for sexually suggestive themes and what this could mean for organic
• How to flag low rated GMB reviews
• Should multi-location businesses link their GMBs to location pages or the site’s homepage?
• New additions to the GMB Insights metrics
• Unapplied edits visible in GMB and ability to ‘Send edit feedback’
• Google is working on resolving a bug related to GMB
• Digital PR tools you should be considering for 2021
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

⎋ SUBSCRIBE NOW

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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.

Marie’s newsletter is a game changer because it manages to cut through the fluff and deliver high-quality information that is not only really important for those that do SEO, but it is presented in a format that is really easy to absorb.

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