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In this episode, we discuss one day traffic spikes in GA, full coverage of the product review update, page quality checks, getting published on Google News, a breakdown of misunderstood ranking factors and more!

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

• Seeing one day traffic spikes in Google analytics?
• The latest on the Google Product Reviews update
• Page quality checks must be completed before Google will allow indexing
• Google talks about the average position metric in GSC
• Should you allow Googlebot to crawl your /feed URLs?
• Are you a newly launched news publisher struggling to get into Google News? You may want to hear this…
• Do abbreviation tags help with rankings?
• What effect does trailing slash vs. non trailing slash URLs have on SEO?
• Misunderstood ranking ranking factors explained
• Here’s a handy template for Google Tag Manager
• Pagination guidance from John Mueller
• Google discusses author page info
• Do Google My Business identity attributes impact ranking?
• An increase in automatically added services on GMB listings has been spotted
• Pay attention to this if you’re a car dealership
• A tool that allows you to analyze your Discover Activity takeout
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

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Possible minor updates between April 18 and April 23

Search Engine Round Table is reporting there was significant chatter across SEO forums about a possible April 22/23 update. So far our data is not showing much of note.

We do have a number of sites seeing changes that look like algo wins or hits on April 18. However, most of the changes are mild. We’ll note this date in our list of known and unknown algorithm updates for now. As we get more data, if this seems to be more significant, we may investigate further in the future.

Google’s advice (and plans) for helping webmasters deal with indexing concerns

Following up on the success of their pilot program for reporting urgent bugs, Google has announced that they are expanding their efforts to also focus on indexing issues. They’d first advise that site owners consult with the forums and support documentation and if they’ve exhausted options there, then they could use their Google Search Console to report an issue.

At the moment this is only being piloted in the US (full US-wide rollout within the next week) but we anticipate that other countries could begin to see soon enough (fingers crossed!).

The best way to resolve indexing issues is to first consult our community forums and support documentation, which also highlight helpful tools: https://t.co/zAnLOaWsCYhttps://t.co/IVZUc0z8H9

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) April 28, 2021

We are currently piloting this in the US only and it should be fully available to all in the US within a week or less. We will reassess the usefulness of a support expansion in this direction in a few weeks.

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) April 28, 2021

Improvements made to Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool

Super handy little addition to the PageSpeed Insights tool. You can now see screenshots of your elements making it even easier and faster to optimize. Don’t forget that page speed is a ranking factor, and now with everything switched to MFI, it is even more important to ensure your pages, especially on mobile, are up to speed (see what I did there?). 

PageSpeed Insights now includes Lighthouse's element screenshots! https://t.co/WGqCEsyDZK

Find your page's most important elements even more quickly; click on the screenshot to reveal the element in the context of the whole page 🔎🖼 pic.twitter.com/W6AKlHVbqV

— Lighthouse (@____lighthouse) April 27, 2021

Google is inviting you to their Web Stories workshop

This is Google’s first Web Stories workshop that will teach you all about them, plus give you tips to improve your content. There isn’t a lot of information available on it yet, but you can register here and hopefully get more information on offerings and what you can expect. 

Pssst. Wanna learn about Web Stories? We gotchu! 👍

Join our first-ever virtual Web Stories Workshop to see what the hype’s about and level up your content at the same time.

Apply here 👉 https://t.co/cxn2LPiUYn pic.twitter.com/20qPdqUX1h

— Google Web Creators (@WebCreators) April 20, 2021

Is it possible to build too many links too fast to a page?

John Mueller was asked a question on Twitter if building too many links quickly could result in a page not ranking. John replied saying that “[Google doesn’t] count links like that.” But he does caution against building links unnaturally. He says “in general I’d be cautious about “building links” if that involves you making the links yourself, since those would be considered unnatural and against our guidelines.” 

We don't count links like that.

That said, in general I'd be cautious about "building links" if that involves you making the links yourself, since those would be considered unnatural and against our guidelines.

— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) April 19, 2021

John Mueller comments on the ideal placement of breadcrumbs

According to John, the placement of your breadcrumbs doesn’t matter for SEO. He says that they’re ideal crawling and for rich results but neither is reliant on the exact on page placement. We tend to suggest that clients should leverage them above the fold though given it’s good for user experience and because links higher on the page tend to be given a little more weight. 

Great question — no, the placement doesn't matter for SEO. We use breadcrumbs for crawling (finding internal links) & for rich results (structured data); both don't depend on placement of the breadcrumbs.

— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) April 25, 2021

We are definitely seeing some changes happening since Friday on Bright Local’s Flux tool. It looks like the biggest spike was April 23, which coincides with the possible algorithm changes Marie mentioned above. We haven’t heard much from any of the local SEOs, but will keep you updated if something of note has been pointed out.

Using Sitebulb to identify SEO issues (sponsored)

As SEO professionals, one of the most important things we need to be able to do, is identify the SEO issues that actually matter.

Sitebulb takes crawl data and automatically applies over 300 checks, identifying patterns, common SEO issues and opportunities for you to explore further.

The prioritisation system puts the most important issues front and centre, guiding your audit workflow and enabling you to focus your time on the most significant areas.

This allows you to quickly spot problem areas and quick wins, saving you time and making your client reports highly actionable.

If you’d like to give Sitebulb a try for free, you can get a special, extended trial licence with ‘Search News You Can Use’. Just go to: Sitebulb.com/SearchNews

Long Tail SEO in 2021: How You Can Have It All or Die Trying – Dr. Peter J. Meyers
https://moz.com/blog/long-tail-seo
April 21, 2021

This is a cracking wee post from Dr. Pete on the Moz blog, covering changes that a lot of SEO professionals pay far too little attention to – long tail search traffic. The reason for this focus, according to Dr. Pete, is that Google’s advancements in NLP have had a significant impact on long tail search. 

Advanced Core Web Vitals: A Technical SEO Guide – Jamie Indigo
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/technical-seo-core-web-vitals-guide/402501/
April 26, 2021

As Jamie Indigo highlights in this fantastic guide, webmasters should be trying to improve on their Core Web Vitals metrics regardless of SEO, because real humans coming to your site want a good web page experience. This should be a must read for any aspiring techSEOs tasked with diagnosing their CWV metrics/issues. 

Also to add – OK if they dont have SEO experience but obviously need web eng experience – its OK if theyre a 1st time lead too

— Jackie Chu (@jackiecchu) April 21, 2021

We are looking to hire a Sr. SEO Product Manager role with experience in python, automation, internal linking, data analysis, natural language processing, and other cool SEO stuff. If this sounds like you or someone you know, send me a message!

— Tessa Bonacci Nadik (@tessabonacci) April 22, 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:

• Seeing one day traffic spikes in Google analytics?
• The latest on the Google Product Reviews update
• Page quality checks must be completed before Google will allow indexing
• Google talks about the average position metric in GSC
• Should you allow Googlebot to crawl your /feed URLs?
• Are you a newly launched news publisher struggling to get into Google News? You may want to hear this…
• Do abbreviation tags help with rankings?
• What effect does trailing slash vs. non trailing slash URLs have on SEO?
• Misunderstood ranking ranking factors explained
• Here’s a handy template for Google Tag Manager
• Pagination guidance from John Mueller
• Google discusses author page info
• Do Google My Business identity attributes impact ranking?
• An increase in automatically added services on GMB listings has been spotted
• Pay attention to this if you’re a car dealership
• A tool that allows you to analyze your Discover Activity takeout
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

⎋ SUBSCRIBE NOW

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

Search News You Can Use (from @mhc_inc ) is the only #SEO podcast i listen to. I almost want to force it into my team's ears because it is SO insightful. https://t.co/kRgqOx7ezH

— Andrew Martin (@AndrewDoesSEO) February 27, 2020