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In this episode, we discuss Google’s new SeekToAction markup, an update to Google’s featured snippets, Google answers common Google News questions, the latest on the recent core updates and more!

Podcast is on a summer break. It will return this fall.

If you would like to subscribe, you can find the podcasts here:
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Ask Marie an SEO Question

Have a question that you want to ask Marie? You can ask them on our Q&A with Marie Haynes Consulting page and Marie will answer some of the best questions each week in podcast!

It’s well worth the $18 per month. Want to see a sample premium newsletter episode? View it here.

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

• A complete look at the algorithm news
• Google introduces SeekToAction markup for your videos
• GSC now directs developers debugging AMP page experience issues to the AMP Page Experience Guide
• Google Merchant Center now integrated with GoDaddy online store customers
• Google is testing showing the homepage URL instead of this 
• What happens if we index everything?
• Why forum posting does not work for link building
• Keyword research tip from Dan Shure
• Types of linkable assets you should be considering
• Google ignores CWVs for these 
• Google answers some common questions about appearing in Google News
• YouTube is adding an info panel on health videos to help users identify videos from authoritative sources
• Great ways to see if your traffic is down
• Can CDNs change your crawl rate?
• What too many duplicate pages with parameters can do
• Avoid this GMB Posts tactic
• A great resource for utilizing Google Data Studio
• Did you know about this free heatmap tool?
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

⎋ SUBSCRIBE NOW

With Marie off, the MHC team has been doing our best to keep you up to date with the latest Google algorithm news – specifically the June and July core updates. There hasn’t been quite as much to cover this week compared to past episodes, but here’s a rundown of the chatter so far for our premium subscribers.

Summer break from podcast 

As we’ve mentioned in the past few episodes, Marie has been off to rest after a bad kidney infection. She has decided to take the summer to spend time with her family and not rush her recovery. That means there will be a temporary break from our SNYCU podcast. We’ll continue to publish our newsletter weekly and the team will keep you updated on the latest SEO and Google news. We appreciate your patience and understanding and can’t wait to get back to recording this fall! Should you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to the MHC Twitter account or email us at help@mariehaynes.com. 

While we're taking a short break from podcast, you will be kept up to date on the latest news each week in newsletter from the MHC team.

If you have any questions for @Marie_Haynes, feel free to send them over to the MHC account and we'll do our best to help 🙂 https://t.co/2pMbR5Zdq8

— Marie Haynes Consulting (@mhc_inc) July 21, 2021

Google Search understands when there’s a trending event and reacts to display fresh, reliable and helpful content

Google recently released a short video on how their systems recognize trending events or “critical moments”. It explains that they can detect an increase in similar searches for a particular location and adapt to serve new, reliable, and helpful content at the top of SERPs in real time. When it comes to breaking news like wildfires or other emergency content, recognizing it quickly is important, but there is also a need to serve authoritative sources in these situations to make sure searchers are getting the best information possible. At MHC we have always preached authority (the A in E-A-T), but Google is really emphasizing and favouring those who have it as well. Now more than ever, and we don’t see it going away anytime soon.

This short video explains how Google Search understands when there's a trending event and reacts to display fresh, reliable and helpful content, such as showing maps, local resources and news information during wildfires or other crisis events. https://t.co/wy2L3eEusv pic.twitter.com/Djs1mPq34G

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) July 13, 2021

Update to Google’s featured snippets

Google has made a point of bolding information that directly answers or relates to a searcher’s original query, allowing users to find the exact information they need very quickly. Although a small change like bolding certain text in paragraph featured snippets may seem small, it apparently had significant improvements for users and the way they find information. However, Brodie says this should not be impacting the way SEOs approach strategies for getting featured snippets or writing content for them. At least not yet! 

Another good example of how Featured Snippets have changed for some sites on Google. Now that the bolding update has rolled out, it's now faster for searchers to find the answer to some queries. Appears to work quite well from what I've seen so far. https://t.co/WgVpLFc7or pic.twitter.com/IlXlZoBLrQ

— Brodie Clark (@brodieseo) July 17, 2021

Different language versions of the same page should exercise self-referencing canonicals

If your site offers the same content in different languages, one thing that you should keep in mind is that the canonical page should always point to itself. As often happens, webmasters tend to point the canonical to the English version of the page, however, as Jackie Chu reminded us during the most recent MozCon, these pages should always be self-canonical.   

On different language versions of the same page: “The canonical should point to itself, always, rather than to the English version of the page.” @jackiecchu #MozCon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 12, 2021

Canonicals for dummies – understanding them as someone new to SEO

For those who want a simple understanding of canonicals, this is a great analogy! 

To understand the concept of a canonical tag, think about a piece of art: there might be only one original ‘Awesome Art Thing’ and all its copies are duplicates. A canonical tag is a note on the copy saying ‘This is a reproduction of The Awesome Art Thing’. #learnSEO

— Kristina Azarenko 🔥 (@azarchick) July 14, 2021

Businesses can now disable their phone number from appearing in their GMB

Simply put, you can disable your phone number. But why would you want to? For businesses that don’t have phone numbers like an ecommerce site, or a farmer’s market, this is a way to avoid adding one. If this applies to your business type, follow Joy’s steps on how to do this.

How to Succeed With Google Posts: What We Learned From Analyzing Over 1,000 Google Posts – Joy Hawkins
https://www.sterlingsky.ca/google-posts/
July 19, 2021

Ever wonder how to make your Google Posts better? Well, you’ll want to read up on these case study findings from our friend, Joy Hawkins at Sterling Sky. We mentioned this briefly in a past episode, but now her findings have been published in full. 

In short, the study has found:

• COVID and offer posts perform better than event and update posts which have lower views and click-through rates.
• Posts which include titles with normal capitalization get more clicks as opposed to posts without titles or, titles in all-caps. 
• Making use of emojis in posts has shown to get more clicks than posts without emojis.
• Photos in posts can be very effective in increasing clicks, provided they are not stock images.
• Posts with the most activity contain a special or discount, a call to action, and have a level of urgency to them.

Just a reminder that we are actively looking for an SEO Specialist for our team.

Looking for someone with tech & ecommerce SEO chops, and/or a major desire to learn!

100% remote (within U.S.), $50-70k range. Amazing benefits, great team culture, etc.https://t.co/lP7eKH4eFy

— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) July 15, 2021

I'm looking for an SEO Manager to join my team at shopDisney. The position will be ~6 month contract to start. Looking for someone with a few years focused on e-commerce that can hit the ground running and assist during the huge upcoming shopping season. DMs are open. pic.twitter.com/CXKtH9TRlU

— Andrew Coco SEO (@AyyyCoco) July 15, 2021

Looking for flexible work? Terakeet is #hiring for both in-person and #remote positions! 🚀 Check out our available positions in #Recruiting, #HR, #SEO, #Marketing, and more: https://t.co/RrA38wKjxZ pic.twitter.com/qeEnaS4gHh

— Terakeet (@Terakeet) July 19, 2021

🚨🚨 AMAZING JOB ALERT 🚨🚨

Are you a content marketing / earned link specialist looking to step up?

Role is fully remote and has great progression opportunities and performance bonuses.

All the details can be found on the job page – Go check it out! https://t.co/kZShvbzzDt

— Marketing Signals (@mrketingsignals) July 20, 2021

🚨🚨 AMAZING JOB ALERT 🚨🚨

Are you a content marketing / earned link specialist looking to step up?

Role is fully remote and has great progression opportunities and performance bonuses.

All the details can be found on the job page – Go check it out! https://t.co/kZShvbzzDt

— Marketing Signals (@mrketingsignals) July 20, 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:

• A complete look at the algorithm news
• Google introduces SeekToAction markup for your videos
• GSC now directs developers debugging AMP page experience issues to the AMP Page Experience Guide
• Google Merchant Center now integrated with GoDaddy online store customers
• Google is testing showing the homepage URL instead of this 
• What happens if we index everything?
• Why forum posting does not work for link building
• Keyword research tip from Dan Shure
• Types of linkable assets you should be considering
• Google ignores CWVs for these 
• Google answers some common questions about appearing in Google News
• YouTube is adding an info panel on health videos to help users identify videos from authoritative sources
• Great ways to see if your traffic is down
• Can CDNs change your crawl rate?
• What too many duplicate pages with parameters can do
• Avoid this GMB Posts tactic
• A great resource for utilizing Google Data Studio
• Did you know about this free heatmap tool?
• 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.

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