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In this episode, we discuss query intent and content cannibalization, updates to the Search Analytics API, tips to create great blog content, the latest reminders from John Mueller’s help hangouts, and lots more!

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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:

• Discussing query intent and the topic of keyword cannibalization
• Creating great blog content
• These are not direct ranking factors
• Reminder for YMYL sites
• These aren’t hard coded into Google’s algorithm
• How to measure an impression with continuous search
• Quality of content is more than just text
• More on the Quality Raters’ Guidelines changes
• Disavowing bad links: a poll
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

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There hasn’t been much chatter this past week regarding algorithm changes. We did report a bug in Google Analytics that caused data loss on the 18th of October later in this episode. Should anything change, we’ll keep you posted!

An overview of the Quality Rater Guidelines for Search

A recent Google blog post has been released by Danny Sullivan about the QRG. At MHC, we’re a big fan of using the QRG to pull valuable information.

In this blog post, it essentially states that QRG updates can be made for a variety of reasons. This year’s October 2021 changes were focused on things like refreshing language for clarity and updating organization. Specifically, clarifications of what constitutes low quality content. They also refreshed guidance on researching the reputation of sites.

Search quality raters use publicly available guidelines to evaluate the quality of Google's search results. Today, we wanted to give you an idea of how these guidelines work, and how — just like Search itself — they improve over time. https://t.co/ikEBlSq61P

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) October 19, 2021

Update to Google’s Search Analytics API

Google Discovery and News stats were previously only shown on Google Search Console but now, webmasters can also access those stats through Google’s Search Analytics API. Regex support is also being implemented along with both previously mentioned stats. 

In addition, the searchType parameter is also being renamed to type but, for the time being, site owners can still use the old parameter as Google continues to support it.

📢 The Search Analytics API, which already provides data about Search performance, is being update to also include Discover and Google News data. 🥳 In addition, Regex support has also been added to the query and page dimensions. https://t.co/B02Z641bG8 pic.twitter.com/mIvACIT8Oz

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) October 25, 2021

Internal links 101

Internal Links are very important for Googlebot but especially for users! Knowing how to use internal links properly can really improve the UX of your site as well as help explain context to Google. 

Lyndon NA (Darth Autocrat) has created this incredible Twitter thread all about internal linking. The first thread Lyndon explains what internal links are and why they’re important. The second thread he explains what it means for SEO and how to optimise your internal links. 

1/🧵
Part 1
🚨::: Internal Links – What, Why, When, Where and How ::: 🚨

As Internal Links (ILs) are back in fashion (again),
I thought I'd do a thread (2 actually!)

I'll cover explanations here,
then SEO and Optimisations in Thread 2

Pls Retweet

🧵>>>#SEO #InternalLinks pic.twitter.com/3iSFfboXas

— Darth Autocrat (Lyndon NA) (@darth_na) October 22, 2021

How Google considers trust

While we’ve all seen the power of links, this is a great reminder that when Google considers the trust of a website, it is more than just the links pointing to it. John says there are no specific metrics or scores that tell Google to trust a site, but multiple factors. Improving the overall quality of the website is a great starting point. Don’t get too caught up in the number of links, but the quality of your site and the experience you are delivering to users.

Google Analytics bug caused data loss

For about an hour on the 18th, there was a Google Analytics bug that caused unrecoverable data loss. If you’ve seen some changes in your data that day, the data loss affected some sites from 7:27 to 8:30am PDT. This didn’t seem to impact all sites, but is good to know if you see the changes for yours.

What is a topic cluster for SEO? – Samuel Schmitt
https://samuelschmitt.com/what-is-a-topic-cluster/
October 12, 2021

Samuel Schmitt’s recent article on topic clusters (ways to structure pages within sites) for SEO is an in-depth throwback to his 2020 article on the same topic. This time, Samuel dives into over a dozen of the most asked questions he has gotten since writing the original article.

A Guide to Microsoft Bing Search & How to Optimize Your Site for It – Chima Mmeje
https://www.semrush.com/blog/bing-search/
October 18, 2021

It may seem pointless at times to pay attention to Bing when Google is the clear focus for so many SEOs. That being said, there’s still so much to gain from putting a little bit of extra effort in optimizing for other search engines like Bing. We strongly recommend this read. You never know what small optimization changes you add to your site could make all the difference in boosting your traffic.

Navigating Google’s title changes: The rollout, what’s happening now and what you can do about it – George Nguyen
https://searchengineland.com/navigating-googles-title-changes-the-rollout-whats-happening-now-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-375445
October 22, 2021

A few months ago, one of the hottest topics in SEO was the title tag update controversy where Google was changing the title tags on pages by generating their own. While the goal for Google was to create better title tags, regardless of the particular query, there was much debate within the industry. Some of the examples provided by SEOs not only were confusing but they also did not describe the pages very well. In a nutshell, it was a very poorly executed update with many evident issues.

Whether you have kept up with the title tag controversy from the beginning, or if you are just getting brought up to speed on the changes, we recommend giving the full article on Search Engine Land a read!

What is topical authority and how do I get it? – Jessie Willms & Shelby Blackley
https://wtfseo.substack.com/p/topical-authority-for-news-publishers
October 18, 2021

This is a great post from Jessie Willms about topical authority which covers a series of key aspects. The moral of this story here is that no one can be an expert in every topic. Pick your moments and you’ll have the golden ticket when you match up your search efforts with topics or editorial priorities.

Calling all tech SEO's….. https://t.co/b1j4q0NaBg

— Grace Kindred (@kindred_grace) October 19, 2021

SEO job alert! Red Hat is hiring a Tech SEO to:
– improve our platform
– identify opportunities & issues
– drive creative solutions
– solve enterprise level challenges
– learn SO MANY THINGS!
– work with clever folks#seo #techseo #seojob #opensource https://t.co/POiu6OJ0lb

— JP Sherman 🦇 (@jpsherman) October 22, 2021

https://twitter.com/pedrodias/status/1452667727144013830?s=20

ROLE – TED BAKER – Head of Digital Product. "Shape the vision of a new global eCommerce platform that delivers both innovation and conversion maximization whilst leveraging the personality of the Ted Baker brand" #tedbaker #jobs #ecommerce #ecomchat https://t.co/T6AsvWcftD

— Andrew McGarry (@beyondcontent) October 26, 2021

At Credo we’re looking for a part time content marketer to join us to take our content program to the next level.

Is that you? Know someone?https://t.co/7j37GjZqLg

🙏🏼 for any shares!

— John Doherty 👍 (@dohertyjf) October 26, 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:

• Discussing query intent and the topic of keyword cannibalization
• Creating great blog content
• These are not direct ranking factors
• Reminder for YMYL sites
• These aren’t hard coded into Google’s algorithm
• How to measure an impression with continuous search
• Quality of content is more than just text
• More on the Quality Raters’ Guidelines changes
• Disavowing bad links: a poll
• 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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