Ep. 211 - Nov. 25, 2021 - Light Version

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In this episode, we discuss the latest movement surrounding the November 2021 Core Update from MHC clients and the industry, new Google features aimed to help local publishers, new structured data logo requirements, and lots more!

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

• Full algorithm analysis
• Google has announced a number of new features to help local publishers
• Update to structured data logo requirements
• Seeing a drop in traffic after the core update?
• A new Google checklist
• The weight of doorway pages
• Why are publishers fleeing from AMP?
• Google added two new help documents
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

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It is that time of the year again! As we noted briefly last week, Google started to roll out the November 2021 Core Update on November 17th 2021. 

Later today, we are releasing a broad core update, as we do several times per year. It is called the November 2021 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates is here:https://t.co/0LAL28ueDq

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) November 17, 2021

Our premium subscribers will get to read all of the industry and MHC insight surrounding this core update.

This week’s to watch

Gisele Navarro, CEO of NeoMam Studios. Follow her (@ichbinGisele) if you’re looking for tweets and articles about creating good content, PR strategies, as well as advice and thoughts on running a fully remote PR agency.

GSC will be undergoing some minor changes over the next few months to improve accessibility and UX

In case you missed it, Google Search Console received a nice little face-lift so you may see that things look a little different. 

We're starting a journey to refresh the look and feel of Search Console. Over the next few months you'll see small changes in the product with a goal to improve accessibility and user experience in general. We hope you like it! 😉 pic.twitter.com/Seq0CUGxpP

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) November 22, 2021

While you shouldn’t see any massive overhauls, the changes according to this tweet for Google Search Central, are being made to improve accessibility and user experience. Let us know what you think of the improvements!

Tip for bolding content

Last week we shared some information on how bolding your content can help both users and Google with skimmability and finding the answers to their queries. If you’re not sure where to start, Jonas provides a great point; just follow Google’s lead. In the example below, Google bolded the sentence that directly answers what they’re looking for. When bolding, don’t just highlight your keywords, but think about what the user would want from this information, what brought them to click and read, and bold that. 

Not sure how to use BOLD text in your content? Just follow Google's lead. The bold text in this image wasn't bold on the webpage. Google chose to do it in the SERP.

That's how you should use bold text. Emphasize what's most important. Don't just bold your keywords. pic.twitter.com/IwvvNGcIf4

— Jonas Sickler (@JonasSickler) November 18, 2021

But as John reminds us, randomly bolding sentences does not fool Google into thinking the bolded sentences are highly important content. In short, do not bold words just to have bold words!

Random sentence bolding is not quite a replacement for high-quality, useful, unique, and compelling content.

— 🧀 John 🧀 (@JohnMu) November 22, 2021

We’re still seeing a ton of red on the local flux. We know that the November 2021 Core Update has been released, so head over to the algorithm section above to get the full recap on what the industry is seeing.

Dozens of healthcare categories removed from GMB

Joy Hawkins reported on Twitter that dozens of healthcare categories have been removed from GMB, now known as Google Business Profile (GBP). Other SEOs have weighed in saying that these categories seem to be missing in the US, Canada and Spain but are still available in the UK. This issue was escalated to Google to confirm whether this was a bug or not. If you have been affected by this, Colan Nielsen just confirmed on Tuesday, November 23rd that this indeed looks like a bug and is near being fixed.

Dozens of healthcare categories have been removed from GMB. Due to how many there are, I'm not sure this is intended so @ColanNielsen is checking with Google on it. @krystal_taing @headley have you heard anything on this? The full list is here: https://t.co/fvCr7FRO1N

— Joy Hawkins (@JoyanneHawkins) November 16, 2021

I am seeing that the missing categories are back now, but I am still getting an error message when I try to select them. Looks like this bug is close to being fixed. https://t.co/fluNgx8wdn

— Colan Nielsen (@ColanNielsen) November 19, 2021

Why Getting Indexed by Google is so Difficult – Tomek Rudzki
https://moz.com/blog/why-getting-indexed-is-difficult
November 16, 2021

Submitting a page to Google does not necessarily mean that it will be indexed. Pages with high value and unique content, as well as pages with strong internal and external link profiles are top candidates for indexing. However, if you believe your pages offer users with valuable content but Google continues to not index them, Moz’s Tomek Rudzki suggests looking at possible technical issues. 

Shopify SEO: An Ultimate Guide – botpresso
https://botpresso.com/shopify-seo/
November 17, 2021

Botpresso has a great list of Shopify SEO tips with common improvement topics to help with your ecommerce store. They cover a ton of angles here, so don’t miss out!

Months ago I said that when we need to hire, we look internally first. Well, today we posted a job ad for the first time in years.

When @JBarnesyy joined us, he brought with him his passion for data-driven content.

Now it's time to build our data team: https://t.co/jTYaZMPRmu

— Gisele Navarro (@ichbinGisele) November 17, 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:

• Full algorithm analysis
• Google has announced a number of new features to help local publishers
• Update to structured data logo requirements
• Seeing a drop in traffic after the core update?
• A new Google checklist
• The weight of doorway pages
• Why are publishers fleeing from AMP?
• Google added two new help documents
• Our tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO articles

⎋ SUBSCRIBE NOW

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