Glenn Gabe
@glenngabe
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SEO Consultant at G-Squared Interactive focused on Google algorithm update recovery, technical SEO audits, and SEO training. Columnist at Search Engine Land.
Princeton, NJ
Joined April 2008
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BIG news, Google is releasing a new site-wide ranking signal targeting unhelpful "search engine-first" content. Yep, it's a site-wide signal, it's weighted, & it's always running. I was able to speak w/Google about the signal & wrote a post w/more info:
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On the first day of Christmas, Google gave to me... *12 months of data in the new GSC*!!
OMG, here we go folks. I'm seeing 12 months of data in the Search Analytics beta. I asked and I've been told I can share this screenshot.
Happy Holidays to all SEOs. :)
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Confused about how Google calculates impressions, clicks, & position in GSC? You're not alone. So I wrote this -> SEO Inception - Demystifying Google’s guide to clicks, impressions and position in Google Search Console
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Grab a cup of coffee, or 3. A big update = a big post. Here's my latest :) -> The March 12, 2019 Google Core Algorithm Update – A Softer Side of Medic, Trust And The Link Graph, Quality Still Matters, and The Importance Of The “Kitchen Sink”
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Video from
@johnmu
: Whoa, Google is thinking about letting site owners add a root domain to GSC, and then Google would add *all versions* automatically (www, non-www, http, https, etc). Maybe even subdomains! That would be awesome. :)
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Boom: Core, HCU into core, and Spam -> You wanted a big update? Well, here's a BIG update. REALLY BIG.
The March 2024 core update is rolling out, but it's more complex than previous core updates. Google said it will reduce unhelpful content in the SERPs by 40% and will use a…
Google released the March 2024 core update, with multiple spam updates; the helpful content update is now part of the core system; and should lead to a reduction in 40% of unhelpful content
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This was one of the craziest, scariest, & most amazing cases I have worked on -> SEO Flatliners – The Curious Case Of A Massive 1-Month Algorithmic Demotion From Google (To The Minute) And What Could Have Triggered The Drop
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Although we're waiting for the March 2024 core update to land (soon), it looks like Google has not waited on the manual action front based on the spam policy updates it announced yesterday. I've already had multiple people ping me about sites being completely deindexed. And those…
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The December update warranted a two-part series. I just published part one -> Google's December 2020 Broad Core Algorithm Update: Analysis, Observations, Tremors & Reversals, & More Key Points for Site Owners [Part 1 of 2]. Part 2 will cover case studies:
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Interested in how Google is analyzing/detecting AI content? Nice find by
@martinibuster
-> Google published a research paper describing an algorithm that detects low-quality pages, spam content and AI or machine-generated content
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Heads-up. Via the new sitemaps coverage report in Bing Webmaster Tools that rolled out today, you will see reasons for why urls aren't indexed, including *CONTENT QUALITY*. Yep a search engine telling you there are quality problems with specific urls. Dig in there :) thx
@facan
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Google searches for "cancel HBO subscription" spiked after Game of Thrones’ finale
"It's an interesting indication of how many people subscribe to HBO solely for Game of Thrones."
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Heads-up if you are using the All In One SEO Plugin (AIOSEO). They just added new Redirects functionality that (if activated) will redirect all 404s to your homepage or parent/category page. This is NOT what you want to do with all pages that you 404... I'm pinging them now.
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Heads-up: You may have heard some rumblings about indexing issues and canonical problems over the past few days. I had a news publisher reach out to me that has seen 1,300 articles get canonicalized TO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ARTICLES. Here is the top article for the site, nuked:
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Learning GA4 and focused on SEO? -> Analyzing Organic Search performance in Google Analytics 4
Includes analyzing traffic, comparing to other channels, revenue, leads, landing pages, building an audience, and more:
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Answer the unanswered -> Google Question Hub Is Open & It's A Great Way To Find Content Ideas
"It's basically a way for publishers to see which questions go unanswered in Google Search and then create content that matches those questions." via
@rustybrick
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Learning GA4? -> Content Grouping in GA4: A Beginner’s Guide
*preparing for content groups
*limitations in GA4
*how to set up content groups via GTM
*how to access content groups in the reporting
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Heads-up, the Quality Rater Guidelines have been updated (as of 11/16)
"Specifically, we've simplified the "Needs Met" scale definitions, added more guidance for different kinds of web pages and modern examples including newer content formats such as short form video, removed…
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Heads-up! The Magi leaks begin. Google Search will be changing, with a departure from 10 blue links -> Google plans to make search more “visual, snackable, personal, and human”, incorporating short videos, social media posts, & conversations with AI
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Google confirms it has increased the length of snippets in the search results (the description). Says change is meant to provide more descriptive snippet: via
@rustybrick
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Interested in Core Web Vitals? Check this out -> There's a new Web Vitals lane in Chrome Dev Tools in Chrome 88. You can enable the Web Vitals check box in the Performance panel (after recording your loading performance). Great addition:
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Whoa, the Google indexing bug just jumped to a new level. "Stale content"?? I'd say so... Wow. ;)
@rustybrick
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New to SEO and want to learn more about Google's advanced operators? -> How to "Super Search" with Advanced Operators
Includes related, filetype, intitle, inurl, and more. via
@seosmarty
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Killer post from
@richardbaxter
covering robots.txt, meta robots tag, the Remove URLs tool in GSC, and various scenarios for when and how to use them -> An SEO’s Guide to Using Robots Exclusion Protocol
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GA4 retired Bounce Rate and replaced it with Engagement Rate -> Google Analytics 4 Bounce Rate (Why It Isn’t In GA4)
"In GA4, Google has replaced the concept of “bounce” with “engaged sessions.” To be considered “engaged,” a session must either..."
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It's Google -> Reddit has inked a deal with Google to make its content available for training the search giant's AI models; source: the contract is worth ~$60M a year
"Reddit, on its end, is seeking innovative revenue avenues, as it faces stiff competition for advertising…
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After analyzing even more sites heavily impacted by the September HCU (after my post went live), I am MORE confident that the combination of unhelpful content AND terrible UX is the kiss of death HCU-wise. I'm not saying terrible UX alone would cause a hit, but both together can
Did the HCU evolve to the HCU(X)? I just wrote a post covering what I'm seeing -> The September 2023 Google Helpful Content Update – Did Google’s Announcement in April About Page Experience Foreshadow What We’re Seeing With The Current HCU(X)?
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Reminder for those in autocomplete research mode in the SERPs. Adding an asterisk in your query can magically yield more queries (like adding one before the query or in between words): via
@seo_notebook
h/t
@tldrMarketing
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How To Use Screaming Frog To Replicate Retired Google Search Console Reports via
@RichLawther
from
@screamingfrog
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How to Connect Google Search Console to Google Analytics 4 and unlock two organic search reports
And if you connected GSC already, but it's now showing in the default reports in GA4, make sure you publish the Search Console Collection in your library:
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So we have a spam update running, core update running, and now indexing issues on top of that. Amazing. No problem, everything is fine... :)
Google may be having issues indexing new content for the past few hours
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Discover could get even more important for publishers. A *confirmed* test on DESKTOP -> Google tests adding a Discover Feed to its valuable desktop homepage
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A data scientist at Google explains how Google tackles SEO across its various websites (over 7K sites controlled by different teams). This isn't a joke. This is literally a post from Google about SEO. Have fun reading this. :)
Excited to share how
@Google
#marketing
approaches
#SEO
for Google sites.
@ThinkwithGoogle
@jordanapierson
@JohnMu
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Big news on the AI front. You can implement via robots.txt -> Announcing Google-Extended, a new control that web publishers can use to manage whether their sites help improve Bard & Vertex AI generative APIs, including future generations of models
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In its current experimental form, I don't see any attribution or citations. No links, no clicks. That's an act of war against publishers IMO. Let's see how that goes... NeevAI's implementation is far better at this point. At least they cite sources with links to those sites.
Google launches Bard, its answer to ChatGPT, to trusted testers – here is what it looks like
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Once again, what you should expect to see if you attempt to crawl a site via
@screamingfrog
during England's quarterfinal match today at 10AM ET.
Yep, it's an SEO carding system.
Lesson: Don't mess with SEO tools based in England *WHILE* England is playing in the World Cup. ;)
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Wow, Bing's search algorithm is learning on the fly. Now look what's there for the title. It's literally taunting Google. ;)
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Via
@johnmu
: For content hidden in tabs on mobile pages (m-first indexing), Google will use that for indexing & ranking, but WILL NOT show that in the snippets in the search results. If G shows it in the snippet, the user should be able to see it on-load:
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@jason_koebler
Google's reviews updates have had a huge impact on lower-quality reviews sites across the web. I have heavily analyzed all of those updates and have written several posts covering them. Here's my post from November where I show the long-term impact of the reviews update on review
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Google algorithm updates were found in Pinterest's S-1 filing -> Google Search Moves Hurt Pinterest's Growth, IPO Filing Shows
Pinterest got hammered by the March 2018 update (one year ago). Seems Google started deindexing "keyword landing pages":
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Learning GA4? Great post from
@AnalyticsMary
explaining how to create several SEO reports, including:
*SEO pages
*SEO profiles
*SEO paths
Follow her tutorial and you'll have these set up in under 30 minutes (or under 15 if you're familiar w/GA4) :)
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Google explained it would go after the renting of subdomains & subdirectories algorithmically, but explained it hasn't rolled out yet. But I'm seeing big drops across some sites doing that (AKA parasite SEO). Some dropping in early Sep, others w/the Oct updates. Interesting...
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OK, who is with me? This morning's tweet about algorithmic actions got me thinking again... Would be awesome to have an algorithmic actions viewer in GSC. Lists *major* algorithmic problems with a site. Even if high-level, could be helpful for site owners:
@JohnMu
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The May 2022 broad core update was a beast, and something just felt different. Here's my latest covering the update -> The Google May 2022 Broad Core Update – 5 micro-case studies that once again underscore the complexity of broad core algorithm updates
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Optimizing LCP? -> Preload late-discovered Hero images faster
"If you're optimizing Largest Contentful Paint, preload can be a game-changer for boosting download priority of late-discovered Hero images & resources, loaded via JS" via Google's
@addyosmani
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Is Google canonicalizing your URL to a 3rd-party site? If you use the URL inspection tool in GSC & see Google-selected canonical: "canonical cannot be displayed because it's not in any of your properties", then use an info command to see which url is being indexed. Find out why!
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Started checking sites, serps, and queries based on Barry's tweet and I am seeing some very, very strange things. It's early, but I'm seeing big ranking shifts across sites (different verticals). I'm sure this will be clearer tomorrow, but heads-up.
Big Google search ranking algorithm update just touched down (not confirmed and super early)
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I've had a lot of people ask me to share my presentation from the Google SEO Meetup in NYC. So, I just published a new blog post covering everything I presented -> Amazing Search Experiments and New SERP Features In Google Land (2022 Edition)
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Oh boy -> Docs: Google is paying a handful of independent publishers a five-figure sum for one year to use an unreleased suite of generative AI tools to post stories
"In exchange for a five-figure sum, publishers must use the tool to publish 3 stories per day..."…
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Another reminder for those creating how-to articles or posts. Take the extra 10-15 minutes & add how-to markup. It yields how-to snippets with BIG real estate in the SERPs (with a carousel of steps). Here's my latest post about the URL Inspection API ranking with how-to snippets:
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Looking to improve LCP? -> Use fetchpriority=high to load your LCP hero image sooner
"Priority Hints sped up Etsy’s LCP by 4% with some sites seeing an improvement of up to 20-30% in lab tests." via
@addyosmani
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Interesting move... and can help improve algorithmically-created playlists like Discover Weekly & Release Radar -> Spotify will soon let you mute and block artists
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Pretty slick mobile-first indexing checker. Tests a url to see if links match, structured data, breadcrumbs, content, meta robots tags, metadata, and rel tags. Seems great for quick manual checks. via
@mertazizoglu
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Via
@johnmu
: Googlebot will not click a "load more" button. In the past Google might try to trigger that, but it's expensive. Instead, G uses frame expansion to render the page on a very long viewport. It'll do that once & see what loads, then index it:
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I love testing Google with queries like this. I do this with movies all the time & Google almost never fails (asking which movie has a scene like X). I asked Google who the woman is that leaks technology features on Twitter, & boom, it nailed it. Great stuff. :) cc:
@wongmjane
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Here we go. It's finally rolling out. Remember, it can take two weeks to fully roll out. I'll be heavily analyzing the update and will be sharing what I'm seeing. Stay tuned.
The Google helpful content update is now rolling out Google Helpful Content Update Is Live
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OK, here is some GSC data for a client that is part of a double featured snippet. Note, they are still
#1
above the 2nd FS. You can clearly see when they won the FS & see CTR drop when the double FS hits the SERPs. Position remains steady at 1, but CTR drops from ~40% to ~28%.
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Need to check rankings in a specific country? Via
@johnmu
: Use the local Google version (e.g. ), then add the url parameter &gl={country code}. You can also use hl={language code} to see the results in a specific language:
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Whoa, I'm not sure this will help with aggressive advertising problems across publishers -> Google AdSense announces it's moving from paying per click to paying per impression
"It’s important to note that this change will not influence the type or quantity of ads publishers can
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TW-BERT -> Google announced a ranking framework called Term Weighting BERT (TW-BERT) that assigns scores (weights) to words within a search query in order to more accurately determine which documents are relevant for a search query via
@martinibuster
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OMG, the Nov core update is rolling out! -> "We have different systems that are considered core to our ranking process; this month's core update involves an improvement to a different core system than last month." AND, a reviews update is rolling out next week. Then no more
Today we released the November 2023 core update. We'll update our ranking release history page when the rollout is complete:
Related to this, we’ve posted a Q&A on Google Search updates as a refresher about how updates work:
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Study: 1,446 websites had a manual action applied to them out of 79k websites checked in March 2024 (based on the Spam Update and the spam policy updates announced the other day)
Originality also checked for AI content on some of the sites deindexed. They…
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And here is Google's blog post about Gemini. If you're in Search, drop everything and read all of this NOW. :)
"We’re already starting to experiment with Gemini in Search, where it's making our Search Generative Experience (SGE) faster for users, with a 40% reduction in latency…
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From last night, Danny Sullivan confirmed that subtopics are now live. They were first mentioned in Oct in a post about AI & Search. That's the post that also intro'd passages. Subtopics don't change the look of the search results, but broaden diversity of content (when useful).
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Interesting. I just started testing this out -> Google's astounding new search tool called Talk To Books will answer any question by reading thousands of books
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Google updated its documentation about site names in the SERPs. Google supports site names at the domain-level, not subdomain or subdirectory. But, m-dot and www are considered domain-level to Google. Learn more in the support doc:
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I've been working on this one for a bit and it's important for any site owner that's working on improving quality overall -> Highly Visible and Low Quality (or Unhelpful) – A Most Dangerous SEO Combination
In my post, I first cover some history around user interaction signals
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Quick update: I was just part of a roundtable with some folks from Google (including the Chrome team) regarding the new Page Experience update. This thread will cover a few things I learned during the meeting:
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OK, it's out of alpha and into beta. You must check out
@semrush
's new organic research section. It's killer.
Live graphs change based on analyzing root domain, subdomain, or urls. The graphs also change based on filtering by keyword, SERP feature, etc. This is a sick update :)
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Google launches Best Things for Everything Guide, which is a "microsite that highlights 1,000 products based on what’s popular on the web, so you can easily find great choices"
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DuckDuckGo passes 100 billion total searches. Yes, still way, way, way behind what Google sees on a regular basis, but still a big milestone :) via
@rustybrick
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Wow, SEL has a very interesting title in the SERPs at Bing. ;)
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Confused about disavowing links? This case study could help -> Disavowing The Disavow Tool [Case Study] – How a site owner finally removed a disavow file with 15K+ domains, stopped continually disavowing links, and then surged back from the dead
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Heads-up! We've seen some crazy volatility over the past week or so and you can see that in the visibility screenshots below. Clearly Google is testing something... Some sites have surged or dropped and remained there, others have reversed course already, etc. I think we are…
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Oh boy... -> Forbes ran an alternate version of its website for years with reformatted articles, promoted on Taboola and others, to maximize ads intended for
"One 700-word article was turned into a 34-slide slideshow, exposing the person who read it on a…
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After the past 2 months algo update craziness & answering the same questions over and over, I finally wrote this up -> Google’s Broad Core Updates: Important Points And Frequently Answered Questions For Site Owners And SEOs
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Whoa, big news. Google is adding rel="ugc" & rel="sponsored". And nofollow will be come a hint! -> Google to treat nofollow link attribute as a ‘hint’ after March 1, 2020 via
@rustybrick
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Learning GA4? -> Google Analytics 4 Audiences: A Fundamental Guide
"Custom audiences allow you to categorize users by dimensions, metrics, & events. With many ways to create subsets of users, you can track audiences relevant to your business..."
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Just received access to Google's AI Test Kitchen (which has 3 demos showing off LaMDA). The "List it" demo is pretty sick. Enter what you want to do and receive an endless list of things you could cover. I think content marketers might like this. :)
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Big news. Shopify is launching an affiliate marketing program, taking direct aim at Amazon -> Shopify is rolling out a service that will let BuzzFeed and other content publishers link to merchants in exchange for a cut of transaction revenue (paywall)
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Via
@johnmu
: The URL parameters setting in GSC is a strong signal for Google, *stronger* than rel canonical. So make sure your canonical urls DON'T contain the parameters you're excluding. Google probably won't index them:
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After removing low-quality content, how does a quality evaluation work? -> Via
@johnmu
It can take months (6+ months) for G to reevaluate a site after improving quality overall. It's partially due to reindexing & partially due to collecting quality signals
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Whoa, GSC is testing a "domain property", which includes all protocol and subdomains for the root domain. Awesome -> Google Search Console (GSC) Tests New Domain Property via
@rustybrick
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Using Shopify?
@hamletbatista
updated his post which now uses *field data* to rank each theme based on performance -> Assessing Google’s Core Web Vitals on Shopify Themes
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I fully expect this to happen if you try to crawl a site starting at 2PM ET via either
@screamingfrog
or
@DeepCrawl
. Be careful when using UK-based tools to crawl a site when England is playing. ;)
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Cool project from
@Craig_Casazza
. He created an AI chat application trained on Google's documentation, the Quality Rater Guidelines, & blog posts. Just ask your questions, receive responses based on the docs, & links to posts where answers were sourced:
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Quick update about sites impacted by the September HCU(X): Now that we are two weeks into the March core update, I ran the visibility numbers for several hundred sites impacted the September HCU(X). I haven't seen one that recovered yet. Actually, most were down even more (see…
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Quick update: It's all quiet so far on the Helpful Content Update front. Not shocking considering we are only a half-day in. Hourly trending is very stable across many sites I have access to. I'm sure we'll start seeing impact in the next 24-ish hours. I'll post what I'm seeing:
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Super-embarrassing for Google. "Keep your keyword density below an industry standard of 2%"???
"Your keywords should only be used once in the following places on each page w/in your site: page title, subheading, first paragraph, & body conclusion"???
OMG :)
Google’s digital marketing certification taught keyword density and word count in its course material - which Google’s
@searchliaison
said should be ignored - we knew this was a bad idea for SEO... via
@gfiorelli1
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Working with multiple sites or have a large-scale site? In my latest post, I walk you through creating a multi-site indexing monitoring system using the URL Inspection API and Analytics Edge. This can also help you move beyond the 2K request/day limit:
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Impacted by the September HCU(X)? You should read my latest post -> 5 ways that Google’s helpful content system could evolve based on the evolution of previous punitive algorithm updates like Panda and Penguin
I provide various scenarios of how the helpful content system could
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Google Morning Google Land! This is the April 19 edition of "Core Update Notes". And in case you're wondering, yes, I'm getting tired of tweeting these updates... :) We are now 46 days into the rollout. But, the tools are spiking this morning, so it could be the last tremor…
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Regarding changes to meta description length,
@RankRanger
shows a drop of ~230 characters to ~160 over the past few days. Again, Google seems to be adjusting this based on query, so not all descriptions are being cut down. Just a heads-up. :) h/t
@MordyOberstein
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It's Saturday morning. Grab a latte or two, there was a lot to cover -> The September 2019 Google Core Update – Case studies, health & medical volatility, Discover impact, “baby algorithms”, & revisiting the “kitchen sink” approach to remediation
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Via
@johnmu
There's confusion about using noindex, follow. In the short-term, Google won't index the page but still follow the links. But if noindex remains long-term, then G won't follow the links anymore. So the same as noindex, nofollow in the long run:
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Like I said last week, the Oct core update has been *HUGE*. There are many sites tanking & surging with this update. AND, I've had several companies reach out to me about manual actions, & some have been completely deindexed based on those manual actions. Welcome To Google Land.
Google October core update volatility heats up over the weekend - some really sad stories and big Google hits
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Search On 2020: Whoa. Google can index passages of a webpage vs. the whole page. New algo can zoom into a passage that answers a question and ignores the rest of the page. Starting next month.
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