Latest Posts (5/522)

Google may end the Google Search Console opt-out link tool in the future. John Mueller, Senior Search Analyst at Google, said to X, “At some point, I’m sure we’ll remove it,” referring to the opt-out link tool. What Google said. John Mueller responded to questions about the opt-out tool, suggesting again that most sites don’t need to use the feature. Here are those posts: At some point, I’m sure we’ll remove it. I’m tempted to…

Canonical URLs can be confusing to the layman, but knowing what it is and how it affects search engine results for your business can save you headaches later. — Getty Images/Os Tartarouchos If you’re trying to improve your site’s search engine visibility, using canonical URLs is a good strategy to use. Canonical URLs affect how your website content is displayed in search results. Let’s look at how canonical URLs work and some common mistakes to…

A PPC professional’s job goes beyond launching paid search campaigns. An equally important task is to optimize and scale these campaigns for maximum effectiveness and impact. This requires digging deep into performance data to uncover valuable insights that can inform optimization strategies. The data from your paid search campaigns contains a wealth of insights waiting to be discovered. By analyzing metrics, keywords, competitive landscape, and user paths, you can identify opportunities to improve targeting, messaging,…

Over the past week, Statcounter has reported to many that Google lost significant market share in the US and worldwide from March to April 2024. It turns out that this was some sort of reporting error, and Statcounter has updated the data the weekend. People like it Glenn Gabe i Danny Goodwin he immediately said the data looked wrong and they were right. Goodwin published a story Sunday about that too. Statcounter originally and erroneously…

Google revamped its product structured data documentation by splitting a full page into three pages that focus more on their topics, providing an example of how to rewrite an overly large page and turn it into several relevant web pages. Structured data from Google products Structured product data is essential for e-commerce and product review websites because it helps them qualify for rich listings on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs). When deployed correctly, structured…

I am deeply saddened to report that Mark Irvine passed away unexpectedly last night. Mark was deeply involved in the search marketing community, known as a brilliant paid search specialist who always spent his time helping others during his long career in the space. Mark has been in the search marketing industry for over a decade, seven years at WordStream and the last four years at SearchLab. He was always a bright and welcoming smile…

YouTube is considered the second largest search engine in the world. After the Google mothership, of course. But it is also considered the second largest social media platform after Facebook. Is it a search engine or is it a social platform? Search engines rank content based on keyword relevance and popularity. Social networks display content based on quality, proximity and time decay. On YouTube, there are elements of both. SEO for YouTube is about generating…

Last month in Google-land, we talked a lot about the March 2024 Core Update, which ended 45 days later on April 19, a week before Google notified us it was done. This core update was painful for many, especially those who were affected by September’s useful content update. But there is more to come, we have the site reputation abuse penalty in the next few days. Are you ready? Sites like Forbes are already making…

Google’s Gary Illyes said he’s heard from the SEO industry that hreflang can be “annoying” and complex and confusing. So open to ideas on how to replace it and make it work for both small websites and really big websites. He wrote this LinkedIn saying, “Things I learned and heard in Sofia at the SERPConf event.” He said one of them is that “hreflang is annoying”. Gary wrote, “I don’t disagree,” which I guess understands…

Statcounter has reviewed data that shows Google took a big hit in its search market share in April, while Microsoft Bing and Yahoo made ridiculous gains. Inaccurate data. For US search market share in April, here’s what Statcounter was showing just a few days ago: Google fell to 77.52%, from 86.94% in March and from 88.88% year-on-year (y-o-y). Microsoft Bing grew to 13.05% in April, up from 8.04% in March and 6.43% year-over-year. Yahoo grew…