Danny Sullivan says, “The past few months have been bad for Google’s search reputation. Long considered the “gold standard” in search, Google has seen its search results questioned as never before. It’s a body blow to a core service that should be safe as Google tries to grow in new directions.Recovering from that blow isn’t easy. What’s happened to Google search is on par with the Apple Maps fiasco or Samsung’s exploding Galaxy Note7 phones.To this day, people still joke about Apple Maps being bad, even though it’s greatly improved. As for Samsung, the phones might... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “Google has confirmed to Search Engine Land that they are experimenting with a new feature in the search results. I happened to stumble upon a search results snippet in Google that showed “tags” within the snippet. The unusual part of this was that the “tags” didn’t offer any additional functionality.Google would list “tags” relevant to the page content in the actual search results listing snippets. You were not able to filter by those tags, click on them or anything. It just listed “tags” in the snippets without showing you anything more”.Google... [...]

MOZ team says, “By now, most people who follow SEO are familiar with structured data, the Schema.org vocabulary, and rich snippets. Even those who know very little about SEO appreciate the benefits of adding structured data to their websites, namely that they might be able to get rich snippets in search results.Of course, the main benefit of structured data is that it helps search engines better understand your content, which in turn helps them rank it more appropriately in search results. But we’re not here to discuss the what and why about structured data; there are plenty of other... [...]

Kevin Lee says, “One age-old question that often comes up when I chat with new prospects or new clients is, “Should I bid on my brand terms or generic terms where I rank in the top three organically?”This question is hardly trivial. It matters a great deal because PPC search budgets are generally constrained — and now, with other enticing options available from Facebook and other programmatic channels, we need to demonstrate that our search advertising budgets are being allocated optimally.Six key questions to ask before you beginThe best way to answer this question is by using... [...]

Sonia Simone says, “So today is April 1, which usually means we’ll try to feed you some stupid joke that will just make you roll your eyes when you realize the date.Not this time, internet.Brian kicked things off on Monday with three ways to get links that you haven’t heard 20 million times from people whose websites have no links. Plus he gets a little snarky, which you never want to miss.On Tuesday, our friend Jon Nastor showed us how we can actually get listeners for our podcasts. It’s a useful thing to know, since the #1 question on the minds of new podcasters is: “For the... [...]

MOZ team says, “Even if you know — deep down in your heart of hearts — how important SEO is, it’s hard to prioritize when you have less than 3 hours a month to devote to it. But there’s still a way to include the bare minimum, even if you run on a tight schedule. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand covers a minimum viable SEO strategy to give those with limited time a plan going forward”.Minimum Viable SEO: If You Only Have a Few Minutes Each Week… Do ThisMOZ [...]

Nate Dame says, “Last month, Google released a video detailing best practices for hiring an SEO company, and it is positioned to become the go-to guide for hiring an SEO. After all, who better to tell companies what they should look for in an SEO than the operators of the world’s most popular search engine?The advice in the video is useful, but it’s biased and incomplete — like so much of the information the company distributes. For example, Ohye states that valid recommendations from an SEO must be corroborated by official Google statements, but the search giant frequently declines... [...]

Hermas Ma says, “The breaking news came on March 7, 2017, that Baidu is now supporting Google’s mobile framework, AMP. The tech leader of Baidu MIP, Gao Lei, gave a speech at Google’s first AMP conference in New York. He confirmed that Baidu is working hand-in-hand with Google to accelerate the faster web globally.Baidu MIP, which stands for Mobile Instant Pages, is Baidu’s own version of Google’s AMP. The technologies of MIP are very similar to AMP. In fact, coding an MIP page is just like coding an AMP page, except MIP pages are more customized and optimized for the browsers... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Google has been ramping its efforts to tie clicks on ads to store traffic. On Wednesday, the search giant said it has now captured over four million store visits after users have clicked on an ad, up from one billion a little less than a year ago, and is set to rapidly expand that number.In September, Google extended the now two-year old store visits measurement program to ads on the Display Network and said it had statistically significant visibility into visits to 200 million stores globally. The company says it is now positioned to make store visits data available... [...]

Loren Baker says, “In the world of SEO, user experience on websites has always been a factor, as has the time it takes for a site to load.However, with the use of mobile devices surpassing desktop use (in most consumer-facing industries) and the wide adoption of broadband, people expect sites to load instantly.Long gone are the days of waiting 10 seconds for a site to load.If a page takes more than a couple of seconds to load, users will instantly hit the back button and move on to the next result.Accordingly, Google officially started paying attention to site speed and declared its... [...]