Summary of SEO 101 Episode 358
In this episode, Ross and John discuss the sad state of Google’s local search results which are rife with SPAM. To no one’s surprise, Google officially states it knows of the SPAM and is dealing with it. Too little, way too late, as far as the hosts are concerned.
Their discussion moves on to Google Search Console updates of worth, an update to the Wayback Machine, and more great questions from listeners.
Important Links from SEO 101 Episode 358
Google Responds to Claims That Maps Has Millions of Fake Business Listings – Search Engine Journal
Google: “It’s a constant balancing act and we’re continually working on new and better ways to fight these scams using a variety of ever-evolving manual and automated systems. But we can’t share too many details about these efforts without running the risk of actually helping scammers find new ways to beat our systems—which defeats the purpose of all the work we do.”
Google Search Console Adds Mobile-First Indexing Information To Reports & Tools – Search Engine Roundtable
“The key component here is that when you’re in the Search Console now, it will tell you the results are either from desktop or mobile.” – Ross
This update offers a little more information for SEOs, which is a good thing.
Google Search Console Alerts: Change In Top Queries For Your Site – Search Engine Roundtable
Another Google Search Console update, though not entirely new, is that it is now sending alerts to site owners for changes in the top queries for their sites.
How will this new data impact your rankings and SEO strategy?
Wayback Machine adds ‘changes’ feature – Search Engine Land
Have you ever used the Wayback Machine? If so, you may find its upcoming tool quite useful.
The new tool would allow you to compare and contrast changes in the content on a specific URL over time. It would highlight content additions in blue and content deletions in yellow.
Moz: Google Diversity Update Was A Tiny Improvement – Search Engine Roundtable
In his article published on June 19, Dr. Pete Meyers from Moz discussed Google’s site diversity update. He wrote: “While Google technically improved site diversity, the update was narrowly targeted and we had to dig to find evidence of improvement.”
“The main thing that would have been impacted was brand searches.” – John
Questions from SEO 101 Listeners
Ross and John also welcome some SEO-related concerns from listeners. Please listen to the show to find out their answers to these questions.
“Great question from Dale on schemas and dentists. In general, can I ask: how major is the win that comes from using schema markup in terms of search engine placement?” – Shawn D.
“Creating thank you pages for form submissions. Do I really need to make these SEO friendly or can i just not have the spiders crawl those pages?” – Carl B.
“I was doing some work for a client and discovered an old client in the same industry and market is using 18 different sites to drive traffic to his main site. I fired him several years ago for being a man of questionable character. I also know his reviews are all paid for and he is using fake addresses for each. I heard the guys say they would turn in such scoundrels, but how and where?” – Steven D.
End of Show Notes
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