Summary of SEO 101 Episode 355
GoogleBot has had a significant upgrade bringing its technology in line with the latest versions of Chromium. The hosts discuss this along with Google’s rolling integration of podcasts in search results, issues with Google Search Console, a new ‘How-To’ for structured data markup, and more.
The episode is topped off with answers to more great questions from the SEO 101 Facebook Group.
Important Links from SEO 101 Episode 355
GoogleBot Runs Latest Chrome – This Is Big News – Search Engine Roundtable
Google has rocked the SEO industry after it announced that Googlebot is now evergreen and runs the latest Chromium (Chrome 74). It also now supports 1,000 + new features. This news of Googlebot upgrade came as one of the biggest highlights at Google I/O 2019.
Google Now Rolling Out Podcast Results in Search – Search Engine Land
As Zack Reneau-Wedeen from Google clearly said, this is “a step toward making audio a first-class citizen across Google.” Those who produce podcasts can finally get more visibility in search to their content. Make sure to use Podcast markup to ensure you get the most visibility from your audio files.
Google Officially Launches “FAQ” & “How-To” Structured Data Markup – Search Engine Roundtable
“FAQ structured data which is not to be confused with QA markup”
Google Search Console Change Of Address Tool Not Working – Search Engine Roundtable
Some reports claimed that the change of address tool in the old Google Search Console is not working. It’s not clear whether Google will find time to fix this as the feature is not supported in the new Search Console.
Google Search Console New Speed Report – Search Engine Roundtable
Also at the recent Google I/O, they revealed to have been working on the new Google Search Console Speed Report. This feature is currently in the experimental stage. “It’s more of a holistic view of your site’s page speed than on individual page level.”
Google Assistant Moves from the Cloud to the Phone, Now 10X Faster – Search Engine Land
Google Assistant users can expect to see significant changes with the tool in the coming months or years. Among its biggest upgrades will be the migration of speech processing from the cloud to the smartphone. As Google said, the new Google Assistant will “deliver the answers up to 10 times faster.”
Google Announced Updates to News in Search, Adds 3D Support to Search Results and More – Search Engine Land
Google made more announcements at Google I/O regarding search related topics. These include updates for Google News (specifically the Top Stories section), adding augmented reality (AR) and 3D features in search, and updates for Google Lens and Google Assistant.
The Mueller Files
The Mueller FilesOur weekly section of commentary from Google’s John Mueller.
- Google: SEO Contests Useless, Waste Of Time & Generate Tons Of Spam – Search Engine Roundtable
In a series of tweets, John described SEO contests as “pretty useless” and “a big waste of time and effort.” He advised the SEO community to consider improving their services instead and making their websites stronger and better over the long term.
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.
“404 errors. Some pages are genuine 404 pages–they are never coming back and there is no other page to redirect to. No backlinks exist, marked as no-index. As a practice, should every 404 page be redirected SOMEWHERE, even if it is the home page? Is the goal to always have ZERO pages that show as 404 in Search Console?” – Brenda M.
“Links! Gah! A client has asked me to build a “useful links” page for their site which isn’t something I’ve done since about 2006 as I’d always thought that links in content would serve the site better. What are your thoughts? Do I go ahead and build a links page or recommend a new content page which I’d much rather do? Would a links page negatively affect a website?” Zena S.
“I work on an e-commerce site and we have specific Black Friday pages (“Black Friday Jackets Sale” for example). Should these categories be canonicalised to the main Black Friday sale page, canonicalised to the corresponding evergreen category page (“Jackets”) or just left alone? Keen to avoid duplicate content and don’t want search engines to be given conflicting information about which page should rank. Thanks!” – Andy G.
End of Show Notes
If you have any questions you would like to share with Ross and John, please feel free to post them on the SEO 101 Facebook Group. And, if you enjoy SEO 101 on WebmasterRadio.FM please consider supporting the hosts with feedback on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favourite podcast stream.