Nate Kristy says, “Google is an online marketer’s best friend. In order to help companies help themselves, Google offers many free tools that are useful for small businesses. For example, the Keyword Planner tool provides insights on search trends and Google Analytics showcases website performance. But with all of the time and resources that go into building and managing websites to attract customers, it’s surprising that the majority companies are not taking the time to look at how their websites are performing. In fact, BuiltWith, a site tracking software, shows that only 8.1 percent... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “Google announced they have improved the Search Issues report in the Google Search Console. Specifically, the reports now provide more specific explanations of the security issues detected by Safe Browsing. The types of security issues that can show include malware, deceptive pages, harmful downloads, and uncommon downloads. The new explanations promise to give more “context and detail” into the security issues. This includes “tailored recommendations for each type of issue, including sample URLs that webmasters can check to identify the source of the issue, as... [...]

Joy Hawkins says, “It seems very apparent that Google has a filter for local that weeds through all the listings that should appear in the 3-pack on Google and in the Local Finder (when you click “More Places”), then filters some based on their spam score. Bill Slawski wrote about this in July and referenced the patent that was granted June 21, 2016, about it. To quote the patent: A spam score is assigned to a business listing when the listing is received at a search entity. A noise function is added to the spam score such that the spam score is varied. In the event that the spam score... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “Have you checked your Google organic search traffic this morning? If not, you may want to. It seems Google may have tweaked their search ranking algorithm, your site may be ranking higher or lower or the same depending on if this update has impacted your web pages. Google has not yet confirmed the update but based on a lot of chatter in the search community, it seems like an update is indeed happening. To be clear, it seems like there were two updates in the past twenty-four hours. The large update seems to be around core web search, which kicked off earlier this morning... [...]

Greg Sterling says, “Google announced that is dropping the “mobile-friendly” label in search results. The company says that now 85 percent of pages in mobile results are in fact mobile-friendly. Google also said today in a blog post that it will impose a ranking penalty on “intrusive interstitials” that impede user access to content. According to the post: Pages that show intrusive interstitials provide a poorer experience to users than other pages where content is immediately accessible. This can be problematic on mobile devices where screens are often smaller. To improve the mobile... [...]

MOZ team says, “Google is constantly testing new design elements, but over the past few months they’ve been testing a change that, while it might seem small on the surface, represents a major philosophical shift. The screenshots in this post were all captured on live SERPs but appear to be tests and have not rolled out permanently. Here’s an example of the basic change. Notice how each result (ads and organic) is wrapped in a container and visually separated on a gray background. These containers are called “cards” in Google’s vernacular, and they’re important,... [...]

MOZ team says, “When Google says jump, it’s hard not to jump. Often we take the words of Google representatives as edict and law, but it’s important to understand subtleties and to allow for clarification with time. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand discusses some angles to consider that will help you stay grounded when the “Big G” makes a statement about SEO”. When and How to Listen to Google’s Public Statements About SEO – Whiteboard Friday MOZ  [...]

George Freitag says, “Last week, Casey Meraz did a great breakdown on the state of local, showing where you should be heading with your strategy and answering some tough questions about the future of local search. Today, let’s look at all the recent changes that Google itself has been making to its own local product and examine how that will help you understand where they’re heading. This has been a big year for local search, with Google launching a ton of changes related to local, including several changes directly to their local platform, Google My Business. Marketers and brands are... [...]

James Perrott says, “On the 11th May 2016, Google announced an update to its Adwords Policy on Lending Products. This introduced the policy of banning ads for payday loans and some related products on all Google ad systems from 13th July 2016. Further to this, Google is also banning ads for loans with an APR of 36% or higher in the US only. Ads sending you through to products where repayment is due within 60 days of the date of issue are also banned. (UPDATE: As of the beginning of August 2016, the payday loan ban has still not been implemented by Google. There has been no official word... [...]

Russ Jones says, “Let’s start with the happy ending, which is actually a happy beginning, too. Moz Keyword Explorer has utilized clickstream-derived keyword data in a novel manner since day 1, allowing us to provide consistent keyword volumes despite Google Keyword Planner’s dramatic shifts in data availability and reporting. You probably haven’t noticed any changes in our keyword volume, and you probably won’t notice any going forward, which is just how we built it to begin with: resilient, evolving, and trustworthy. That being said, the truth is that keyword data... [...]