Join Fusion’s SEO team as they round up last month’s major industry updates.

Google’s Search Algorithm Updates

Outside of broad core algorithm updates, which Google announce on a semi-regular basis, Google also provide several small and focused algorithm updates every day. These smaller updates can have a varied impact on a site’s rankings, but all work towards a central goal of improving the accuracy and functionality of Google’s Search.

From tracking the impact of the daily search algorithm updates that Google release, using tools such as SEMRush Sensor and MozCast, we can that organic rankings saw a large amount of movement from the 9^th – 12^th February.

SEMRush Sensor:

MozCast:

Rather than having an effect of specific categories of site, such as news and retail, these updates had a large impact on rankings across all sites.

If your site has been been negatively affected by these updates, we would recommend reading our summary of Google’s BERT algorithm update, and looking to optimise the site with this in mind.

Google Improves Data Exports in Search Console

Google have updated the way in which we can export data from Google Search Console. Previously, specific data was exported by navigating to the specific data view; such as queries, pages and devices in the performance report, then exporting view’s information individually.

With Google’s latest update, users will now only have the option the export all views within a report. This means if a user wants to export information from the performance report, this will contain information from all views displayed in separate tabs (View Sample Dataset). This can be exported into Google Sheets, an Excel spreadsheet with multiple tabs, or as CSV files within a ZIP folder.

Despite this update, Google Search Console will continue to limit users to 1,000 rows of data. In order to export a larger amount of data, this will need to be done with 3^rd party resources; such as the Search Analytics for Sheets plug in for Google Sheets, or with Google Data Studio (limited to 5,000 rows).

Google Search Console Adds the Review Snippets Report

Google has introduced the review snippets report within Google Search Console, this report will be available under the enhancement segment within Search Console dashboard.

Review schema allows allows webmasters to highlight reviews on a site, this schema can then be viewed by search engines, such as Google, in order to populate rich results; including knowledge panels and search results.

This review snippet report will be available under the enhancement segment within Search Console dashboard, and will provide details on any issues surrounding the review schema that has been implemented on a site, along with the pages that have been affected by these issues.

Review snippets will also be available within the performance report, under the search appearance view. This will allow users to access the impact of having review snippets appear on an organic listing and how this affects performance.

Google Looks to Implement Mobile First Indexing Across All Sites

Google has been sending notifications, via Google Search Console, to users with sites that are currently preventing Google from implementing mobile-first indexing, due to errors present on the site.

With Google setting a deadline of the next 6-12 months that they expect mobile-indexing to be applied to all sites, if any users receive this warning from Google, we would recommend resolving any issues that have been flagged in order to correctly prepare the site for this change.

Check out our latest blog posts for the latest news, and if you’re interested in finding out more about what we can do for your brand, get in touch with us today.

Join Fusion’s SEO team as they round up last month’s major industry updates.

Google’s January Algorithm Update

Google released a broad core algorithm on 13^th January, which was rolled out over the following 2 weeks. We covered the initial release of this update in a dedicated blog post, which provides a rundown of the update and some useful optimisation information.

Looking at SEMRush’s sensor tool, we can see how the algorithm impacted UK rankings:

As with all broad core algorithm updates, these target the entire algorithm, rather than having a specific focus, such as site speed or content. Due to this, if a site it negatively impacted by this update, we would recommend checking aspects within Google’s core update help sheet, or checking out the checklist in our blog that covers the January 2020 core update.

Google Chrome 80

Google Chrome 80 is due to be released at the start of February. It will contain updates that impact cookies, push notifications and mixed content.

Cookies

Google are recommending that developers define the cookies that a site uses. With the option to choose between two settings (SameSite=Strict or SameSite=Lax), web developers will be able to define if a cookie is to be sent in first party or same-site content (Lax is a good choice for cookies affecting the display of the site, with Strict being useful for cookies related to actions your user is taking). Google also provided the following caution surrounding how these will impact the site’s security:

“Neither Strict nor Lax are a complete solution for your site’s security. Cookies are sent as part of the user’s request and you should treat them the same as any other user input. That means sanitizing and validating the input. Never use a cookie to store data you consider a server-side secret.”

Push Notifications

The infamously annoying pop-up notification requests that appear on sites are currently within Google’s scope to tackle.

Google have recognised common complaints surrounding push notifications from websites and are looking to block these, as well as enroll their “Quiet UI”.

They will be looking to block push notifications for the following scenarios:

• For users who consistently block push notifications.
• For websites that have low opt-in rates for their notifications.

Google’s new “Quiet UI” will alert users that these notifications have been blocked; giving the user an opportunity to unblock the notification.

Quiet UI will be available on both desktop and mobile devices.

Mixed Content

As mentioned in a previous blog post, Google are looking to crack down on mixed content on sites. From Google Chrome 79 to 81, Google will be looking to implement stricter rules on how they treat mixed content. With Google Chrome 80 due to be released, Google will implement the following rules:

• Mixed audio and video resources will be auto-upgraded to https://, and Chrome will block them by default if they fail to load over https://. Chrome 80 will be released to early release channels in January 2020. Users can unblock affected audio and video resources with the setting described above.
• Mixed images will still be allowed to load, but they will cause Chrome to show a “Not Secure” chip in the omnibox. We anticipate that this is a clearer security UI for users and that it will motivate websites to migrate their images to HTTPS. Developers can use the upgrade-insecure-requests or block-all-mixed-content Content Security Policy directives to avoid this warning.

With stricter rules being implemented, we would recommend ensuring all resources have been migrated to https. For more information on Google Chrome’s plan to deal with mixed content, please see our dedicated blog post.

Google Updates Their Search Page Design

After rolling out the new search page design on mobile devices in May 2019, Google have now implemented these changed to desktop search pages.

Last year, our search results on mobile gained a new look. That’s now rolling out to desktop results this week, presenting site domain names and brand icons prominently, along with a bolded “Ad” label for ads. Here’s a mockup: pic.twitter.com/aM9UAbSKtv

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) January 13, 2020

This new design looks to add site icons to organic searches, while removing the green, highlight AD marker from ads and replacing it with a more discreet, and bolded, AD marker.

After rolling this out, Google has announced that they will be experimenting further with the desktop design.

Google Search Console’s New Removals Tool

Google have launched the new version of the removals report within Google Search Console. This report will contain the following features:

• Temporary removals will allow users to remove specific content from Google Search results.
  • ‘Temporarily remove URL’ will hide the URL from Google Search results for about six months and clear the cached copy of the page.
  • ‘Clear cache URL’ clears the cached page and wipes out the page description snippet in Search results until the page is crawled again.
• Outdated content segment will provide information on removal requests made through the public Remove Outdated Content
• SafeSearch Filtering section will display any pages on a site that have been reported to Google by users as adult content using the SafeSearch Suggestions

WordPress Look to Add Lazy-Loading as Default

Documentation surrounding WordPress’s 5.4 update suggests that WordPress are looking to implement lazy-loading as part of WordPress core. If added, this will be implemented by adding the loading attribute to img tags within the html on the page, rather than adding this with JavaScript code.

Currently, the loading attribute is compatible with the following browsers:

• Google Chrome
• Chrome for Android
• Android Browser
• Microsoft Edge
• Opera

Google Adds Popular Products to Search

Available only to US users at present, Google have released a “popular products” segment within Google Search pages.

This new segment is an extension of Google Shopping and will display products in relation to the users search, as well as a list of sites that sell time item, the price this is sold at and reviews for the product.

It is free for participating retailers to appear within these search features, as long as the products adhere to Google’s best practices.

Check out our latest blog posts for the latest news, and if you’re interested in finding out more about what we can do for your brand, get in touch with us today.

Yesterday, Google announced that they have released a broad core algorithm update.

The January 2020 Core Update is now live and will be rolling out to our various data centers over the coming days.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) January 13, 2020

Unlike the small changes Google make to their algorithm on a daily basis, designed to incrementally improve how the Google algorithm interprets and ranks pages (e.g. Page speed, EAT and meta data) and are usually barely noticeable. Broad core algorithm updates, as the name suggests, are much more significant and look at providing an overall improvement to the algorithm.

Although Google does not provide any specific information on what to look out for if a site is affected by the update, they do recommend that any sites or pages that are hit by this should be assessed against the following criteria where relevant:

Content and quality questions

• Does the content provide original information, reporting, research or analysis?
• Does the content provide a substantial, complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does the content provide insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• If the content draws on other sources, does it avoid simply copying or rewriting those sources and instead provide substantial additional value and originality?
• Does the headline and/or page title provide a descriptive, helpful summary of the content?
• Does the headline and/or page title avoid being exaggerating or shocking in nature?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Would you expect to see this content in or referenced by a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?

Expertise questions

• Does the content present information in a way that makes you want to trust it, such as clear sourcing, evidence of the expertise involved, background about the author or the site that publishes it, such as through links to an author page or a site’s About page?
• If you researched the site producing the content, would you come away with an impression that it is well-trusted or widely-recognized as an authority on its topic?
• Is this content written by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well?
• Is the content free from easily-verified factual errors?
• Would you feel comfortable trusting this content for issues relating to your money or your life?

Presentation and production questions

• Is the content free from spelling or stylistic issues?
• Was the content produced well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
• Does the content have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Does content display well for mobile devices when viewed on them?

Comparative questions

• Does the content provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• Does the content seem to be serving the genuine interests of visitors to the site or does it seem to exist solely by someone attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?

We would also recommend ensuring that page speed is also factored into these checks, as this remains an important rankings factor for Google and all other search engines.

If you’re interested in finding out more about what we can do for your brand, get in touch with us today.

Join Fusion’s SEO team as they round up last month’s major industry updates.

Google Co-Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin Step Down

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google, announced that they have stepped down as CEO and President of Alphabet, the parent company of Google. The role of CEO was given to Sundar Pichai, Google’s current CEO. Sundar sent the following email to Google employees on 3^rd December

Hi everyone,

When I was visiting Googlers in Tokyo a few weeks ago I talked about how Google has changed over the years. In fact, in my 15+ years with Google, the only constant I’ve seen is change. This process of continuous evolution — which the founders often refer to as “uncomfortably exciting” — is part of who we are. That statement will feel particularly true today as you read the news Larry and Sergey have just posted to our blog.

The key message Larry and Sergey shared is this:

While it has been a tremendous privilege to be deeply involved in the day-to-day management of the company for so long, we believe it’s time to assume the role of proud parents—offering advice and love, but not daily nagging!

With Alphabet now well-established, and Google and the Other Bets operating effectively as independent companies, it’s the natural time to simplify our management structure. We’ve never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there’s a better way to run the company. And Alphabet and Google no longer need two CEOs and a President. Going forward, Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet. He will be the executive responsible and accountable for leading Google, and managing Alphabet’s investment in our portfolio of Other Bets. We are deeply committed to Google and Alphabet for the long term, and will remain actively involved as Board members, shareholders and co-founders. In addition, we plan to continue talking with Sundar regularly, especially on topics we’re passionate about!

I first met Larry and Sergey back in 2004 and have been benefiting from their guidance and insights ever since. The good news is I’ll continue to work with them — although in different roles for them and me. They’ll still be around to advise as board members and co-founders.

I want to be clear that this transition won’t affect the Alphabet structure or the work we do day to day. I will continue to be very focused on Google and the deep work we’re doing to push the boundaries of computing and build a more helpful Google for everyone. At the same time, I’m excited about Alphabet and its long term focus on tackling big challenges through technology.

The founders have given all of us an incredible chance to have an impact on the world. Thanks to them, we have a timeless mission, enduring values, and a culture of collaboration and exploration that makes it exciting to come to work every day. It’s a strong foundation on which we will continue to build. Can’t wait to see where we go next and look forward to continuing the journey with all of you.

– Sundar

Both Larry Page and Sergey Brin will remain active as co-founders, shareholders and board members of Alphabet.

Google Roll Out BERT for 70+ Languages Worldwide

After its initial release in October 2019, which was covered in our blog, Google have announced that their new natural language processing (NLP) algorithm, BERT, is being rolled out for 70+ languages.

BERT, our new way for Google Search to better understand language, is now rolling out to over 70 languages worldwide. It initially launched in Oct. for US English. You can read more about BERT below & a full list of languages is in this thread…. https://t.co/NuKVdg6HYM

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) December 9, 2019

This is the full list of languages that will BERT will now understand:

• Afrikaans
• Albanian
• Amharic
• Arabic
• Armenian
• Azeri
• Basque
• Belarusian
• Bulgarian
• Catalan
• Chinese (Simplified & Taiwan)
• Croatian
• Czech
• Danish
• Dutch
• English
• Estonian
• Farsi
• Finnish
• French
• Galician
• Georgian
• German
• Greek
• Gujarati
• Hebrew
• Hindi
• Hungarian
• Icelandic
• Indonesian
• Italian
• Japanese
• Javanese
• Kannada
• Kazakh
• Khmer
• Korean
• Kurdish
• Kyrgyz
• Lao
• Latvian
• Lithuanian
• Macedonian Malay (Brunei Darussalam & Malaysia)
• Malayalam
• Maltese
• Marathi
• Mongolian
• Nepali
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Punjabi
• Romanian
• Russian
• Serbian
• Sinhalese
• Slovak
• Slovenian
• Spanish
• Swahili
• Swedish
• Tagalog
• Tajik
• Tamil
• Telugu
• Thai
• Turkish
• Ukrainian
• Urdu
• Uzbek
• Vietnamese

Google Update Their Search Quality Guidelines

Google were discovered to have updated their search quality guidelines at the start of December. These guidelines are used by human quality raters to evaluate websites and search page results and are used to help improve Google’s search algorithm.

These updates are important and provide the ability to see how Google think in regards to how sites and content should be viewed. This allows us to better understand how to present content and ensure guidelines are adhered to, such as E-A-T.

Within the updates provided in December, Google have been changing the word “user” to “person” and have also informed that raters should “Keep in mind that users are people from all over the world: people of all ages, genders, races, religions, political affiliations, etc”. These updates may be a result of Republicans’ allegations of anti-conservative bias within the company’s search results in the U.S., in which Google have denied such biases.

Google Chrome 79 Has Been Released

Google released the Chrome 79 on 10^th December. In our previous blog post, we informed that Google will be cracking down on mixed content, starting from version 79 of Google Chrome, to version 81. This means that this is the first version of Google Chrome that will take steps towards warning users about mixed content of sites.

Google’s steps towards cracking down on mixed content will be as follows:

• In Chrome 79, releasing to a stable channel in December 2019, Google will introduce a new setting to unblock mixed content on specific sites. This setting will apply to mixed scripts, iframes, and other types of content that Chrome currently blocks by default. Users can toggle this setting by clicking the lock icon on any https:// page and clicking Site Settings. This will replace the shield icon that shows up at the right side of the omnibox for unblocking mixed content in previous versions of desktop Chrome.
• In Chrome 80, mixed audio and video resources will be auto-upgraded to https://, and Chrome will block them by default if they fail to load over https://. Chrome 80 will be released to early release channels in January 2020. Users can unblock affected audio and video resources with the setting described above.
• Also in Chrome 80, mixed images will still be allowed to load, but they will cause Chrome to show a “Not Secure” chip in the omnibox. We anticipate that this is a clearer security UI for users and that it will motivate websites to migrate their images to HTTPS. Developers can use the upgrade-insecure-requests or block-all-mixed-content Content Security Policy directives to avoid this warning.
• In Chrome 81, mixed images will be auto-upgraded to https://, and Chrome will block them by default if they fail to load over https://. Chrome 81 will be released to early release channels in February 2020.

For more information on these updates, please visit our dedicated blog post.

Windows Implements Bing Visual Search In The Window Search Bar

Bing’s visual search works in a similar way to Google Lens, both will allow users to use search with an image, or a selected part of an image and also include text recognition within images, which can also be users to search.

Windows users will now have access to usilise Bing visual search from the start menu. This feature is currently only available for U.S. users and will be shortly rolled out to international markets. With windows still controlling around 78% of worldwide desktop operating systems, this new feature may have a positive impact on Bing’s market share for search engines, depending on the success of the implementation.

Google Warn That Some Data In Google Search Console Is Not Accurate

Google have warned that, due to internal issues, data in the performance report for Discover will be inaccurate between 8^th December and 13^th December. This issue has since been fixed.

Check out our latest Social Media market updates for the latest news, and if you’re interested in finding out more about what we can do for your brand, get in touch with us today.

In a further push to make websites take loading speeds seriously, Google have announced a new range of plans to help pre-warn users on how quickly or slowly a site may load.

“We think the web can do better and want to help users understand when a site may load slowly, while rewarding sites delivering fast experiences.” – Addy Osmani, Ben Greenstein and Bryan McQuade from the Chrome team

The plans include the rollout of warning messages within load screens on slower websites,  alongside a new green progress bar for sites with faster load times, both seen in the examples below:

Rather than implement strict criteria for what is and isn’t a fast site immediately, Google plan to gradually increase this over time. Google’s long-term goal is to clearly badge sites that load quickly or slowly for users, with further plans to expand the badging of sites to cover a range of signals beyond just site speed.

Google recommend using the following resources to help identify areas where improvements to site speed can be made:

• PageSpeed Insights
• Lighthouse Audits

Google also suggest checking web.dev/fast in order to learn the best practices for site performance.

To add to the above list, we would also recommend also utilising the following resources:

• GTmetrix
• Varvy
• WebPageTest

These additional resources will be able to provide valuable insights on page speed performance, and can be used alongside Google’s own resources.

Check out our latest SEO and Social Media market updates for the latest news, and if you’re interested in finding out more about what we can do for your brand, get in touch with us today.

Join Fusion’s SEO team as they round up last month’s major industry updates.

GOOGLE’S NEW ALGORITHM: BERT

The biggest news of the month came with the announcement of a new search algorithm from Google, BERT. A natural language processor (NLP), BERT provides Google with a heightened ability to understand the context of search queries.

For example, the algorithm can assist Google to determine when prepositions such as “on” or “to” matter to the entire meaning of a phrase. This ultimately helps Google to display a result which best matches search intent, as in the example below comparing a pre and post-BERT result for the same query:

Google have stated that BERT is working alongside the existing RankBrain algorithm, and will affect around 10% of all search terms and structured snippets.

BERT is currently live for search terms using U.S English, and will be rolled out for other languages in the near future.

For more information on BERT, take a look at our dedicated blog post…

GOOGLE CRACKS DOWN ON MIXED CONTENT

With the next few iterations of Chrome planned to release over the next few months, Google have announced that these forthcoming updates will be taking incrementally harsher stances against mixed content.

Mixed content refers to instances where both HTTP and HTTPS resources, such as images or iFrames, are contained on a site.

Chrome is currently on version 78, and by release 81 Google expect to have implemented the below updates:

• In Chrome 79, set to be released to a stable channel in December 2019, Google will introduce a new setting to unblock mixed content on specific sites. This setting will apply to mixed scripts, iFrames, and other types of content which Chrome currently blocks by default. Users will be able to toggle this setting by clicking the lock icon on any https:// page and selecting the Site Settings option. This is set to replace the shield icon displayed at the right side of the address bar in current versions of desktop Chrome, which is currently used to unblock mixed content.
• In Chrome 80, set to be published to early release channels in January 2020, mixed audio and video resources will be auto-upgraded to https://. If these resources then fail to load over htttps:// they will be blocked by Chrome. Users will be able to unblock any mixed audio or video resources via the method released in Chrome 79.
• Also in Chrome 80, mixed images will still be allowed to load, but will cause Chrome to show a “Not Secure” chip in the address bar. We anticipate that this is a clearer security UI for users and that it will motivate websites to migrate their images to HTTPS. Developers can use the upgrade-insecure-requests or block-all-mixed-content Content Security Policy directives to avoid this warning.
• In Chrome 81, mixed images will be auto-upgraded to https://, and Chrome will block them by default if they fail to load over https://. Chrome 81 will be released to early release channels in February 2020.

For more information on these updates within Chrome, please see our dedicated blog post…

GOOGLE DEPRECIATE CORPORATE CONTACT MARKUP

Corporate contact markup , often implemented with the contactPoint schema, allowed companies to add their contact information to Google’s knowledge panel.

In October, Google announced that this method of adding corporate contact information to knowledge panels is now depreciated. As an alternative, if a company is verified as an official rep of a Google knowledge panel, they will be able to suggest changes to corporate contacts via the knowledge panel support page.

AUTOMATIC LAZY-LOADING HAS COME TO CHROME LITE USERS

Automatic lazy-loading is a feature enabled for all Chrome 76 users, allowing images and iFrames with the `loading` attribute to be lazy-loaded with the following options:

• auto: Default lazy-loading behaviour of the browser, which is the same as not including the attribute.
• lazy: Defer loading of the resource until it reaches a calculated distance from the viewport.
• eager: Load the resource immediately, regardless of where it’s located on the page.

Now, this feature has been made available for lite mode users in Chrome 77. Chrome 77 will allow any <iframe> or <img> with the loading attribute value of `auto` to be eligible for Lite Mode’s automatic lazy-loading. This includes <picture> elements and CSS background images.

In Google’s experiments, native lazy-loading of images and iframes yields a ~10% reduction in bytes downloaded per page at the 75th percentile and an 8% reduction in overall downloaded bytes for the median user. Automatic lazy-loading also led to a 1-2% improvement in First Contentful Paint at the median, a 2% improvement in First Input Delay at the 95th percentile and a 0.7% improvement in median memory reduction per page.

Native lazy-loading is currently supported by the following browsers:

• Chrome 76+
• Chrome for Android 78+
• Android Browser 76+
• Opera 64+

GOOGLE ADD NEW VIDEO REPORTS TO SEARCH CONSOLE

Two new video reports are now available to users of Google Search Console, providing information on video content displayed within search results, the video search tab, and Google Discover.

The first of these reports is the Video Enhancement Report, which allows webmasters to see any errors and warnings for any video schema implemented on a website.

The second of these reports is the Video Performance Report. This will allow users to view the performance of videos within the video tab and main search page, by segmenting by “type = web”. Users will also be able to view Google Discover video performance by using the “search appearance” tab.

For users utilising the VideoObject schema these reports will allow a quick view on how videos are performing, along with providing an overview of whether schema is implemented correctly.

For information on last month’s major industry updates for social media, please see our monthly social blog…

BERT, or the Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, is the new search algorithm released by Google. BERT is a natural language processor (NLP) that is capable of providing Google with further understanding behind the intention of a search query, rather than relying solely on key terms within the query in order to understand user intention.

This new algorithm is going to allow Google to do a much better job of finding useful information for search queries, particularly for longer, more conversational queries, or searches where prepositions like “for” and “to” matter a lot to the meaning, Search will be able to understand the context of the words in your query.

Looking at the below examples, we can see how BERT is able to understand more complex, content driven search terms, in order to provide more relevant search results.

BERT is currently live for search terms using the English language and Google will be looking to apply this to other languages in the future.Google have labelled BERT as “representing the biggest leap forward in the past five year, and one of the biggest leaps forward in the history of search”. This no understatement from Google, as BERT will work alongside RankBrain and is expected to affect 10% of all search terms, along with affecting structured snippets.

As BERT is a deep learning NLP algorithm that is designed to process and learn how language is used, the only way to optimise content for this is to ensure that content is relevant, informative, useful and most importantly, written for humans.

Join Fusion’s SEO team as they round up last month’s major industry updates.

BROAD CORE ALGORITHM UPDATE

Google announced that they were releasing a broad core algorithm update on 24^th September.

Later today, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the September 2019 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before. Please see this blog for more about that: https://t.co/e5ZQUAlt0G

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) September 24, 2019

Although broad core algorithm updates have no specific focus and are released in order provide a more general improvement in search results, Google have suggested “focusing on ensuring you’re offering the best content you can” as “that’s what our algorithms seek to reward.” Google have also recommended that sites continue to consult the search quality rater guidelines in order to view Google’s ideology on what a qualities a site should possess in order to rank well within search. Google have also recommended the following resources in order to help understand the search quality rater guidelines:

• E-A-T and SEO, from Marie Haynes
• Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines Targeting E-A-T, Page Quality & Interstitials, from Jennifer Slegg
• Leveraging E-A-T for SEO Success, presentation from Lily Ray
• Google’s Core Algorithm Updates and The Power of User Studies: How Real Feedback From Real People Can Help Site Owners Surface Website Quality Problems (And More), Glenn Gabe
• Why E-A-T & Core Updates Will Change Your Content Approach, from Fajr Muhammad

GOOGLE UPDATES NO FOLLOW & INTRODUCES SPONSORED AND UGC TAGS

Google have updated the guidance on how they will treat nofollow tags, alongside introducing 2 new tags to be used in specific circumstances:

rel=”nofollow”: Use this attribute for cases where you want to link to a page but don’t want to imply any type of endorsement, including passing along ranking credit to another page.

rel=”sponsored”: Use the sponsored attribute to identify links on your site that were created as part of advertisements, sponsorships or other compensation agreements.

rel=”ugc”: UGC stands for User Generated Content, and the ugc attribute value is recommended for links within user generated content, such as comments and forum posts.

For further information on these changes and the impact they have made, please see our Google Updates Nofollow Links blog.

FRESHER DATA IS INTRODUCED TO GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE

Following an announcement on 23^rd September 2019, users will now have access to more recent data within Google Search Console.

Previously, users were required to wait a couple of days for data within Search Console to become available, meaning that site performance from over the weekend would become available around Wednesday. With the implementation of fresher data users will now have access to information from as soon as the previous day, which will then be processed and replaced with the final data within the same time period as usual (around a couple of days).

GOOGLE INTRODUCES AUTO DNS VERIFICATION FOR SEARCH CONSOLE

Following their release of domain groups in Google Search Console allowing users to views combined data driven by their whole domain, Google have released auto DNS verification in order to make it easier for users to verify their domain.

By clicking on “add property” from the property selector from the drop down sidebar, then choosing the “Domain” option, users will now be met with a step-by-step guide from Google. This will guide users through the steps of verifying their domain.

GOOGLE OFFICIALLY RETIRES THE OLD SEARCH CONSOLE

After releasing the new Google Search Console back at the start of 2018, Google have gradually migrated across functionality from the old Search Console to the new version, alongside new exclusive tools. The time has now come for us to say goodbye to the old Search Console, as Google closed accessibility on 9^th September 2019.

Although the old Search Console has been closed, Google are still allowing access to the below legacy tools that are yet to receive a replacement on the new Google Search Console interface:

• Remove URLs tool
• Crawl Stats
• Robots.txt Tester
• URL Parameters Tool
• International Targeting
• Data Highlighter tool
• Messages report
• Crawl rate settings
• Email preferences
• Web tools

GOOGLE UPDATE USE OF REVIEW RICH RESULTS

Google have been looking into how review schema is currently being used by webmasters, finding many invalid and misleading implementations of this structured data. Google have made some algorithmic updates in order to improve the helpfulness of review markup, and have also limited the display of rich review results to only the following schema types:

• schema.org/Book
• schema.org/Course
• schema.org/CreativeWorkSeason
• schema.org/CreativeWorkSeries
• schema.org/Episode
• schema.org/Event
• schema.org/Game
• schema.org/HowTo
• schema.org/LocalBusiness
• schema.org/MediaObject
• schema.org/Movie
• schema.org/MusicPlaylist
• schema.org/MusicRecording
• schema.org/Organization
• schema.org/Product
• schema.org/Recipe
• schema.org/SoftwareApplication

Review markup that is applied to any schema that is not included within the above list will be ignored by Google.

GOOGLE ADDS OPTIONS FOR SITES TO PREVIEW CONTENT ON GOOGLE SEARCH

With structured data and featured snippets consistently increasing in importance within search, Google have expanded functionality for webmasters to inform them how they would like pages to be displayed within rich results. These include the following:

Using robots meta tags

The robots meta tag is added to an HTML page’s <head>, or specified via the x-robots-tag HTTP header. The robots meta tags addressing the preview content for a page are:

• “nosnippet”
  This is an existing option to specify that you don’t want any textual snippet shown for this page.
• “max-snippet:[number]”
  New! Specify a maximum text-length, in characters, of a snippet for your page.
• “max-video-preview:[number]”
  New! Specify a maximum duration in seconds of an animated video preview.
• “max-image-preview:[setting]”
  New! Specify a maximum size of image preview to be shown for images on this page, using either “none”, “standard”, or “large”.

They can be combined, for example:

<meta name=”robots” content=”max-snippet:50, max-image-preview:large”>

Using the new data-nosnippet HTML attribute

A new way to help limit which part of a page is eligible to be shown as a snippet is the “data-nosnippet” HTML attribute on span, div, and section elements. With this, you can prevent that part of an HTML page from being shown within the textual snippet on the page.

For example:

<p><span data-nosnippet>Harry Houdini</span> is undoubtedly the most famous magician ever to live.</p>

These new implementations will provide site owners with the power to limit the amount and type of content in the structured data.

IPAD TRAFFIC IS CHANGING WITHIN GOOGLE ANALYTICS

Due to updates within iPad OS, Apple have changed the user agent for the iPad, meaning iPad traffic will appear as desktop traffic. With Apple currently in control of 72% of the tablet market share worldwide, site owners should expect to see a reduction in tablet traffic and an increase in desktop traffic, with a specific increase in Safari users. This change took place in September 2019.

Join Fusion’s SEO team as they round up last month’s major industry updates

GOOGLE’S NEW ALGORITHM UPDATE FOCUSES ON FINDING FRESH CONTENT

At the start of the month, Google’s Vice President of Search, Pandu Nayak, released a blog detailing the focuses of a Google algorithm update that was released in February 2019.

As shown above, the main focus of this update is to ensure that featured snippets contain fresh, helpful information.

Although the outcome of this update is very positive for data accuracy within many featured snippets, this also means that we will expect to see much more movement with information that is featured within these snippets with Google prioritising fresher content.

GOOGLE EXPERIENCED FURTHER INDEXING ISSUES

Early this month, Google experienced some issues that meant newly published pages where prevented from being indexed.

We're aware of reports of indexing issues that are impacting some sites beginning earlier today. We'll provide another update when we have more information to share.

— Google Webmasters (@googlewmc) August 8, 2019

The indexing issues are similar to the ones that took place in May 2019, in which users saw a delay in some pages performances that were published during these issues, due to these being indexed late. This mostly affected news publications, as articles didn’t make it onto Google search, news or discover whilst issues persisted.

Along with this issue, Google also experienced issues with the URL inspection tool within Google Search Console. These issues have since been resolved.

GOOGLE UPDATE TESTING TOOLS ALLOW GOOGLEBOT EVERGREEN RENDERING

Google announced that most of their testing tools now support the evergreen Chromium renderer. This is has now been implemented within the following tools:

• Search Console‘s URL inspection tool
• Mobile-friendly test
• Rich results test
• AMP test

This update will allow these tools to render JavaScript and will continue to update along with Chromium.

In the above image, we can see that within the mobile testing tool, this is now able to render ES6+, Web Components and 1,000+ new web platform features.

PLAYABLE PODCASTS ARE NOW AVAILABLE IN GOOGLE SEARCH

During the Google I/O event in May 2019, Google released the news that podcasts are now available in Google search (more information on this in our May 2019 blog). This month, Google have announced that podcasts will now be playable within desktop and mobile search results.

Google have also implemented a “podcast series” table within the result page which holds many of the top podcast series relating to the search query.

LESS THAN HALF OF GOOGLE SEARCHES RESULT IN A CLICK

SparkToro released a study on how people interact with Google search results in 2019. This study found that June 2019 was the first month to see zero click searches accounted for 50.33% of 40 million+ searches within the United States, this is the first time that zero click searches have surpassed 50%.

The study also shows how zero click searches have seen a gradual increase since 2016.

The increase in zero click searches is due to the increase in featured snippets within Google search results providing information relevant enough for users to never feel the need to enter a website.

Although an increase in zero click searches means a drop in all website traffic for Google search channels, such as Organic and Paid, due to most zero click searches being more informational, this increase will affect top of the funnel traffic much more than any traffic further down the funnel for businesses.

GOOGLE SPOTTED HIGHLIGHTING TEXT ON SITES

Users have spotted Google highlighting text on a website after clicking through to the site from a featured snippet.

The text that is highlighted is dependent on the text that is displayed within the snippet. The page will also automatically scroll to the highlighted text.

Join Fusion’s SEO team as they round up last month’s major industry updates

GOOGLE LOOK TO FORMALISE ROBOTS.TXT FORMATTING

Although the Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP) has been the unofficial format for robots.txt for the past 25 years, Google released a webmaster blog post on 1^st July confirming that they have submitted REP to The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in order to officialise the REP. Along with submitting REP to the IEFT, Google also updated its robots.txt spec to match REP.

https://twitter.com/LizziHarvey/status/1145766318680858625

Alongside the act of making REP an internet standard, Google also announced that they have made their robots.txt parser open source; this is currently available to view on GitHub.

GOOGLE REMOVE SUPPORT FOR NOINDEX WITHIN ROBOTS.TXT

Google announced that they no longer support noindex directives within robots.txt files, reasoning that this has never been an official directive within the REP.

In order for webmasters to update their sites for this change, Google have provided the below alternatives:

• Noindex in robots meta tags: Supported both in the HTTP response headers and in HTML, the noindex directive is the most effective way to remove URLs from the index when crawling is allowed.
• 404 and 410 HTTP status codes: Both status codes mean that the page does not exist, which will drop such URLs from Google’s index once they’re crawled and processed.
• Password protection: Unless markup is used to indicate subscription or paywalled content, hiding a page behind a login will generally remove it from Google’s index.
• Disallow in robots.txt: Search engines can only index pages that they know about, so blocking the page from being crawled usually means its content won’t be indexed.  While the search engine may also index a URL based on links from other pages, without seeing the content itself, we aim to make such pages less visible in the future.
• Search Console Remove URL tool: The tool is a quick and easy method to remove a URL temporarily from Google’s search results.

Google also sent warnings to Google Search Console users.

Within the warning, Google notified users that on 1^st September 2019, noindex directives within robots.txt files will no longer work.

GOOGLE RANKING ALGORITHM UPDATES

With Google admitting that they made around 3,200 changes to Google Search within the past year, either with the release of new features or regular updates, it’s safe to assume that multiple updates to Google’s algorithm take place daily. A Tweet from Google’s Gary Illyes confirmed this back in 2017, stating that Google release on average 3 daily updates.

we have 3 updates a day in average. I think it's pretty safe to assume there was one recently…

— Gary "鯨理" Illyes (@methode) March 9, 2017

Despite being armed with this knowledge, we still see articles and tweet every month asking if any algorithm updates have been released recently, or that an “unconfirmed” algorithm update took place, but only on a specific day.

The only truth behind any of these updates is that Google release multiple smaller updates on a daily basis, these smaller updates focus on specific aspect of site ranking, such as site speed. Large broad core updates are released less frequently, having a much broader focus that looks to provide a more generic improvement to Google’s search algorithm.

The best way to track if any of these daily updates affect you is to keep an eye on your site’s traffic and rankings and look out for any sudden changes, aided with the use of online tools. Tools such as SEMRush’s sensor can provide details on times in which algorithm updates produced more movement within search rankings, categorised industries and which of these were affected the most, and with the use of an account,  the ranking of sites alongside google algorithm updates to see how these were effected on a daily basis.

CUSTOMER PHOTOS ARE COMING TO GOOGLE SHOPPING

Rolling out for the US within July, Google new feature will allow customers to post their photos, along with a review, which will be displayed within the product listing.

This feature can only currently be implemented with Yotpo, PowerReviews, Bazaarvoice, and Influenster. Google have also confirmed that they will be looking to expand on this list in the future.

GOOGLE TESTS SHAREABLE SEARCH RESULTS

Google has been spotted testing a new feature within Google’s search results which allows users to share, open a cache of the page or open the page in a new tab.

What's with these new icons in SERPs? Ability to share, open cache & open in a new tab! Is this new? @Google @googlechrome @searchliaison #SEO pic.twitter.com/xKnx0szR5m

— Tom Pool (@cptntommy) July 15, 2019

Although this is currently a test and may or may not make it past the testing stage, it would be interesting to see how users interact with this feature compared to just sharing the page once they have clicked through.

GOOGLE DATA STUDIO ADD TREEMAP

The newest edition to data visualisations within Google Data Studio is the treemap.

Added to 18^th July, this new graph will allow users to view data organised into dimension hierarchies and create drill down options, such as product brand > product category > product.

Join Fusion’s SEO team as they round up last month’s major industry updates

BROAD CORE ALGORITHM UPDATE

Google pre-announced and rolled out a ‘big’ search algorithm update on June 3^rd, which took five days to finish due to the servers and data centres around the world. It took a focus on all ranking signals, including E-A-T, so this influenced initial trends for sites bringing traffic increase and drops, primarily from 20% to 90% each way. Concluding results saw large publications such as Daily Mail, which saw the 50% drop in site traffic the day following the algorithm update.

For those asking, the June 2019 Core Update has not gone live yet. This thread will be updated when that process has begun.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 3, 2019

Rather than thinking of Google algorithm updates as Google changing their mind on ranking signals and random sites being punished as a result, it seems clear that these updates are Google pushing sites to improve UI, content and site optimisation in a positive direction. Sites that have been “punished” as a result of broad core algorithm updates were most likely getting away with bad/unfavourable practises in the past, such as the Daily Mail using sensationalist headlines to drive clicks.

GOOGLE INTRODUCE XML SITEMAPS TO WORDPRESS CORE

Developers at Google have proposed a plan to integrate basic XML Sitemaps in WordPress Core, as well as an XML Sitemaps API to extend functionality for developers and webmasters. This introduction could mean one less third-party plugin to rely on and a feature that will be able to offer wider compatibility and support.

Poorly optimised plugins can slow down our site and negatively impact your organic traffic, so this implementation could provide a positive improvement in site speed, which is still one of the main ranking factors for many search engines, including Google and Bing.

GOOGLE REMOVED PREFERRED DOMAIN SETTINGS FROM SEARCH CONSOLE

The tool which allowed webmasters to set a preferred domain (displayed in the image below) has now been removed from Google Search Console

With the new Search Console, Google are now able to pick the preferred domain for you, based on the various signals that Google ingest, such as canonicals. This prevents duplicated content that can be competing against each other in the search results by sending multiple different URL’s to the canonical URL.  Google have not said if they’ll communicate canonical URL changes in the index so you will need to ensure that your canonical URL listed in Google has stayed the same.

GOOGLE CAUGHT ILLEGALLY SCRAPING LYRICS FROM GENIUS

Genius has accused Google of scraping their content and serving it directly in its search results. Genius switched up their quote mark styles to form a unique Morse code which spelt “red handed” in order to catch Google out. In this case, Genius are impacted negatively because Google are using info boxes to display lyrics as a rich result, keeping users on Google rather than sending them to the creators’ website. This dramatically decreases the click-through rate for Genius.

Lyrics in info boxes on Google Search are licensed, we don't generate them from other sites on the web. We're investigating this issue and if our data licensing partners are not upholding good practices, we will end our agreements.

— Google Communications (@Google_Comms) June 16, 2019

Google have said to include attribution to the third party providing the digital lyrics text so that users and site owners will be able to know where the licensed content was sourced from.

MILLIONS OF FAKE BUSINESS LISTING SPOTTED IN GOOGLE MY BUSINESS

Google Maps is carrying millions of illegitimate local listings, growing drastically each month. The fake listings push real businesses lower down in the search results which impact their ability to reach customers and makes it easier for these customers to be targeted by scammers. Google are failing to take down fake business listings and verify the real ones which is turning local businesses to paid ads to regain their search visibility.

GOOGLE MY BUSINESS INTRODUCES SEARCHABLE SHORT NAMES

Desires for a simple URL to promote a user’s businesses have been met with searchable short names. This gives users a unique way of targeting a business. This will be a global namespace and could have competition for rankings and handles between similarly named businesses.

GMB have added more branding and promotional tools for businesses, including:

• Logo
• Cover photo
• Dynamic photo module
• Welcome offers
• Promotional assets

These features furthermore verify the users profile to help their brand to be more effectively promoted.

GMB have also introduced ‘Local Favourite’ which offers a badge to the top 5% of local businesses in a category, increasing preference over other businesses so search result ranking will be less important.

NEW GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE FEATURES

Google announced two new features to the Google Search Console. You can now search within the mark-up quickly to find the spot in the mark-up that you want to adjust. You are also able to copy the code and mark-up and then experiment with it without impacting the original, giving you the chance to see if the tweaks you make pass validation and result in the outcome you want. These features make debugging issues with your mark-up for structured data issues faster.

https://twitter.com/googlewmc/status/1143162650332979202

GOOGLE NO LONGER USES SOCIAL PROFILE MARK-UP FOR KNOWLEDGE PANELS

Google have deprecated social profile markup, which means that Google automatically discover the social profiles to include in the knowledge panels. You are still able to specify your preferred social profiles and suggest a change if you are an official representative to claim a knowledge panel.

Join Fusion’s SEO team as they round up last month’s major industry updates

GOOGLE I/O

With Google I/O having taken place from May 7^th-9^th, we were treated to several announcements on features that have been and are due to be released for Google search, these include:

• Googlebot Evergreen
• FAQ and How To structured data
• Podcasts & Full Coverage in Google Search
• Google Maps AR mode
• Google Lens features

We will dive further into these new features below.

Googlebot Evergreen

Google announced that Googlebot is now running Chromium 74, from previously running Chromium 41, which was released in 2015. This major update now means that Googlebot supports over 1,000 new features, this includes:

• ES6 and newer JavaScript features
• IntersectionObserver for lazy-loading
• Web Components v1 APIs

Google Developer Martin Splitt provided more information on the new features that Googlebot supports.

https://twitter.com/g33konaut/status/1126412496754159616

Despite these major updates in Googlebot’s ability to render JavaScript, any JavaScript on a page is still only rendered on Googlebot’s 2^nd crawl of the page, meaning that there is still a delay to Google indexing JavaScript content.

FAQ AND HOW-TO SCHEMA

Google released support for FAQ and How-To schema during Google I/O. These schemas come with new rich results within Google’s SERPs.

FAQ schema can be applied to pages that contains a list of questions and answers around a specific topic. This is unlike QAPage schema, which is relevant for pages that allow users to submit answers to a single question, such as forums.

Example of FAQ Schema rich results:

How-To Schema can be applied to pages that provide step-by-step instructions in order to complete a task, such as “how to tie a tie”. For any instructions for food and drink related topics, ensure that the Recipe Schema is used instead.

How-To Schema can be displayed in a standard and an image rich result within Google SERPs.

Standard snippet:

Image snippet:

Ensure that any pages with How-To Schema implemented comply with the content guidelines provided within Google’s How-To Schema help page.

PODCASTS & FULL COVERAGE IN GOOGLE SEARCH

Announced at Google I/O, podcasts will be shown within search. Google have informed that they will be able to transcribe and index a podcast’s content in order to display results for relevant searches, rather than relying on the podcast title to display the contents of the podcast. Podcasts will also be displayed within Google’s “full coverage” segment, which previously displayed within Google News, will now be able to display within SERPs.

Full coverage displays a large range of information on a searched topic, such as top stories, videos, informational pages, podcasts and related queries.

GOOGLE BRING AR TO GOOGLE MAPS

Currently only available on Google Pixel smartphones, Google Maps now has the ability to enter AR mode, which will allow people to receive directions through their camera.

With this feature being especially useful for anyone visiting a city and trying to locate local restaurants, business and points of interest, it is becoming more of a priority to ensure that any bricks and mortar stores have been added to Google My Business and the location pins are accurate.

As an addition to this, Google Maps will support incognito mode, allowing users to hide their activity, such as places searched or directions used. Google have also been testing branded pins within Google Maps.

No announcement has yet been made in regards to how these will be implemented.

NEW GOOGLE LENS FEATURES

Google have released several features for Google Lens, most of which are focused on restaurants. Google Lens will now have the ability to recommend popular dishes and also find reviews on specific dishes on a menu by pulling information from Google Maps information.

GOOGLE UPDATED THE SEARCH QUALITY RATERS GUIDELINES

Google have updated the search quality raters guidelines in order to expand and modernise a couple of points, mainly surrounding E-A-T and interstitials. In regards to the changes mate to E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness), Google have added emphasis to focusing on page quality over E-A-T on non-YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) pages and also that everyday expertise can be assessed based on the talent/skill level depicted in cases where the content creator is demonstrating formal or everyday expertise but is not doing any harm.

Google have also added further information on how to deal with interstitials and have now been included within segments discussing that if these are to be used, they should be clear with easy-to-close buttons.

GOOGLE MAKES MOBILE-FIRST INDEXING A DEFAULT FOR ALL NEW SITES

Google have announced, via their webmaster central blog, that commencing 1^st July, all new and previously unknown sites will have mobile-first indexing enabled as a default.

As shown above, users will be able to check for mobile-first indexing by using the URL inspection tool within Google Search Console.

GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE ADDS NEW REPORTS

3 new report have been added to Google Search Console this month. The first of these reports is the unparsable structured data report, this will allow users to view a list of structured data found on a site that cannot be parsed due to serious syntax issues. The final 2 reports are the Logo and Sitelinks searchbox reports, similar to the unparsable structured data report, if a site is using logo schema or Sitelinks searchbox, Google will inform of any errors it is detecting.

GOOGLE ANNOUNCED BROAD CORE ALGORITHM UPDATE

For the first time, Google has pre-announced that they are due to release a broad core algorithm update on 3^rd June 2019. Unlike the daily algorithm refinements that Google makes daily which have a specific focus, such as site speed, broad core algorithm updates focus on all ranking signals.

Tomorrow, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the June 2019 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before. Please see this tweet for more about that:https://t.co/tmfQkhdjPL

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 2, 2019

GOOGLE DISPLAY FAVICONS WITHIN RESULTS PAGES

Announced on The Keyword, Google released a new design on their search result pages. Within the redesign, Google have added favicons to Google search results.

Along with the addition of favicons, Google has also redesigned how ads will be displayed within SERPs and have received criticism in regards to ads and organic results with favicons looking very similar.

Join Fusion’s SEO team as they round up last month’s major industry updates.

GOOGLE’S DE-INDEXING ISSUES

At the start of April, Google was found to have had with de-indexing pages for many sites, with both Moz’s and SEMRush’s Google ranking trackers picking up on a change in page rankings across the web.

Google also seemed to have an issue with fully resolving this. After confirming on 10^th April that this issue was fully resolved, many users still reported having issues with getting their pages indexed again. We have since received notification from Google that these issues have now been resolved.

GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE ADDS ANDROID APP TO SEARCH APPEARANCE FILTERS

On 8^th April Google announced, via their Webmasters Twitter account, that users with an Android app associated with a website will now have the ability to filter the app’s performance within the performance report, via the search appearance filter.

Activating this filter will display the clicks, impressions, CTR and average position for the sites Android app.

NEW GOOGLE DISCOVER PERFORMANCE REPORTS

Google Discover was released in September 2018, as an upgrade of Google Feed. Google Discover delivers relevant content to a user based on their interest and browsing habits, including articles and video, along with featured snippets of information from different sites.

Within Google Search Console, a new performance report is now available, showing how sites perform within Discover. This is only available to for properties that have reached a threshold number of Discover impressions in the past 16 months.

This performance report will allow users to view Discover performance within the same format as the current search report, including filters and dimensions such as country and page.

CREATE CUSTOM SHORT URLS IN GOOGLE MY BUSINESS             

Google My Business users now have the ability to create a short name and URL for their business profile. Short URLs will be in the format of “g.page/[yourcustomname]”, and will make it easier to customers to access a business’ profile directly.

GOOGLE MAY RELEASE PAID FEATURES FOR GOOGLE MY BUSINESS

Google My Business users started receiving questionnaires from Google this month, asking how much they would pay for services are already provided for free within Google My Business, such as business listings. The questionnaires also provided a list of packages that may become available for users to purchase in the future, asking users which one they would prefer.

Google also provided a list of the features within the packages they think could enhance a business’ presence, which may be added as paid services in the future. These include:

• Promoted map pin: Show up prominently on Google Maps when a customer is looking at a map where your business in located
• “Book” button on your Business Profile: Get an extra button on your business profile titles “book”. Google shows customers your availability (synced with your calendar system if you have one). Customers can either confirm a booking or request a timeslot.
• Promote your “book” button: Get a “book” button on the Google.com search results, in addition to your Business Profile.
• Verified reviews: Google verifies your reviews and shows an indication to consumers that your reviews are verified to help build trust in your business.
• Remove ads from your Business Profile: Ads from other businesses will not appear on your Business Profile.
• Verified Licenses: Google verifies your trade licenses and displays your verified licenses on your Business Profile.
• Request quote: Get a “request quote” button on your Business Profile. Customers will enter details about their job. Requests come to you as a message in the Google My Business app.
• Automated message responses: Answer some frequently asked questions (hours, services offered) so Google can respond automatically to customers on your behalf.
• Automated response for reviews: Create messages so Google can automatically respond on your behalf to customers who leave a review.
• Call reports and recordings: Get access to reports and recordings for all of your calls from Google My Business. This lets you evaluate quality and volume.
• Google search results placement: Show up in a section near the top of the list on the Google.com search results.
• Google customer support: Google’s customer support team helps you troubleshoot and get the most from your ad and Business Profile.
• Offers: Promote a special offer or discount on your Business Profile.
• Google Guarantee: Get a badge of trust on your Business Profile. If a customer isn’t satisfied, Google will give them their money back.
• Get leads from competitor profiles: When a customer messages a business that offers the same service as you, Google will show your business to the customer so they can message you too. This will help you get more leads from Google.
• Video on your Business Profile: Shows a video of your choice on your Business Profile to help customers learn more about your business.
• Instant quote: Respond to customer quote requests with an automatic quote. You can customise the quote based on the details on the job.
• Background check: Google performs a background check on your business, and shows this to consumers to build trust in your business.
• Verified bookings: Google automatically tracks the bookings you’ve received from Google calls and messages, and shows this number to customers.
• Featured review: Choose a review to display at the top on your Business Profile.

This is an extremely extensive list of features that Google is considering providing to paid users, with many features that will provide a large benefit to a listings local search presence.

GOOGLE DATA STUDIO UPDATES

Google Data Studio rolled out many new features over the past month, including:

• Advanced date comparison
• Hide pages in view mode
• New component headings
• Faster BigQuery Reports

Recent weeks also saw the implementation of chart drill-down, allowing users to define hierarchies within Cartesian charts, and allow these charts to be switched between hierarchies on view mode, such as switching from an annual view, to a monthly view, to a daily view.

Within the above chart, users can see sessions by month, by right clicking on the chart or using the charts component heading, users will have the ability to drill up (view sessions by year), or drill down (view sessions by day). Users will also be able to apply a sort to these results.

Join Fusion’s SEO team as they round up last month’s major industry updates.

GOOGLE SHOW RECENT SEARCHES IN SERPS

Google has announced that the release of new activity cards, which will appear in search results and display users’ recent activity.

The activity card will display sites users have previously visited for topics such as cooking, fashion, skincare and beauty, fitness, photography and more. However, cards will only be available if the user is logged into a Google account.

Just like bookmarks, users will be able to categorise and save recently visited pages. These saved pages can be accessed via menu at the top left of the search page (mobile only) and the Google app.

At present, the new feature is only available to logged-in U.S English users browsing via the Google app or mobile browsers, although it’s likely that an international roll-out will follow soon!

GOOGLE ANNOUNCES THE END OF OLD GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE FEATURES

On their Webmasters Blog, Google announced that they will be removing several features from the old Search Console, whilst also adding many features to the new Search Console.

Features Google will be removing from the old Search Console include:

• HTML suggestions
• Property Sets
• Android Apps
• Blocked resources

Many of the features being removed from the old Search Console have either been migrated to the new dashboard or to a more relevant Google tool, with the exception of HTML suggestions and property sets. Google now recommends using third-party tools for crawling page titles and descriptions as an alternative to HTML suggestions and currently have no plans to replace property sets.

Features Google will be adding to the new Search Console include:

• Crawl errors in the new index coverage report
• Sitemaps data in Index Coverage
• New URL inspection tool
• Structured data reports

Google plans to implement these new features towards the end of March 2019.

DUCKDUCKGO’S MAPS ARE NOW POWERED BY APPLE

As web users start to become more concerned about their online privacy, demand for services that help protect this, such as VPNs, continue to increase. This demand in privacy has caused DuckDuckGo’s recent rise in user base as the “search engine that doesn’t track you” recently reported to receiving 30 million private daily searches (still dwarfed by Google’s 3.5 billion daily searches) which was a 50% annual growth.

DuckDuckGo announced that map and address-related searches will now be powered by Apple via their MapKit JS. This will help power direct business searches, business type searches and nearby places searches.

DuckDuckGo’s local business is still powered by Yelp’s local business listings and a business will require a Yelp listing in order to display within map results.

GOOGLE DISPLAYS PDF DOCUMENTS IN FEATURED SNIPPETS

Recently spotted within Google’s search results, PDF documents are being displayed within featured snippets.

Google pulling featured snippets from PDFs. pic.twitter.com/DcSvA1MRQj

— Kevin_Indig (@Kevin_Indig) January 16, 2019

Although PDF documents are crawlable and indedxable, it’s unusual for Google to place PDF content within a featured snippet position.

Due to the limited functionality of PDF documents, most webmasters would generally recommend having an HTML equivalent to any information provided in PDF format.

GOOGLE UPDATE INSPECT URL TOOL IN SEARCH CONSOLE

Google has expanded the functionality of the URL inspection tool within Google Search Console.

Users will now be able see the HTTP response, page resources, JavaScript logs and a rendered screenshot of the page.

GOOGLE DATA STUDIO CAN NOW COMPARE CUSTOM DATE RANGES

Implemented on 24^th January, charts and graphs can now display comparison figures for custom date ranges, with this feature previously being limited to comparing data to previous period or year.

Users will have the option to keep the custom comparison date fixed to the specific date range selected or on a rolling date window which will advance over time.

Join Fusion’s SEO team as they round up last month’s major industry updates.

SEARCH CONSOLES RECEIVES A NEW LICK OF PAINT

On 4th September, Google announced on their Webmaster Central Blog that they’ve now fully released the new Google Search Console interface from beta testing.

The new Google Search Console interface was originally released at the start of January 2018. Alongside aesthetic updates, the main change this brought to the functionality of GSC was the ability for SEOs to download sixteen months of data – a large increase from three-months which was previously available.

Along with fully releasing Google Search Console from beta, Google has also implemented a ‘test live’ function within the URL inspection tool. This will now allow users to inspect live versions of a page rather than only being able to inspect the latest indexed version.

Not all features are available from the old Google Search Console within the new interface, but Google is still allowing users to use the old interface to utilise these missing tools.

BING INTRODUCES AMP SUPPORT

Bing released a blog post on 19^th September announcing that it’s introducing Bing AMP viewer and Bing AMP cache, which enable AMP web pages to load almost instantly via Bing’s mobile search results.

As an average 30% of mobile users will bounce from a page that does not load within three seconds, the speed boost will bring a range of benefits to well-optimised sites.

Bing started rolling out its AMP viewer and AMP carrousel in the US on 17^th September, for the news carrousel only, and will continue to roll this out across more sites and countries in the future.

GOOGLE ADDS CAPTIONS AND GOOGLE LENS TO IMAGE SEARCH

Announced on 27^th September – the same day as Google’s 20^th anniversary – Google Images received a couple of updates as a result of Google’s quest to make visual content more useful.

In order to make image search both more powerful and versatile, Google has added image captions, providing details of the page – such as the page title and site name – to give users a better understanding of the page behind the image.

Google will also be implementing Google Lens within image search. Once a user selects Google Lens on an image, Lens will detect objects within an image, allow the user to select any of them and provide similar images to it. Failing this, the user can draw on the image to select a desired area and will be presented with relevant images based on their choice.

Although this feature is not currently available, Google has stated that this will receive a full release within coming weeks.

Lastly, following in the footsteps of Instagram and Snapchat, Google has worked with the AMP Project to create AMP stories. This feature is currently only available for celebrities and utilises AI to create a timeline of facts and important moments of their life.

SMART ANSWERS BEGIN APPEARING IN SEARCH BOX

Within Google’s release of the latest version of their Chrome browser, they have announced that ‘smart answers’ can now appear within the search box. These answers can range from displaying rich results, providing local weather and translating foreign words.

GOOGLE ANNOUNCES SMALL ALGORITHM CHANGE

Finally, Google confirmed the release of a small algorithm update on 27^th September.

Unlike the broad core update which took place on 1^st August, Google considered this update less impactful, and didn’t cover it on their blog. However, it was noticed by SEOs due to shifts in site traffic and rankings.

Danny Sullivan, Google’s public search liason, commented:

Our core algorithm is updated all the time. For major updates, we'll continue to share about those on @searchliaison, as we have been. We haven't had a major update of that nature, but we did have a smaller one this week.

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) September 29, 2018

Keep checking in with the Fusion blog for more updates from the leading services and suppliers in SEO today. 

Join Fusion’s SEO team as they round up last month’s major industry updates.

GOOGLE ROLLS OUT HTTP “NOT SECURE” UPDATE

On 24th July, Google confirmed via the Chrome Developers twitter account and Google blog post that any site not encrypted with HTTPS will be marked as “not secure”.

https://twitter.com/ChromiumDev/status/1021806746283651072

Google initially started to crack down on unencrypted sites in 2015 by prioritising HTTPS pages within the SERPs, which soon escalated into adding the “not secure” marker to any unencrypted password fields. This increasing implementation of warnings has now resulted in any unencrypted site receiving the “not secure” marker starting in the latest version on Chrome (68).

Google’s efforts to create a safer browsing experience for users have been extremely successful so far, with roughly 83% of the top 100 sites on the web now using HTTPS, up from 37% just two years prior.

The next step in Google’s campaign will come in October 2018, with plans to implement a red “not” secure warning when users enter data on any unencrypted page, which will be accompanied by the removal of the “secure” tag from HTTPS pages.

GOOGLE’S NEW SCHEMA MARKUP

In July Google announced support for the Speakable Schema.org property which can be used to identify sections within a webpage that are suited best for text-to-speech. This schema is currently in beta and is limited to valid news sites, and is also only available on Google Home devices for English speakers with the U.S.

The content guidelines from Google recommend that data is structured in the following ways when writing content for Speakable:

• Content should have concise headlines and summaries that provide users with useful information.
• If the top of the story is included within the Speakable structured data, it is recommended that the information is broken up into individual sentences to allow to content to read clearly in text-to-speech.
• For optimal user experience, it is recommended to provide 20-30 seconds of content per section of Speakable structured data.

Although currently limited to valid news sites it’s expected that the mark-up will become available for all sites in the near future, allowing businesses to ensure that their site is primed for the increasing use of voice search.

GOOGLE’S SEARCH QUALITY RATING GUIDELINES UPDATE

Google released an updated edition of the search quality rating guidelines on 20th July. The extensive, 164 page PDF document provides a full guide for Google’s 10,000+ quality raters worldwide to adhere to.These raters evaluate and rate the quality of pages that appear in the top results on SERPs for lists of searches they are contracted to perform.

In this update of the search quality guidelines Google place more focus on the importance of the “beneficial purpose” of webpages, with a particular emphasis on flagging clickbait, fake news, conspiracy theories and pages which spread hate as low quality. Google has also placed a new focus on the authors of content, with quality raters required to research, evaluate and factor in the reputation of authors when rating a website or webpage.

GOOGLE’S BROAD CORE UPDATE

On August 1^st Google released a new update to their broad core algorithm. Unlike Google’s “focused updates”, which are daily changes designed to focus on specific objectives like site speed or security, the broad core update is a more general widespread change to the algorithm, and is confirmed to be rolling out globally.

This week we released a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. Our guidance about such updates remains the same as in March, as we covered here: https://t.co/uPlEdSLHoX

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) August 1, 2018

On Twitter, Google’s Danny Sullivan provided some clarification on the purpose of the update but ultimately confirmed that from an SEO perspective, there is no specific ‘fix’ for any traffic fluctuations this may cause.

We tell lots of things to do. Improve site speed. Consider secure. Etc. But that's not what this update was about. It's broad. And respectfully, I think telling people there's no particular thing to "fix" is indeed helpful. It means, hopefully, they think more broadly…

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) August 1, 2018

Instead, Google has continued to place emphasis on the importance of “high quality content”, suggesting that SEOs take a “broad” approach to improvement that considers factors laid out within the official search quality rater guidelines.

Google states that it will continue to release core algorithm updates several times a year, to further tailor the SERPs towards their ideology of sites that provide the best user experience based on the request of the user.

NEW DATASET SCHEMA

On 31^st July, Google released a blog post announcing its support for the dataset schema, making it possible for websites to display charts, tables or data directly within search results.

Within the blog, Google informed that “news organisations that publish data in the form of tables can add additional structured data to make the dataset parts of the page easier to identify for use in relevant search features”.

The below is an example from Google of what the dataset schema looks like:

Google explain that the purpose of this mark-up is to improve discovery of datasets from fields such as life sciences, social sciences, machine learning, civic and government data and more. Google states that the below site features can qualify as a dataset:

• A table or a CSV file with some data
• An organized collection of tables
• A file in a proprietary format that contains data
• A collection of files that together constitute some meaningful dataset
• A structured object with data in some other format that you might want to load into a special tool for processing
• Images capturing data
• Files relating to machine learning, such as trained parameters or neural network structure definitions
• Anything that looks like a dataset to you

GOOGLE’S MOBILE PAGE SPEED UPDATE

Following the initial announcement of 17^th January 2018, Google confirmed via the Google Webmasters twitter account on 9^th July that the page speed update was being rolled out.

https://twitter.com/googlewmc/status/1016276644321996800

Google states the update will only impact mobile rankings on what it considers to be a small percentage of the slowest websites on the internet.

Page speed has been an important optimisation factor within Google’s search results on desktop for years, with conclusive evidence from studies conducted by Google confirming that users find page speed as important on mobile. Alongside the move to mobile first indexing, the update reflects Google’s continuing focus on maximising user experience for mobile searchers.

GOOGLE UPDATE HREFLANG USAGE DOCUMENT

In early July Aleyda Solis, founder of Search Engine Land, discovered that Google had quietly updated their official documentation on hreflang usage to expand on existing guidelines and resources.

https://twitter.com/aleyda/status/1014993990125572096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1014993990125572096&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.seroundtable.com%2Fgoogle-updates-hreflang-official-documentation-26006.html

If a site has multiple versions of a page for different languages or regions, using hreflang code will help Google point users to the most appropriate version of the page by language or region.

In the new documentation, Google recommends indicating alternate pages for the following scenarios:

• When keeping the main content in a single language and translating only the template, such as the navigation and footer. Pages that feature user-generated content, like forums, typically do this.
• If content has small regional variations with similar content, in a single language. For example, a site might have English-language content targeted to the US, GB, and Ireland.
• If a site is fully translated into multiple languages. For example, both German and English versions of each page may exist.