New SEO

  Google Ads   announced   that Google will start the process of automatically "upgrading" accounts to Performance Max for Local campaigns. Automatic upgrades will gradually progress and finish in September for most advertisers. As a note, performance max campaigns has been available to all advertisers since   November 2021   and a beta launched   October 2020 . Google started this process with auto-upgrading  accounts to Performance Max for Smart Shopping campaigns  in July. Google  wrote  "if your campaigns are not eligible for the self-upgrade tool and you are not notified about an automatic upgrade, then your Local campaigns will not be upgraded to Performance Max until 2023. If your campaigns have access to the self-upgrade tool and do not auto-upgrade by the end of September, you will continue to have access to the self-upgrade tool until auto-upgrade resumes in 2023. This will ensure you do not see any campaign disruption during t...

  The other day we reported that Google Discover was showing the   author name under the article   and not the site name, for some stories. Well, Google Discover can now let you hide content from showing up based on who writes it, despite where it might be published. Francisco Zuasti spotted this first back in July and posted it on  Twitter  but it was hard for me to understand because of the language. Glenn Gabe just noticed it the other day as well, in English, and posted that on  Twitter . It says "don't show content from [author name]." Here is Glenn's screenshot in English: Super cool! Google does really know who writes what and where... Also, a note on Google Stories in Google Discover: https://www.seohelp.digital/why-white-hat-seo-is-more-successful-for-boat-dealers/ https://www.seohelp.digital/underused-tactics-and-overlooked-metrics-in-e-commerce/ https://www.seohelp.digital/how-to-build-a-local-seo-strategy-for-your-retail-business/ https://www.se...

  I am weird, I love user-generated comments and while tons of blogs removed them ages and ages ago, I kept them here. I do my best to remove the spam comments and keep the comments that are not spam. John Mueller of Google recently said he would not noindex pages with comments, instead, he would remove the spam comments and keep the good comments. John wrote on  Twitter  "I would not noindex pages with comments." Just said "you just need to make sure that they're the kind of content that you want to publish on your site." "Some comments can be quite useful, other comments are just spam. Keep the good ones," he added. Totally agree but if you cannot manage the comments on your site, then you probably want to disable comments in general. To noindex pages with comments so search engines do not see them but users do see them, that doesn't make much sense. You want to make sure what you show users is as good or better than what you show search engines....

  Google's John Mueller said that the Google quality raters guidelines are "not a collection of ranking tips." He said the quality raters guidelines "can be useful" to think about but again, they are not just a list of ranking tips. John wrote this on  Twitter  "My recommendation would be to read the quality raters guidelines. It's not a collection of ranking tips, but it can be useful in thinking about topics like these." This was in response to some questions about sticking to a specific topic on the site. Here are those tweets: So I took the tweet a bit out of context, intentionally, but it is true - the quality raters guidelines are not a collection of ranking tips from Google. https://www.seohelp.digital/7-seo-tips-for-property-management-websites/ https://www.seohelp.digital/seo-for-apartments-your-guide-to-ranking-high-on-google/ https://www.seohelp.digital/the-ultimate-guide-to-seo-for-beauty-spas-improve-your-salons-google-ranking/ https:/...

  Google has this "from sources across the web" box that shows sites that cover a specific topic in this grid list view. You can click on a specific site to expand and show recent stories from that site on that topic. Here is a screenshot you can click on to make it larger that shows the from sources across the web Google box: Here is what it looks like when you click on a site to expand it: I don't think this is super new but I don't think I've covered this yet. This was spotted by Krishna Murari and posted on  Twitter . You can try it for a search on [ resources to learn SEO ]. https://www.seohelp.digital/seo-for-wholesale-suppliers/ https://www.seohelp.digital/inside-seo-for-transportation-and-logistics-companies/ https://www.seohelp.digital/10-simple-ways-to-boost-your-translation-or-interpreting-websites-seo/ https://www.seohelp.digital/top-3-digital-marketing-strategies-for-sign-companies/ https://www.seohelp.digital/what-is-search-engine-optimization-seo-fo...

  Google's John Mueller was asked about the pros and cons of cloaking affiliate links. John responded on Twitter saying, "I don't think you gain anything by cloaking the affiliate links, it just adds complexity. You can use a DB-driven setup without cloaking too." The question was "as an affiliate, I've used cloaking to manage the thousands of ad link locations around my site (not hide them), I only have to update 1 link in my database if a partner's endpoint changes." The response was interesting as well: Recently someone asked about  swapping out affiliate links  to try to see improvements after the product reviews update, to which John responded to as well. https://www.seohelp.digital/gym-seo-the-heavy-lifting-secrets-for-your-business/ https://www.seohelp.digital/seo-for-fertility-clinics-and-hospitals/ https://www.seohelp.digital/seo-for-ear-nose-and-throat-doctors/ https://www.seohelp.digital/exercise-equipment-seo-company/ https://www.seohelp....

  Google's Gary Illyes said on the latest Search Off The Record podcast that soft 404s, pages Google thinks are 404s but return a 200 server status code, do waste crawl budget. However, 404s or 410s do not waste crawl budget, Gary added. This came up at the  26:10 mark  in the video where Gary said, "404/410, they don't waste crawl budget." He added, "neither do robotted URLs because we didn't get back anything, just a status code." But when it comes to soft 404s, he said "if you do with, on the other hand, a soft 404, that's a good job. You're not putting anything in the index and wasted crawl budget." Hat tip to Glenn Gabe for this: https://www.seohelp.digital/doctor-physicians-marketing-the-strategies-services-to-use/ https://www.seohelp.digital/how-to-optimize-seo-for-physical-therapy/ https://www.seohelp.digital/pharmaceutical-seo-the-guide-to-organic-growth/ https://www.seohelp.digital/seo-tips-for-personal-trainers/ https://www.s...

  Google is asking some Google Local Guides to leave sub-reviews about a single business listing. So Google might ask the local guide about the restrooms in the restaurant or the if the place is dog friendly. This was spotted by Colan Neislen who shared this on  Twitter . He wrote "I was prompted to add sub reviews about these subcategories and it broke them out separately in the review." Here is the screenshot he shared: I know Google has broken reviews into categories using its own algorithms but I didn't know Google asks for reviews about specific attributes of a business listing. https://www.seohelp.digital/why-gun-store-seo-is-important-and-how-to-use-it-to-attract-more-website-traffic/ https://www.seohelp.digital/funeral-home-seo-generate-more-calls-online-with-our-seo-for-funeral-homes/ https://www.seohelp.digital/seo-for-florists-the-definitive-guide/ https://www.seohelp.digital/an-seo-guide-for-event-planners-5-tips-to-attract-and-convert-attendees/ https://www.s...

  Microsoft Advertising   has extended   the deadline to move from Expanded Text Ads to Responsive Search Ads once again. Instead of it being   August 29, 2022 , Microsoft is now pushing the deadline off to February 1st, 2023. This is another five months! "For those who may still be working on the Expanded Text Ad to RSA migration, we heard your need for more time and have extended our timeline by an additional five months," Microsoft wrote. Now, starting on February 1, 2023, RSAs will be the only search ad type that can be created or edited in standard search campaigns. With the focus of this migration being to help you efficiently drive a stronger return on investment (ROI), Expanded Text Ads will continue serving along with RSAs, but we’ll no longer support the ability to create new, or edit existing, Expanded Text Ads moving forward, Microsoft added. Of course, Microsoft is telling everyone they should migrate sooner because it is better. https://www.seohelp.digi...