The pandemic aside, Google has taken us through a pretty wild ride since 2020 to today and there are tons of predictions of what could happen in 2023 and beyond. Some people talk about AI writing and other ways to make SEO more efficient but here’s what I really think would happen next year and beyond.

1. A.I.milar Content will run Amok and Get De-valued

AI or artificial intelligence may be the darling acronym of silicon valley but it’s not something that Google is happy for us mortal SEO people to be using for rankings.

I literally used the word Aimilar rather than similar because AI written content will generally look similar to Google for the most part. AI is still quite limited in its out-of-the-box thinking. After all, it’s supposed to think within parameters and is not a sentient being.

So the results of AI written content will generally be sounding quite similar with each other – which means that if your content writing team will not do their due diligence and really put some humanity, art and creativity to the AI written content by doing the final edits – you’re screwed.

I’ve seen some reports of AI generated content not ranking well at all.

And yet this is what a lot of SEO companies out there are using now and they are selling this to their clients without the clients realizing that the content other SEO companies out there are producing are just AI generated content!

It’s brilliant but at the same time, sly and outrageous!

We already have too much content being produced at the fastest amount of time since known history – and this is going to accelerate it even further – and make a lot of content on the web trashier at the same time.

Which means that there would be a lot of companies out there who are oblivious to their SEO agencies doing this to them that would suddenly rank lower. Remember, Google’s AI is not sentient but it’s not dumb either. Since it’s a big-data learning algorithm, it would surely pick up on what is AI generated content and what is not.

This is why I make sure that our team at SEO Hacker always has brilliant, creative writers AND editors for all the work we put out there.

2. Top 3 Ranking Websites will Fluctuate in and out

Google exists to make lots of making money. That’s a fact. It does exist for other aspirational things but as of now, it is a money behemoth and it needs to keep being a money behemoth or it will get into trouble.

So what I believe would happen next year is the top 3 spots for a lot of industries would be unstably fluctuating.

We can argue that Google’s AI might just be trying to test whether the lower ranking websites would get better click-through rates and website engagement time from the users. But it would also largely push these top ranking websites to bid on Google ads just for the stability of their first-page visibility on Google.

This means that the moat against competition in Google’s organic search listings would be even thinner for those who are ranking at the top. Unless you are the undeniable champion without a near 2nd challenger against your brand, you will probably have to get out of ‘cruise mode‘ and work on your SEO with an all-hands-on-deck attitude to keep your sweet rankings.

3. Less Organic Results, More Sponsored Ads

We have already seen Google shrink the organic search results time and again. It used to be 10 across the board but not we are seeing less and less of the organic results for some search terms. Some keywords would even only produce as few as 5 organic search results.

Then these keywords that are waylaid in their organic search results will see more sponsored ad listings in their page. I could almost imagine 5 to 6 sponsored ads would pepper the page in the organic listing’s stead.

The reason behind this is a very probable change is that Google is getting better and better in understanding what the user’s intention it. It’s almost scary – they can triangulate data outside of the search box.

So they know who you are (at least as an IP address or your mobile’s serial – or some qualified identifier), and they could see what you’re doing if you’re using Chrome browser (which is almost always the case), and they could see what you’re searching for, and they could hear from your Google home devices what your interests are.

In short, it would be way easier for Google to serve you what you are really looking for in a better way and a faster amount of time.

So there would come a time that we don’t even need 10 results to choose from in the first page (heck most of us don’t even look at the 5th to 10th result anymore!) And Google will be free to serve only 5 organic search results and the rest would be sponsored ads or other extensions or advanced listings.

4. Link Entropy will be More Felt

Yes link rot is also real but it’s also a damn shame if your website is suffering from link rot. This means that you didn’t get your 301 redirects right or your new website wasn’t able to retain or rebuild certain key pages that had links pointing to them.

But link rot has been covered before – it’s not a new thing.

What’s new now is link entropy.

I have noticed that over-time, older links that were published for 5 to 10 years ago loses their authority even if the website where the link is coming from is gaining better domain authority – which means the site is still healthy and is still getting a good number of new links coming in.

It’s not really talked about and there are no decisive studies made on this yet but hey, this is a prediction post, not a scientific paper.

If you are not making an effort to build new, better links every week or every month, you will not be helping your rankings get better. This also connects to my 2nd point where the moat will get thinner. Competitors who are continuously building on their backlinks will be able to overtake companies who have left their SEO in the dust faster.

This makes the organic search listings even more volatile, competitive and it would consequently drive the price to do great SEO higher. Which would largely make companies think if they would rather stick to SEM instead of venture to doing SEO. This would obviously favor Google’s revenues long-term.

5. Voice Search Will Still not be a Thing

Yes I have seen my share of SEO predictions that say that voice search would be a thing. I might have even believed it once.

But now years into this prediction and it’s still not a thing.

So no, I think voice search will still not be a thing for 2023 and beyond. SEO specialists will still focus on written-word SEO.

There are many more SEO predictions in my head as I write this down but it would take some rummaging and polishing for me to be able to share them with you clearly.

I hope you enjoyed at least some of my predictions here. If something resonates with you, I’d love to know and hear from you in the comments section below!

The post Truly Outrageous SEO Predictions for 2023 and Beyond appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Title tags are being forcibly replaced by Google. For sure you have noticed this if you have been paying attention to your website’s search rankings. Here’s what you can do about it now and how you can make it work to your advantage.

This is a follow-up to Google’s core and helpful content update rollout last September. The Google search results update involves:

• Replacing title tags with site names
• Favicon’s (website’s logo or icon) expanded size and shape
• The prominence of search ads’ label to “Sponsored” in bold black text

Why Google Made This New Search Results Update

According to Google, adding site names to search results on mobile will enable users easily identify websites associated with each result. This update will also help users make sense of the information they see in the search results at a glance.

Do take note that this feature is only available for Google mobile search results in English, German, French, and Japanese languages as of today. Also, this feature currently only supports home pages at the domain level, not at the subdirectory level.

As you can see, when I did a mobile search for SEO Hacker, it showed the search engine results page (SERP) with the name of our website. It also showed the company’s favicon and breadcrumbs at the same time.

However, when I did a non-branded keyword mobile search (I typed “SEO Philippines”), the title tags still showed in the SERP.

It’s also worth noting that when you type the brand name and its related keywords, title tags will still show in the SERP.

Looking at the examples above, you will see a website name and the URL for each result. This brings a better context of what websites you see, so you can be confident of the websites you are visiting.

I also did notice that the size and shape of the website’s favicons have changed, making it easier for brands to be visible.

Finally, Google made sure that the paid ads in the search results are visible enough for the users to see by changing the ad notifier from “Ads” to “Sponsored.”

What You Need To Know About This Feature Update

Some SEO experts like myself get all worked up whenever Google updates its algorithms. Looking at the majority of Google’s past update rollouts, they have greatly impacted the volatility of website rankings. As an SEO professional, you should always stay abreast of 4Google’s updates, hence this article.

Replacing Title Tags With Site Names

Firstly, Google’s process for generating site names on the Google Search results page is completely automated. Both the content of your website and references to it are also taken into account by Google.

To automatically generate your site name, Google uses the following sources from your website:

Looking at the following sources Google uses to generate your site name highlights the extreme importance of adding or improving the structured data of your website. Structured data is a format used to organize information on a website. This format can help search engines understand the contents of a page and provide more relevant results to users. Additionally, it triggers knowledge panels, featured snippets, and event snippets, making SERPs more informative.

When it comes to this new search results update, Google uses the Website structured data type, specifically the “name” property, to determine the name of the website. Do take note that the structured data must be displayed on your website’s home page.

To learn how to add structured data to your homepage, you can go to SEO Hacker’s guide on how to create structured data. You can also find the technical and content guidelines for adding Website Structured Data through this link.

Favicon’s Expanded Size and Shape

As mentioned earlier, the size and shape of the website’s favicons have changed. They’re expanded, which makes it easier for brands or companies to be visible on the search results page.

Although a favicon does not have much bearing on SEO, it’s still important for brand recognition and attracting users. Favicons also let search users easily distinguish your brand from your competitors.

Google search results can include your favicon if you have one for your website. However, there are guidelines on how to make your website eligible for a favicon. You can read about the guideline here. This guideline will also show you how to implement favicons and show up properly in SERP.

How Is Google’s New SERPs Update Important to SEO

Google’s new search results update can directly affect SEO. Title tags and structured data are important elements that help search algorithms understand what your webpage is about.

Remember the non-branded keyword mobile research I did earlier? Not only did the search result show my company’s website, but it also showed other websites with my non-branded keyword in their title tags.

What this experiment reveals to us is that even if Google does not confirm or deny whether these updates are important to SEO or not, it’s in everybody’s interest to optimize every opportunity that we have for a website to rank and get click-throughs in the SERPs.

Key Takeaway

Google always places utmost importance on listening to its users by providing a useful and meaningful experience for them. This explains why they are constantly exploring how to provide helpful information by introducing new features and design elements.

Keeping your site details correct so that your favicon and site name is displayed is the only SEO consideration here, which may improve your search engine rankings and increase brand recognition and visibility in search engines.

The post Is Google’s New Search Results Update Important to SEO? appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Seeing rankings go from NOT IN TOP 100 to the first page of Google is what we live for as SEO specialists. Thank you rank tracking software!

But a few days go by and you noticed that your website’s organic traffic is still low and it got you thinking – “my website is ranking on the first page of Google but, why am I not gaining any clicks and visitors to my website?”

Only to find out that your website is not even on the first page!

WHAT?! (As we all know, no one checks the second page of search results) This is because some search queries on Google will result in showing only 9 or even worse, only 7 search results.

Wait, you didn’t know that?

Yes, this has been happening since April 2012 and you may not be aware of this up to today. Because in the past, it wouldn’t happen so often but now search results pages are using this as the staple. 7 – 9 results are far more common today than ever before.

Google Search Results: Shrinking Number of SERPs

If you try searching on Google right now, there is a good percentage of results pages that only show 7 to 9 results on the first page instead of the usual 10. This has been first noticed by Dr. Pete in April 2012 which he wrote on his SEOmoz blog

Here’s the graph from the first time he noticed it:

This just shows the rise of first-page search results that show less than 10 listings. From 2% it drastically increased to 18% within two days.

Another follow-up study was done by Larry Kim, in support of what Dr. Pete discovered. Based on his investigation, he noticed that:

• 100% of the organic search results that contained sitelinks also had other SERPs features with 7 or fewer organic listings.
• 100% of the organic search results that did not contain sitelinks had the usual 10 organic listings.

But the data you’re showing is from 10 years ago, is it relevant until now?

YES!

As Google never looked back and instead implemented it into more of its search results.

‘7 is the New 10!’

Gone are the days when you will see precisely 10 search results on the first page of every Google search result. This has been the case for a lot of search queries for branded keywords ever since that change in April 2012.

And now there’s a new trend on Google’s search results, this is where it only shows 9, 8, and worst 7 links even for non-branded, generic keywords!

A thing I noticed is that in many search engine results pages (SERPs) nowadays is a rising amount of SERPs Features on every search query. And this has impacted every organic result as most of these SERPs Features have taken over and knocked down some of the coveted organic ‘blue links’ down to the second page.

Another thing that changed the world of ‘search’ is that it functions more like a ‘search feed’ rather than a ‘search listing’. As these two things may sound the same but they are not. A ‘feed’ is more like the idea of social networking platforms, where the content shown is intended to keep users scrolling with endless results. Wherein the concept of a ‘list’ before is specific and straightforward Top 10 results and that’s it.

This certainly indicates how the digital world has evolved, at which point users are conditioned to scroll endlessly. The domination of social networking platforms in user engagement and retention has made search engines adapt to it. At the end of the day, both search and these social networking platforms are advertising-based industries that earn through ad impressions.

‘Finding 10’ – Nowhere to be found!

Try searching on Google on a desktop device right now, and I bet you that most of your search results will show fewer than 10.

Here are a few examples you can try searching:

• Advertising: 9 results
• Glamorous Camping: 8 results
• Food Delivery Manila: 7 results
• Kid-friendly Places in Makati: 9 results

Those are just some of the results I got while testing multiple queries on a desktop in incognito and normal mode of Chrome. As you can see I tried to search using short-head terms and longtail terms, and most of the results do not show the 10th listing in the SERPs.

But also keep in mind that these SERP results and layout may differ in every country so the number of snippets on the first page can change.

Organic Results V.S. SERP Features

As I got curious about SERP Features (events, top stories, and knowledge panels) and how it affects Google search results, I tried to look for other people’s analysis regarding this. I found a very interesting case study done by Kevin Indig, an SEO practitioner.

And the image below is the data Kevin gathered with his investigation into knowing the relationship between organic results and SERP Features.

Note: “1” means the SERP Feature appeared above the first organic results; “5” means it appeared before the fifth organic results, etc

The data above also supports the assumption that SERP Features do affect the number of organic listings in Google search results – the more SERP Features appear leads to less number of organic results.

More data and research is needed to fully establish the relationship between organic results and SERP Features. But the research above shows a pattern in its results and this could help jumpstart a full thesis on this topic.

How does this affect SEO?

These changes will profoundly affect SEO. As it is already visible and taking effect on Google search results – however, we do not have enough data regarding the shift of search engines from showing the classic ‘lists’ to user engagement and retention-focused ‘feeds.’

So this is very alarming, especially for SEO companies and practitioners that rely on software in tracking the rankings of their clients. Rank-tracking software does not necessarily display if your website is on the first or later pages of results – so checking directly will be the only logical solution.

One of our partners, SEranking, is working on a solution to show TRUE first-page rankings as we write this blog. You might want to check them out!

Yes, we are still looking at this from an outsider’s view through a blurry lens. But some things became clear:

1. Go for at least 7, not 10!
   
   – Being in the Top 10 means a lot less now compared to a decade ago! You should be targeting to be at least in the Top 7 to make your website relevant. Because even the bottom 3-5 results do not matter anymore if a more eminent SERP Feature hovers above them.
2. Organic Real Estate is Shrinking!
   
   – Google adding a handful of SERP Features takes up the supposed spots for organic listings in the search results. This lowers the opportunities for you to increase the organic traffic of your website.
3. ‘Search Feed’ over ‘Search Lists’
   
   – Search results are much more crowded! The diversity of search results is shrinking. As Google is prioritizing some of its SERPs spots for different types of sites such as affiliates, brands, and marketplaces. But we cannot blame Google for this, as those links generate profit for them – after all, Google is still a business. And all businesses need to grow their revenues year on year.

Key Takeaway

From 10 to 9 to 8 to 7 results, this goes to show how much search results pages have changed over the years. As SEO practitioners we should adapt to this, from strategizing to getting into that ‘list’ to embracing the new format of endless ‘feed’.

We have all known since day one that SEO is ever-changing, but for a long time, we believed that getting into the Top 10 would deliver at least some traffic. And I say that thinking is now outdated, that is why you need to have a very capable and competitive SEO service provider that won’t just help you reach the top but will make sure to maintain your position.

What do you think about the shrinking organic results page? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!

The post The Changing Landscape of Google: Shrinking Organic Listings and Its Impact on SEO appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

When Google decided to update its official documents in June 2022, SEO practitioners and specialists started worrying about a particular piece of content that’s been added to the Googlebot crawl limit. Stated within Googlebot’s official Google documentation is the following statement:

“Googlebot can crawl the first 15MB of an HTML or support text-based file. Any resources referenced in the HTML such as images, videos, CSS, and JavaScript are fetched separately. After the first 15MB of the file, Googlebot stops crawling and only considers the first 15MB of the file for indexing. The file size limit is applied to the uncompressed data…”

Source: Googlebot

What is Googlebot?

Googlebot is the official generic name for Google’s website crawler. It’s currently responsible for gathering information from your website for SEO assessment. It provides essential information to Google on whether to index a web page or not.

Googlebot is separated into two types- Googlebot Desktop and Googlebot Smartphone. As the name suggests, these two work hand-in-hand in determining whether Google should index a website under Desktop and Mobile platforms.

So how does the 15MB Googlebot crawl limit factor into all these?

Boundaries of the 15MB Crawl Limit

The 15MB crawl limit is the standard limit set for both Googlebot Desktop and Smartphone. Being applied only to the text encoded within the HTML file or the supported text-based file of the web page.

This translates to the Googlebot crawl limit setting its boundaries within the text in your HTML file. The same texts can be found whenever one inspects the page source of a web page.

But what does this mean for the images, videos, CSS, and JavaScript resources being utilized within the HTML file? Consider the quoted text below,

“…resources referenced in HTML such as images, videos, CSS, and JavaScript are fetched separately…”

This statement simply means that the 15MB crawl limit for Googlebot doesn’t take into account the file sizes of resources being referenced in an HTML file. For example, when an image is apparent on a web page, it is usually defined by a line of code.

Whenever an image is defined through a URL- this DOES NOT account for the 15MB crawl limit. This is because the image is “referenced” from a different URL rather than being “encoded” within the HTML file itself.

The difference between Referencing and Encoding

Referencing a media or resource within an HTML file means it is only called or accessed from a different URL outside of your web page. Like a person placing an object in his/her bag instead of carrying it. This way, it’s easier to store and access the object while retaining free movement. When something is “encoded”, this translates to placing a file purely onto another. A person that prefers to carry an object around that limits his/her movement in the process.
There are currently no means of encoding a media file like an image or a video into your HTML file. But on the other hand, it’s possible to encode CSS and JavaScript codes into an HTML file.

What does this imply?

Including these codes into your HTML file contributes to additional lines of code. And extra lines of code allow your HTML file to reach the 15MB Googlebot crawl limit.

The Truth About the 15MB Googlebot Crawl Limit

It is a fact that a web page builder will almost always NEVER reach the 15MB Googlebot crawl limit that is set for indexing an HTML file. In a tweet by John Mueller, a search advocate at Google; Reaching the 15MB in your HTML file is equivalent to roughly 16 novels of which the manuscript is transferred to an HTML file.

Source: Twitter

From a developer’s perspective, it’s considered an absurd amount of lines of code to place in your HTML. There will always be efficient means of building a web page, especially with site speed being considered a huge factor in website ranking. If one is curious about testing how big an HTML file is for a web page, consider using the tool DebugBear’s HTML Size Analyzer.

Googlebot’s 15MB crawl limit and Site speed
Being unable to reach the 15MB Googlebot crawl limit shouldn’t be an excuse to ignore site speed optimizations for a website. Google considers user experience as one of the biggest factors affecting website rank. This involves how fast can a web browser load a web page’s resources and elements.

The crawl limit is meant to serve as a guide for indexing and does not guarantee rank. The media and resources file not being factored into the crawl limit is not an excuse to ignore the resources a web browser loads.

Site speed should always be considered when referencing media or resources on your website.

Learn more about Site Speed Optimization here.

Key Takeaway

The newly included statement in Googlebot’s official documentation about the Googlebot 15MB crawl limit should not intimidate SEO practitioners and specialists. It should instead serve as a reminder to keep in mind how an SEO-friendly web page should be built.

Even with the recent Google Algorithms rewarding a content-based SEO strategy, it’s almost impossible to reach the 15MB crawl limit for a single web page. User experience, site speed, and continuous publication of unique content are still the priority in creating a well-optimized website.

If you want to learn more about creating a well-optimized and SEO-friendly website, check out Learn SEO: The Complete Guide for Beginners!

The post 15MB Only for Googlebot Today appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Google has certainly been on a roll when it comes to releasing updates, as shown by our past two blog posts. Despite Google being the most popular search engine, there are still shortcomings and areas of improvement. Google knows this, and last Sept. 29, they announced that we will finally be introduced to their new technology, MUM, in the next couple of months.

What is Google MUM?

Google MUM stands for Multitask Unified Model and it is their new search technology that makes search easier and better. According to Google, MUM takes search on a whole new level as it understands information in a more comprehensive way across languages and modalities such as texts, visuals, videos, and audios.

Let us say that you recently went on a trip to Osaka, Japan and decided that you wanted to head on to Tokyo. However, you aren’t sure what the differences are between the two cities and what you need to prepare for your trip. With MUM, you will get comprehensive results including but not limited to the information on Tokyo, what you may need to prepare, the best mode of transportation, places to visit in Tokyo and when, and even articles written in Japanese that are relevant to your query.

You can also take a photo of your gear and ask Google if it’s okay for your trip. Let’s say you’re heading to Tokyo in January and you’re worried it might be too cold. MUM can use your photo and query to answer your question and even give you suggestions on what kind of gear to bring and buy.

Image search and text search

With Google MUM, image search is also about to get more comprehensive as it combines text and image in one query. In one of the examples given by Google, you can open Lens and take a photo of a bike part that you don’t recognize then ask how to fix it. Google will then give you results such as videos and articles showing you the bike part and what to do to repair it.

GIF from Google

This will be much faster compared to Googling various bike parts then searching for a separate tutorial on how to repair your bike.

MUM applied to Google Search

Search is also about to be redesigned as MUM gets applied by Google. Current features such as “People also ask” and “Related searches” are about to get a whole lot more intuitive and comprehensive.

Things to know

Take a look at this example from Google:

GIF from Google

Let us say that you have been thinking of picking up a new hobby or redecorating your space, and you decide to look up acrylic painting. If you type the keyword “acrylic painting” to Search, Google MUM will show you the answers to what people tend to ask using their “Things to Know” feature.

Judging from the visuals provided in their announcement, it seems like this is an improvement of the “People also ask…” feature.

According to their announcement, MUM will at some point in the future show users other topics connected to their search that may be of interest to the users. This will help people get access to a wider range of content that they may not have thought of looking up in the first place.

Refine and broaden Search

Aside from that, Google MUM is also giving us the ability to refine and broaden our search. This looks similar to the “Related searches” feature found at the bottom of the SERPs such as this one when I look up “best leadership podcast Philippines”:

But with the upcoming feature, we don’t just get related searches, MUM will focus on our topic and actually give us results that are connected to our original query.

For example, the current “Related searches” results for acrylic painting look like this:

While the upcoming version with refine and broaden search features look like this:

Image from Google

Instead of just getting related searches, this new categorization will give users the option to delve into smaller, more specific topics or to branch out to broader ones.

Visual results page

Lastly, Search is about to get a whole lot more visual. A quick Google search of “puddle pouring ideas” as per Google’s example does not give us an image-filled SERP.

Compare this to the Google MUM version and see the difference:

GIF from Google

Images, videos, even articles containing photos will be featured on the results, making it easier for users to see what they like. According to their announcement, “This new visual results page is designed for searches that are looking for inspiration, like “Halloween decorating ideas” or “indoor vertical garden ideas,” and you can try it today.”

Testing this from the Philippines, however, shows that this update is still not applied to our SERPs. But when I changed my location to the United States using a VPN, I was able to see similarly visual-filled SERPs like the one above.

Identify related topics in videos

Next, Google MUM will also identify related topics in videos based on their understanding of the video content, and suggest those topics to users. The topics don’t necessarily need to be mentioned in the videos, but because of MUM, Google will be able to understand information better.

For example, if I upload a video on “How To Not Lose Your Values In Business” Google can suggest relevant searches, videos, etc. that are connected to my video. In their announcement, they mention that topics don’t necessarily need to be mentioned in the video for them to be suggested; it is Google’s understanding of the video that will generate the suggestions.

Google MUM and SEO

Now for the million-dollar question: How will this affect SEO?

I have discussed previously that this new technology will have a big effect on the SEO industry, especially as we place more and more importance on Semantic Search. According to Google, “Across all these MUM experiences, we look forward to helping people discover more web pages, videos, images and ideas that they may not have come across or otherwise searched for.” As you have seen in this post, Google’s search results are about to get even more context-dependent, with a fine-tuned understanding of what the users want and may want to see.

Image search is also more fine-tuned and the SERPs are about to get more visual. This may not affect how we do our image SEO, but this development is a good reminder that we are not supposed to leave our images unoptimized if we want them to be visible in the SERPs.

Lastly, Google MUM is about to incorporate a new way of suggesting relevant content by identifying related topics in our videos. For the users who create videos, you can opt to create a variety of content that is related to the videos you make and optimize those so that they could show in Google’s suggestions.

Key Takeaway

In the coming months we are about to see a huge change not just in the aesthetic of our SERPs but also in Google’s level of comprehension of their users’ interests and search behaviors. We may not need to do a massive overhaul of how we do our SEO today, but we can only really tell once the update is here.

Right now, what we can do is to refine our current SEO techniques especially our utilization of Semantic Search. The more we can understand our users, what they look for, and how they look for those things, the higher we can rank in the SERPs.

The post Google MUM Announcement: Redesigned, Comprehensive Search appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

With brick-and-mortar businesses moving online and new online businesses popping up to survive the pandemic, plenty of people are facing the challenge of becoming relevant and discoverable in search results especially as competition is getting tighter and tighter. Businesses that aren’t discoverable will have trouble connecting and building relationships with their customers, and that in turn will result in low to no conversions and no profit.

Google Search Central decided to release their e-commerce best practices guide to help developers set up e-commerce websites and ensure that they are compatible with Google. This guide also works for websites that have product listings but don’t necessarily fall under e-commerce such as brick-and-mortar businesses that want to showcase their products online.

E-commerce best practices guide outline

To make navigation easier, Google categorized them in topics each with a brief description.

Here are the categories according to Google:

• Where ecommerce content can appear on Google: Understand the different surfaces where your ecommerce content can appear.
• Share your product data with Google: Decide which method to use when sharing your product data with Google.
• Include structured data relevant to ecommerce: Help Google understand and appropriately present your content by providing explicit information about the meaning of your page with structured data.
• How to launch a new ecommerce website: Learn how to strategically launch a new ecommerce website and understand timing considerations when registering your website with Google.
• Designing a URL structure for ecommerce sites: Avoid issues related to crawling and URL design that are specific to ecommerce sites.
• Help Google understand your ecommerce site structure: Design a site navigation structure and link between pages to help Google understand what is most important on your ecommerce site.
• Pagination, incremental page loading, and their impact on Google Search: Learn common UX patterns for ecommerce sites and understand how UX patterns impact Google’s ability to crawl and index your content.

How this can help businesses

By making use of this e-commerce best practices guide, developers can create e-commerce websites that are more visible on the SERPs, driving more traffic to their businesses that could potentially translate to higher profit.

According to Google, “When you share your e-commerce data and site structure with Google, Google can more easily find and parse your content, which allows your content to show up in Google Search and other Google surfaces. This can help shoppers find your site and products.”

Here is a snapshot of the first topic:

As you can see, the first guide provides links and instructions as to what a developer is supposed to do so that their business is visible on the various Google surfaces such as Search, Images, Maps, and others.

But that’s not all. Google is also giving tips on what kind of content businesses can create for their websites to be more relevant and to entice customers to engage. For example:

This is what the users see at the bottom of the first e-commerce best practices guide. Google ensured that each guide provides the how’s and why’s of each topic to make them easier to understand for developers and businesses so that they won’t have to do the hard work of figuring out if something is necessary or not.

Key takeaway

With competition getting more tense in the online landscape due to the pandemic, it is important that businesses understand what they need to do in order to get ahead of the game. Google has created a handy e-commerce best practices guide for businesses to utilize in order to help them see what they need to ensure that customers will discover them, engage with them, and ultimately purchase their products and services.

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Google has been in the business in the past decade of making things more transparent for their users. The year 2011 brought users the ability to manage ad preferences and block specific advertisers from the SERPs and email. Fast forward to 2020, they expanded their 2018 identification policy for political advertisers into a full-blown advertiser identity verification program. They created this program to help users know more about the advertisers before taking any further steps to engage with their ads.

Now, they’re bringing us advertiser pages as the latest Google Ads update. According to Google’s announcement last Sept. 22, this will give more transparency and control to users. So, what’s in the advertiser pages update? And what are its implications for advertisers?

What’s in the advertiser pages

Advertiser pages is the next step of enhancement in Google’s ad disclosures, building on the verification program I mentioned earlier. In the advertiser pages, users will be able to check the ads from the past 30 days that had been run by a specific advertiser by clicking “About this ad” and “See more ads by this advertiser” as seen below.

Screenshot from Google

Let us say that you saw an ad on YouTube for a product or service and it caught your interest, but you didn’t know much about the company. You can check their advertiser pages to see their past ads and get to know them better, so you will be more informed before deciding to head off to their website to check their other services or to make a purchase.

It was also mentioned in the announcement that “users can more easily report an ad if they believe it violates one of [their] policies.” However, it is not clear yet how exactly the advertiser pages update will make reporting ads any easier since the current reporting scheme seems to be working well already.

Here is a screenshot of the “Report this ad” using my browser:

Here is a screenshot of the “Report this ad” using YouTube:

In any case, the goal of the advertiser pages is to give users better control over their ad experience, and we look forward to seeing that.

The United States will be seeing this new ad enhancement in the next couple of months. As for the rest of the world, we will be seeing this in 2022.

What its implications are for advertisers

As mentioned earlier, ads over the past 30 days will now be viewable for the user. This means that the new update lets previous ads serve as a track record for the brand.

That can be a good thing and a bad thing. If you’re an advertiser who has consistently released ads that haven’t sparked anger and controversy online for 30 days straight, then you don’t have anything to worry about. However, some companies drop the ball and release questionable ads. Take this #PandemicEffect ad of the Belo Medical Group, in which a woman gains weight, grows out her body hair, and gets acne from watching the news:

Screenshot from Manila Bulletin

The Group had to release an apology statement for the ad and at some point, had to take it down due to the significant backlash that they faced. Had the advertiser pages been released at that time, users would have seen this ad as part of the brand’s track record.

They are far from being the only one to drop the ball, however. Other examples are companies who celebrate LGBTQ+ folks during Pride Month to make sales then abandon them for the rest of the year. Numerous companies have been called out for corporatizing advocacies and turning them into branding opportunities. Now, users will be able to see which companies perform these acts as they will now have their ad track record visible to the community.

That said, companies will have to scrutinize the messaging of their ads even more before running them as the more curious and meticulous users will be able to see their previous ads through advertiser pages.

Another implication is that users will get to know you more before heading to your website, as mentioned earlier. This means that more users who will land on your website are most likely already further down the sales funnel and are interested in purchasing your products or services as they have already checked your previous ads through your advertiser pages.

Key takeaway

This upcoming enhancement of Google’s ad disclosures is a welcome update as it grants more transparency and control to the users. Google is clearly taking a proactive step in ensuring that the community will get high-quality ads from verified advertisers. As far as we can tell, only companies who aren’t as careful with their ads and their brand as they should be are the only ones who may have something to worry about. But for everyone else, this Google update could potentially lead users further down the funnel before landing on company websites.

The post Google Ads Announces Update: Advertiser Pages appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

After two months of waiting, Google finally announced that the Page Experience Update rollout is now complete. The gradual rollout started on June 15, 2021, and was supposed to be finished by the end of August 2021 but was delayed for a few days.

The announcement was made on the official Google Search Central Twitter account. Google said that Page Experience is now live for both search and Top Stories mobile carousel. 

An email was also sent out informing webmasters about the expansion of non-AMP web content in Google News. This means that AMP pages are not required anymore to appear in Google News. This change will be completed “in a week or so” according to Google.

Assessing the impact of Page Experience

I’ve been closely monitoring the search volatility since the update started rolling out in June and I didn’t find any clear signs that Page Experience caused volatility in search. There were some fluctuations during this time but I would say they were more attributed to the June 2021 broad core algorithm update, July 2021 broad core algorithm update, and the Search Spam Algorithm update.

While some braced for its impact, many believed it will not give major ranking advantages. In a Twitter thread last March, Martin Splitt said that the Core Web Vitals, signals included in Page Experience, may only give a “tiny advantage”.

This may be true considering the Core Web Vitals are only a part of the whole update. It was also communicated by John Mueller in a Reddit thread that Page Experience is not as important as relevancy in search but it is also more than a tie-breaker.

According to John Mueller:

“It is a ranking factor, and it’s more than a tie-breaker, but it also doesn’t replace relevance.

Depending on the sites you work on, you might notice it more, or you might notice it less. As an SEO, a part of your role is to take all of the possible optimizations and figure out which ones are worth spending time on. Any SEO tool will spit out 10s or 100s of “recommendations”, most of those are going to be irrelevant to your site’s visibility in search. Finding the items that make sense to work on takes experience.

The other thing to keep in mind with core web vitals is that it’s more than a random ranking factor, it’s also something that affects your site’s usability after it ranks (when people actually visit). If you get more traffic (from other SEO efforts) and your conversion rate is low, that traffic is not going to be as useful as when you have a higher conversion rate (assuming UX/speed affects your conversion rate, which it usually does). CWV is a great way of recognizing and quantifying common user annoyances.”

So, what now?

Personally, I think that having good Page Experience scores is great but at the end of the day, it’s just a part of a larger pie of Google’s algorithm. I believe that it goes hand in hand with other signals and SEOs shouldn’t expect huge ranking leaps after improving Page Experience scores.

This is backed up more by SEMRush’s study: 2021 Core Web Vitals Update: Assessing the Initial Impact. According to their findings, they observed that websites they analyzed had an overall increase in Page Experience scores for both mobile and desktop. However, they didn’t see any significant difference in organic search before and after the update started rolling out. I highly recommend that you read this study.

How to optimize for Google’s Page Experience Update

Google gave ample time to SEOs and website owners to start optimizing for Page Experience before it was rolled out as a ranking factor but many still haven’t fully grasped the concept thus, unable to optimize their websites for it. If you’re still a bit lost on where to start optimizing your website for this update, I’ve listed here some resources on each of the factors under the Page Experience update to get you going.

Core Web Vitals

• Complete Core Web Vitals Guide
• How to Optimize Largest Contentful Paint
• How to Optimize Cumulative Layout Shift
• How to Optimize First Input Delay

Mobile Friendliness

• The SEO Hacker Mobile Optimization Checklist
• How to Become Mobile-Friendly for Google’s Major Index Divide
• Google’s Guide on Mobile-Friendliness

HTTPS

• Secure your site with HTTPS
• 12 Important Lessons I Learned After Losing 101,568 Tweets

No Intrusive Interstitials

• What are intrusive interstitials and how do they affect SEO?
• How to Use Pop-Ups Without Negatively Affecting your SEO

What to expect moving forward

It is important to note that as of writing, it has only been a few days since the rollout was completed. As more websites adopt and improve their Page Experience scores, we should have more data on the actual impact of having better scores than competitors in the following months.

It doesn’t stop here. Google may decide to add or remove signals in the future similar to how they removed Safe Browsing even before the rollout was finished. Google has also said in their documents that one of the main signals, the Core Web Vitals, will continue to evolve as they find new ways to better measure user experiences on the web.

For now, I think that the best course of action is to continuously improve your website’s scores. It’s not every day we can actually measure one of Google’s ranking factors and we should take advantage of that. By optimizing for Page Experience, you lose nothing but there is a high chance of gaining something. You should also think of it as a long-term investment. If there are no drastic changes to your website for a while, your website would probably maintain its scores and will allow you to focus on other optimizations.

The post Page Experience Update Complete: What you Need to Know appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Last week I, along with other SEO professionals, noticed a peculiar change in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Our carefully crafted title tags were being replaced, and not a lot of people were thrilled. The hypothesis is that Google’s Page Title Update was to blame, so let’s talk about what we know so far.

What is Google’s August 2021 Page Title Update?

On August 24, 2021, Google informed the public of a new system that can generate titles for website pages. According to the article released, the new system will focus more on accurately describing what a page is about rather than adapting to the query posed by the searcher.

So, how will it do that? In the same announcement, Google noted down some factors that the new system will take into consideration when it creates a title tag. Some of these include:

• the HTML text
• the main visual title or headline
• header tags
• prominent content made with style treatments

Although the new system has gone live on the SERPs, Google’s recommendation to site masters is to still ensure that they create good HTML title tags. Out of all of the factors, Google approximates that 80% of the time title tags will be the basis of the generated titles.

Now that you know more about the Page Title Update, let’s talk about what happened when the new system went live.

Impact on search results

Last week, multiple webmasters spoke up about the new title tags that were being generated for their pages. Some are even calling it the “titlepocalypse.” The cause of frustrations was mostly the inaccuracy of the title tags being created by the new system. This has led to drops in traffic and the CTR of affected pages, which is a good cause of concern for any website owner.

Here are just a few examples of the concerns people had with the new title tags generated by Google’s page title update.

Copy is not found on the page

One common concern is for title tags created from content not found on the page. Take a look at what happened to our landing page for the keyword “SEO Philippines” on Google. The HTML title tag we placed directly matched the keyword, but Google’s new page title system changed it to this.

What’s even more questionable is that if you look through the content, there is no mention of the phrase “best SEO in the Philippines” either.

Other webmasters have also experienced the same phenomenon, with some noticing that the title tags were generated from the anchor texts of internal and external links. The problem with this is that they may not be able to completely summarize what a page is about.

Informal capitalizations

Notice anything else in the example above? That’s right, the informal capitalization. Web owners have also been sharing screenshots of their newly generated title tags having different capitalizations. This can look unprofessional to a searcher, which can lead to them not clicking on the page.

Take a look at the example SEO writer Jennifer Slegg shared in a tweet last week.

Inaccurate search intent

One of the more concerning industries affected by the update is the medical industry. With Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) content, accuracy is crucial as the information can affect people’s health.

One of the examples going around is the changing of pages from the UK’s National Health Service website. In a series of tweets by Dan Barker, he showcased the occurrence originally spotted by SEO consultant Jenny Hearn on the website’s page about the flu.

As you can see above, the page’s search intent is quite informational. It talks about flu symptoms, how to treat it, how to avoid spreading it, and more. However, after the page title update, this is what their page looked like on the SERPs.

Google labeled their page about the flu into “Flu Vaccinations”. Multiple members of the community have spoken up about this inaccuracy and how it can be dangerous for searchers.

How Google is responding to concerns

You may be wondering how Google responded to these concerns. First, they opened a thread where people can share their feedback on the new update. All web owners are free to reply to it with screenshots as well as the URLs of their affected pages.

Secondly, Google’s Danny Sullivan replied to some tweets suggesting a page in Google Search Console that will allow web owners to choose which pages they do not want to have automatic title tags.

Personally, I noticed that after a few days the title tags reverted to their initial state. Google must have seen the concerns of their community and gone back to the drawing board for this one.

Key takeaway

All in all, whether you were affected by the update or not, it would still do your website well to have optimized HTML title tags. If it can accurately describe your page while also answering the concern of the searcher, then there may be a higher chance that Google bases its title on it.

While I understand the reason and the intent behind the update, hopefully, Google learns from this and does a few more checks on their new system before it completely rolls out.

Were you affected by Google’s Page Title Update? Let me know in the comments below.

The post Google’s Page Title Update: What We Know So Far appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Google is finally releasing a new reporting/insights tool to help content creators and webmasters better understand how their audience interacts with the content they publish and give insights as to which kinds of content works best for them. The new Search Console Insights combines data from both Google Analytics and Google Search Console to provide webmasters and/or content creators the most valuable insights needed to improve their content’s performance. 

Benefits of Search Console Insights

Through Search Console Insights, Google aims to help webmasters and content creators answer the following questions:

• What are your best-performing pieces of content, and which ones are trending?
• How do people discover your content across the web?
• What do people search for on Google before they visit your content?
• Which article refers users to your website and content?

These are the most common questions content marketers and webmasters ask when it comes to the content they publish. However, for the most seasoned experts and even beginners, these questions could already be answered in both your website’s Google Analytics and Google Search Console Account. What Google did is to make a report/insights tool where every data you need as a content marketer/creator can be easily found in one place.

Image from Google Blog

How to Access Search Console Insights

There are three ways on how you can access your Search Console Insights report. They are the following:

• The first way is to access it through this link using the Google Account where your website is registered as a property under Google Analytics and Google Search Console. 
• The second way is to go to your Search Console property and click on the Search Console Insights banner at the top. 

• The last way is to manually search keywords that you’re targeting using your content in Google SERPs. Right at the top or just below the ads, you’ll see your page’s performance for that particular search query/keyword.

Once you’ve accessed Search Console Insights through the different ways shown above, this is what you’ll see:

How to Use Search Console Insights

Most of the data contained in Search Console insights are self-explanatory. These include:

• The number of pageviews your website gathered over the past 28 days

• Most Popular Content/Top Performing Content (By pageviews)

• Traffic Channels

• How visitors found your site (most searched queries and trending queries)

• Social Media Traffic

More Helpful Data

Here are some of the data included in Search Console Insights that I consider more helpful and unique than the ones mentioned above:

• New Content – Google is in charge of crawling, indexing, and displaying our newly published content while we, content creators and webmasters, usually just wait for our new content to be displayed in the SERPs. The problem with this is that there’s no definite timeline on when our content will be ranked and shown in the SERPs, through this part of Search Console Insights, we’ll be able to see which pages or content are already indexed and displayed by Google:

• Referring Links – Building links isn’t a necessity for some content creators since their primary focus would be creating content that their audiences would consume. But knowing the growth of links that point to your content is helpful information that helps you determine which kinds of topics or content are preferred by other webmasters, and consequently by their readers as well.

How Will This Help SEO?

This was already announced in August of last year. Much like what I said when this was announced, this will be a cool new feature that will help us webmasters and content creators understand what our audiences want to see. 

Having a single hub where you can automatically see the valuable data that you need to understand the relationship between your content and your audience is a massive time-saver that enables us to focus on more important things. 

One important thing to remember when you’re setting up your website’s Search Console Insights is to connect your Search Console Account to your Google Analytics property since this will enable you to view more valuable and granular data.

Search Console Insights, in its essence, is a tool to view important data that’s already available on separate platforms (Google Analytics and Google Search Console), its ease of use and convenience are already massive assistance to us webmasters. Although this does not provide concrete instructions as to how we can improve our content, it has the capability to help us realize the right path we should take to gain more traction, numbers, and success in the search landscape. 

What do you think of Search Console Insights? Will this be helpful for you? Let me know in the comments below!

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