The Week In Search & SEO: November 16, 2018

The Week In Search & SEO: November 16, 2018

Lots of topics across the board this week. From small cosmetic changes in Google to major tool updates, as well as some insightful opinion pieces, there’s a whole lot of reading to be done here.

Top Global Search News

Google Testing Bold URLs and Breadcrumbs

A strange little change to test all of a sudden, and no bolding on anything else seems out of place. This change is on desktop and mobile.

Ripoff Report and Similar Complaint Websites are Experiencing Ranking Drops

People have been complaining about these sites for a while and they are now seeing some significant ranking drops on Google. If this sticks, it’ll be good news for many companies.

Google Showing Seller Ratings by Country

Businesses will now have their seller rating shown based on country, with a new minimum of 100 reviews in a country to be eligible to show seller ratings in those regions. This change will make it easier for country-local businesses to show their seller rating, but a pain for international businesses to show in the multiple regions around the world they serve.

Google Testing New Location of Magnifying Glass in Related Searches Box

This is a small change, like the bold one above, but this one is less strange looking.

Google Testing New Highlight Overlay on Hotel Results

Clicking on a highlight icon will open up a new overlay that display more information on the highlight, as well as an easy swipe to the side for other highlights of that hotel.

Google to Review Low Quality Search Results Due to Medic Update

The update was aimed at health related content and searches. It has been noticed recently that the quality of some health related search results are incredibly poor, and Google says that they will be investigating the issue.

Faults in Google’s Algorithm Revealed in SEO Contest

An SEO Contest was held for SEOs to try and get the best ranking for a specific term with very interesting and questionable results.

Nofollow Links Let Publishers Focus on Content

Google says that nofollow links are likely saving time for publishers because they can have piece of mind that the links that people sneak on their page aren’t being abused.

More Evidence of a Google Algorithm Update

A bit hit of unpredictability just occurred, as seen by the graph above things are definitely shaking.

Top Local Search News

Large New Update for Google My Business

This update gives businesses a selection of new social tools so that they can interact with their customers in new ways straight from Google My Business. This update effectively changes Google My Business from a business listing management tool to a complete customer engagement platform.

Google My Business Adds Additional Business Categories

A small change, but a welcome one allowing you to select a primary category for your business as well as additional categories to better describe what your business is capable of and available for.

Top PPC News

New Competition Tab for Bing Ads

This new feature gives you a much better view of your competitive landscape, as well as tools to assist and make recommendations on how you can beat the competition.

New Search Metrics in Google Ads

Four new metrics have been added to Google Ads regarding ad position. This will effectively replace the average position metric when considering where your ad is located on the page.

Google Adds New Options for Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deal Ads

A new selection of options have been added in as promotion extensions for ads. These focus on getting your ad visible when people search for Black Friday deals.

Bing Ads Adds 3rd Headline and 2nd Description in Text Ads

Following Google’s change in number of headlines and descriptions for ads, Bing has added them as well.

Top Social Media News

LinkedIn Now Suggests Content for Your Company Page to Share

LinkedIn now suggests content for you to post based on related and trending topics, and content that you can use to reach as many people as possible.

People Still Search More on Search Engines than Social Media

Many SEOs are claiming the downfall of tradition search engines is coming, though this study seems to disagree. Most people are still using traditional search engines than social media despite more and more people joining social media.

Facebook Combating Clickbait Content with Algorithm Adjustments

Facebook has announced that they are working on adjusting their algorithms to reduce the reach of clickbait content. Clickbait content generally makes a user’s experience worse, so they want to crack down on it.

Internet Marketing-Related Tech

Google Search Console Will Notify Site Owners About Unclear Subscription Pages

The new Chrome update coming soon will warn and block users from pages that include unclear subscription pages to keep them safe from unseen and malicious charges, so Google has started warning site owners if they have detected an offending page so that the issue can be resolved before launch.

New Additions to Google Search Console Performance Report

These additions will let you to see performance on your events more clearly, allowing you to see reports for more specific data regarding events on your site.

Best Opinion Pieces

What Are Entities & Why They Matter for SEO

Entities are the single most important concept to understand in SEO right now. Here we go through what entities are, and how we can use them to our advantage.

Are Web Design Best Practices Trustworthy?

A thorough look-through on a lot of “best practice” web design tips, and if they are really that reliable. There are many problems that can occur when you change your site to fit “best practices” without thinking how those changes will affect your site specifically.

Should Google be Scoring Your SEO?

With Google’s new web.dev site owners can enter in their website to get a score on various aspects, including one on “SEO”. Several opinions on the matter are explored in this article.