Google Search Ranking Shuffles on Thursday, June 18th

Like we all know that Google always changing search results and update algorithm continuously. Right now I am seeing over the past couple of days that Search Engine Monitoring Tools showing usual changes in the Google search results and also SEO community is chattering at WebmasterWorld about the latest Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update on Thursday, 18 June 2020.

Search Engine Monitoring Tools Tracking Google Algorithm Update:

RankRanger:

CognitiveSEO:

As you can see, the above two show changes, bigger changes, around June 17th. But not all are seeing such big changes on the 17th or this week:

SEMRush:

Accuranker:

Advanced Web Rankings:

SERPMetrics:

Mozcast:

Are you noticing any changes since around yesterday, Thursday, June 18th?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

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Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update on 23rd Jan 2020

Important News For Google Ads Partners Program

New requirements for agencies to achieve and maintain Google Partner status take effect starting in June 2020. Many Google Advertisers has received an email on Thursday about substantial changes coming to Google Ads Partners Program – the badge and certification program for agencies that meet certain criteria.

As far as I have read the news and understood the most important news are:

• Performance criteria for maintaining Partner’s badge will be more transparent and will directly refer to the optimization score highlighted in the “Recommendations” tab of each account (excluding ignored suggestions).
• It will no longer be enough to have 1 certified administrator/standard user to be able to display the Google Partner badge (2 for Premier Partners), but at least half of the administrator/standard users connected to your company’s account manager will have to pass the Skillshop certifications (the accounts on this platform must be connected to the company’s one).
• Growth of invested budgets and new accounts managed will no longer be a requirement to obtain the badge, but you only need to spend more than 20,000$ (it was 10,000$) in your managed accounts in the last 3 months. These requirements will stay still for Premier Partners, who will be chosen among the 3% of the best partners in terms of expenditure, growth of invested budgets and customer retention.

Below is Google’s comparison chart look at what’s changing, which you can find on this help page.

The first consideration I have to make about these new Google Ads Partner Program is starting to get serious about the recommendations tab. All of us PPC Professionals had long noticed that the quality of suggestions has been definitely improving. Now ignoring that section may also have important consequences on the Partner badge (as well as on the performance of the campaigns). So, do it at your own risk.

For now, Google is still not so sure of all its automatic optimization suggestions to consider also the wrong / ignored ones among those used to evaluate the account, but I could bet that there is where we are going.

They have finally understood that more transparency was needed in the evaluation criteria of the managed accounts to obtain the Partner badge and that this has nothing to do with increasing budgets and new customers. This is one of the main reasons why I left the program in 2017, given that in my opinion the added value of a PPC Expert lies in the the fact that he/she has to be independent from the platforms used. The very reason for us being on the market is that we are free to suggest the best solution for each customer, without necessarily having to “push” one or the other for reasons different from expected performance.

Unfortunately, this underlying opacity remains for Premier Partners, but Google has already taken a step in the right direction by withdrawing this criterion for the bulk of Partners, I hope that sooner or later they will also drop it for top spenders.

Note:

Google Ads Partner Program will select based on a number of factors, including but not limited to: annual Ads spend across managed accounts, client growth, client retention, and other information. Evaluation is done on an annual basis and status may not be available in all markets.

There is no doubt about that Google is continuously updating and make a lots of changes in Search Ranking Algorithm. I saw in the SEO community and also search engine monitoring tools are lighting up. These are all signs that there was a Google search ranking algorithm update. But truth is, this algorithm update can be directly related to the featured snippet de-duplication change on January 22nd.

What I am saying is that the tools might not be ready to process the change and thus are showing changes to what is listed in the Google search results for the queries they track. Also, SEOs might be noticing those changes in those third-party tools and potentially also noticing changes in traffic because of the de-duplication efforts.

Some of the tool providers need to make updates:

So what you will see below is likely related to the Google featured snippets change and not necessarily a ranking algorithm update.

Search Engine Monitoring Tools Tracking Google Algorithm Update:

Mozcast:

SERPMetrics:

Advanced Web Rankings:

RankRanger:

Cognitive SEO:

SEMRush Sensor:

So I really doubt Google did an algorithm update, outside of the featured snippet de-duplication change. But if they did, it would be hard to know. I will suggest to all SEOs, Webmasters and Site Owners that keep monitor your daily traffic in Google Analytics and manually check your Keywords Ranking. If you see any changes, please share it here regarding this unconfirmed update. Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

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Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update on 4 Dec 2019

There is no doubt about that Google is continuously updating and make a lots of changes in Search Ranking Algorithm. I saw some chatters at WebmasterWorld and discussion about Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update on 4 Dec, 2019. Here I like to share some screenshots that what SEOs and Webmaster are saying about:

There is no confirmation from Google or their officials about this algorithm update. Just like in the past Google confirmed “March 2019 Core Update” but not update about 1 August 2019. There are some Search Engine Monitoring Tools are showing spikes in the signals of a Google search ranking update over the past couple of days – maybe December 3rd or 4th. Glenn Gabe also tweeted and shared the screenshot with the SEO Community regarding this Search Ranking Algorithm Update: 

Search Engine Monitoring Tools Tracking Google Algorithm Update:

MOZ:

SERPMetrics:

Algoroo:

Advanced Web Rankings:

Accuranker:

RankRanger:

Cognitive SEO:

SEMRush:

I will suggest to all SEOs, Webmasters and Site Owners that keep monitor your daily traffic in Google Analytics and manually check your Keywords Ranking. If you see any changes please share it here regarding this unconfirmed update.

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Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update 1 August

A Letter from Larry and Sergey

Today, Google Co-Founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced that they resigning from their roles as CEO and President of Alphabet. The company said that Sundar Pichai will become CEO of both Alphabet and Google, but Sergey Brin and Larry Page will remain on the Board.

In their letter, Sergey Brin and Larry Page used the analogy of parenting in reference to Google. They said that at age 21 it was time for the company they created to be able to exist without the co-founders daily influence. Google Co-Founders, Larry and Sergey  wrote that now it’s the time that company is stable and no need of   co-founders daily influence.

What Google Co-Founders Wrote About Sundar Pichai?

“Sundar brings humility and a deep passion for technology to our users, partners and our employees every day. He’s worked closely with us for 15 years, through the formation of Alphabet, as CEO of Google, and a member of the Alphabet Board of Directors. He shares our confidence in the value of the Alphabet structure, and the ability it provides us to tackle big challenges through technology. There is no one that we have relied on more since Alphabet was founded, and no better person to lead Google and Alphabet into the future.”

Sundar sent the following email to Google on Tuesday, December 3:

I first met Google Co-Founders 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 advice as board members and co-founders.

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!”

The founders of Google 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

Read the official announcement here: A Letter from Larry and Sergey

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Google New Reporting for Products Rich Results in Search Console

A New Product Performance Report in the Google Search Console

People visits Google to find, search and select that which product or brand is reliable to purchase. So Google announced that they are adding a new data reporting structure for products rich results in the search console. This will help shopper to get product information like descriptions, price and availability within the search results.

For SEOs and Webmasters, they can see data in the Search Console performance report, where you can view the stats such as total clicks, impressions, average click-through rate, and average position. Furthermore, these metrics will be segmented by device, geography and queries.

Those websites that are qualified to appear in Google’s product search results will find a new Search Appearance type called “Product results.” It will be easy to segment your traffic to analyze your search performance.

The new ‘Product results’ search appearance will help website owners understand their search performance for product rich results. For example how shopping traffic changes over time and which search queries product results show up for. You can drill down the data even further to figure out how much traffic comes specifically from rich data like price, availability, etc. If you have any questions on this (or other) Search Console reports, let Google know through the forum or on Twitter.

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Google Roll Out Speed Report in Search Console

Find Out How To Get Faster Website with the New Speed Report in Search Console

At Google I/O 2019, you have seen a sneak preview of the ‘Speed Report Beta’ in the Search Console. After received valuable feedback from the beta testers Google has decided to roll out this report. Today, Google announced that they are publicly rolling Speed Report in the Search Console to make the web faster. The Speed report shows how fast your pages perform according to real world usage data.

The report is based on FCP and FID metrics that shows performance grouped by speed status, metric type, and similar URL type. The report automatically assigns groups of similar URLs into “Fast”, “Moderate”, and “Slow” buckets. The data is based on the Chrome User Experience Report, which provides user experience metrics for how real-world Chrome users experience popular destinations on the web.

What is Speed Report?

According to Google, the report will show you those URLs that are slow due to any issue. Webmasters or site owners can dig down to view the examples of slow URLs and identify the reason. For better understanding that what type of optimization need to done for that specific URL, the report is directly link with the Page Speed Insight Tool, which will provide all the information.

The new speed report is directly linked with the Page Speed Insight Tool, which will help  you to find that what type of optimization need to be done for a specific URL. You can use this report to monitor and track fixes that you made to your website. After resolve the issues, use the report to track users experienced when browsing the new version of your site.

If you want to know how your site is performing, you can also view those URLs which are doing better by checking the moderate and fast buckets. Google said that this new speed report is in experimental mode, but they are planning to continue to iterate and improve the metrics and recommendations for site owners. Google want you to give your feedback and submit directly through the forum to ensure that it is useful and helpful.

I tried to check my website SEOBizWorld.com in the search console, I did not find any data, but like I mention that it’s in the experimental mode, so it is possible that after few days I will get the data. In the page speed insight tool I found my site’s mobile speed is 72% and Desktop speed is 74%. In my next post I will share my experience that how to optimized website speed with the help of this report.

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Google Launched Site Kit Plugin for WordPress

Set Up New Google Services To Get More Insights With Site Kit Plugin

Good news for WordPress Site Owners and Developers. Google has launched the Site Kit version 1.0 for every one that can be install from WordPress plugin directory. Mariya Moeva, Product Manager at Google Inc, wrote in the blog post that “Google makes it easy for WordPress site owners to understand how their site is doing and what to do next.” 

The Site Kit is Google’s official WordPress plugin, is the one-stop solution to deploy, manage, and get insights from critical Google tools to make the site successful on the web. Site Kit provides authoritative, up-to-date insights from multiple Google service directly on the WordPress dashboard for easy access, all for free.

Site Kit Plugin installation don’t need code editing – means that you can easily setup and manage Google Analytics without any developer experience. The plugin compile website data from Google Search Console, Google Analytics, PageSpeed Insights, and AdSense.

Google Bringing The Best Tool For WordPress:

Google is making simple and easier for WordPress Site Owner. Site Kit includes powerful features that make using these Google products seamless and flexible:

• Easy-to-understand stats directly on your WordPress dashboard
• Official stats from multiple Google tools, all in one dashboard
• Quick setup for multiple Google tools without having to edit the source code of your site
• Metrics for your entire site and for individual posts
• Easy-to-manage, granular permissions across WordPress and different Google products

Supported Google Services:

Site Kit shows key metrics and insights from different Google products:

Search Console: Understand how Google Search discovers and displays your pages in Google Search. Track how many people saw your site in Search results, and what query they used to search for your site.

Google Analytics: Explore how users navigate your site and track goals you’ve set up for your users to complete.

Google AdSense: Keep track of how much your site is earning you.

PageSpeed Insights: See how your pages perform compared to other real-world sites. Improve performance with actionable tips from PageSpeed Insights.

Tag Manager: Use Site Kit to easily set up Tag Manager- no code editing required. Then, manage your tags in Tag Manager.

Optimize: Use Site Kit to easily set up Optimize- no code editing required. Then, set up A/B tests in Optimize.

How To Install Site Kit 1.o WordPress Plugin:

To install Site Kit you need to follow the steps.

1. Log in to your WordPress website.
2. In the left navigation menu, click Plugins.
3. Click Add new.
4. Enter “Site Kit” in the search bar. You should see the Site Kit plugin in a search results page.
5. Click Install.
6. Click Activate.

After you install Site Kit, you can activate other Google tools:

• Go to the main Site Kit dashboard, which already displays key metrics from Search Console.
• Under Site Kit > Settings, connect additional Google tools.

Site Kit Key Features:

Main Dashboard:

The main dashboard enable you to see the most important information about how your site is doing at a glance: how people are finding your site (traffic sources), your most popular pages, and what people search for to find your site.

Individual Page Stats:

You check how a specific page is performing, search for the title or URL from the main dashboard, and you’ll be able to narrow down to stats for just that one page.

Admin Bar Stats:

If you’re browsing your site while logged in, you can see key stats about the page you’re currently viewing directly from the admin bar.

Personally, I have not installed this Plugin but after see and review all the features, I am thinking to go for it. If you have installed so please share your experience with me and comments. You can get started with Site Kit, simply install it from your WordPress dashboard.

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Google Rolling Out New BERT Model To Search Rankings

Google Artificial Intelligence Understanding Search Queries Better Than Before

What is Google BERT Update?

Google announced that they are applying BERT model to Search that can effect 1-in-10 queries. Google BERT is one the major update that will impact long search queries that are complicated due to context. Last year, Google introduced and open-sourced a neural network-based technology to understand search queries and enables anyone to train their own state-of-the-art question answering system.

What Is BERT Algorithm?

BERT is called Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. Transformers refer to models that process words in relation to all other words in a sentence. It means that BERT models can interpret the appropriate meaning of a word by looking at the words that come before and after. This will lead to a better understanding of queries, compared to processing words one-by-one in order.

How BERT Will Impact On SEO?

There are lots of questions about this latest update specifically how BERT can impact on SEO. Google said that BERT is so complex but it will help to find more useful information so that is why it will affect both search rankings and featured snippets. For now, BERT will impact on one in 10 searches in the U.S. in English, and it is coming to more languages and locales over time.

Furthermore, Google’s BERT Update not analyzes not web pages but search queries. I think On-Page SEO becomes more important in terms of using words in precise ways. Poor content may not be helpful for this Google BERT update.

According to Google:

“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. You can search in a way that feels natural for you.”

Examples of BERT Improvements:

Before launch this update, Google did a lot of testing and found that BERT algorithm can better understand nuances queries and connections between words. Here are some of the examples that shows how BERT is able to understand the intent behind your search quires.

When you search for “2019 brazil traveler to usa need a visa”. You can see how BERT helped Google to show more relevant result for this query. Because this search query is about a Brazilian traveling to USA, not the other way around.

Here’s another example of search query “do estheticians stand a lot at work”.Previously, Google’s systems understand the words “stand” and “stand-alone” as same meaning, which lead to irrelevant search results. Now BERT models understand that “stand” is related to the concept of the physical demands of a job, and displays more useful search results.

Search Queries With and Without BERT:

Here are some more before/after examples of queries with and without BERT that help to understand the subtle nuances of language.

With the BERT model, Google can better understand that “for someone” is an important part of this query, whereas previously we missed the meaning, with general results about filling prescriptions.

In the past, a query like this would confuse our systems–we placed too much importance on the word “curb” and ignored the word “no”, not understanding how critical that word was to appropriately responding to this query. So we’d return results for parking on a hill with a curb!

While the previous results page included a book in the “Young Adult” category, BERT can better understand that “adult” is being matched out of context, and pick out a more helpful result.

One thing to take notice that these examples are simply meant to illustrate the types of language understanding challenges that BERT helps with, but there are of course many other queries where BERT will have an impact.

Google applying BERT to make Search better for people across the world. The search giant said that understanding language is an ongoing challenge, and with BERT they are trying to make things better. Google said that they are trying to provide meaningful and most helpful information for every search query which you are looking for.

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What SEO Tasks Need To Perform Before and After Launch Website