As we all know that the search giant Google always makes changes in the algorithm and search ranking fluctuate. Today, early in the morning I saw some early signs of another Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update . The SEO community is chattering about ranking update and fluctuations and also some tracking tools are showing big signals on the changes to the Google Search rankings.

Last night I got noticed at WebmasterWorld and read some posts talking that Google Bot has been extremely active on yesterday and today. Some said that seeing a big spike in Google bot activities. Some SEOs are saying that this unconfirmed algorithm update is related to page coverage, and some site owners are claiming a massive drop in conversions and traffic dropping yesterday.

Here are some screen shots from the search engine monitoring tools that tracks these fluctations. Keep in mind that most are not confirmed becuase Google is still quite, so I may update this blog post with latest data later on throughout the day.

SEMRush is showing very high fluctuations:

Cognitive SEO:

SERPMetrics is swinging upwards:

RankRanger has been unsettled for a while:

SERPwoo is showing changes:

I am not 100 percent sure about this Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update. But if you noticed any changes to your ranking or organic traffic drop down so, please share them with me here in this post. Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Also Read:

Google Core Update: What SEOs Need To Know

If you want to submit your website to Bing and review performance report or get access diagnostic tools, you need to verify the ownership of that website in Bing Webmaster Tools.  There are three verification options to verify your site in Webmaster Tools which are:

• Option 1: XML file authentication
• Option 2: Meta tag authentication
• Option 3: Add a CNAME record to DNS

For option 1 and 2, webmasters need to get the access of site and put verification code in the source code and complete the verification process. For option 3, users can verify website in Bing Webmaster Tools without having access the source code. According to recent announcement “We announce the support for Domain Connect open standard that will allow webmasters to seamlessly verify their site in Bing Webmaster Tools.”

What is Domain Connect?

Domain Connect is an open standard that makes it easy for a user to configure DNS for a domain running at a DNS provider (e.g. GoDaddy, 1&1 Ionos, etc) to work with a Service running at an independent Service Provider (e.g. Bing, O365, etc). The protocol presents a simple experience to the user, isolating them from the details of DNS settings and its complexity.

Bing Webmaster Tools verification using Domain Connect is now live for users whose domain is hosted with following DNS providers:

• Plesk
• 1&1 Ionos
• GoDaddy
• Media Temple

This capability will be constantly integrated with other DNS providers that support Domain Connect open standard. When adding website to Webmaster Tools, the system will automatically determine that the site is hosted on a DNS provider who has integrated the Domain Connect solution with Bing Webmaster Tools.

How To Use Domain Connect Feature To Verify Your Site in Bing Webmaster Tools?

Step 1: Open a Bing Webmaster Tools account

You can open a free Bing Webmaster Tools account by going to the Bing Webmaster Tools sign-in or sign-up page. You can sign up using Microsoft, Google or Facebook account.

Step 2: Add Your Website

Once you have a Bing Webmaster Tools account, you can add sites to your account. You can do so by entering the URL of your site into the Add a Site input box and clicking Add.

Step 3: Check if your site is supported for Domain Connect protocol

When you Add the website information, Bing Webmaster Tools will do background check to identify if that domain/ website is hosted on DNS provider that has integrated Domain Connect solution with Bing Webmaster Tools. Following view will show in case the site is supported.

In case the site is supported for Domain Connect feature, then user will see the default verification options as mentioned in  the above process.

Step 4: Verify DNS Provider Credentials

On click of Verify, user will be redirected to DNS provider site. Webmaster should sign-in using the account credentials associated with domain/ website under verification.

After successful sign-in, users can verify site by Bing webmaster tools within few seconds. In some cases, it may take longer for DNS provider to send the site ownership signal to Bing webmaster tool service.

Using the new verification options will significantly reduce the time taken and simplify the site verification process in Bing Webmaster Tools. We encourage you to try out this solution and get more users for your sites on Bing via Bing Webmaster Tools.

This new feature will help to reduce the time and steps to take for verify website in Bing Webmaster Tools. If Domain Connect feature is not supported, then users will see the default verification options which include XML file authentication and Meta tag authentication.

Bing is still continue to work for simplify the site verification process and help SEOs to easily add and verify their site in Webmaster Tools. So if you are facing any problem using Domain Connection solution, you can raise a service ticket with support team.

Also Read:

Bing Describes How To Submit URLs Via Webmaster API

On May 21, Bing published a blog post and explained how to submit URLs through API. It’s a good news for SEOs and Webmasters that you don’t need to wait for BingBot to crawl your website and index pages.

You can just submit those links to Bing to get your content immediately indexed as soon as your content is published! They  also published a step by step by guide for how to set-up the adaptive URL submission API.

Bing said that “In the last few months we have seen rapid adoption of this capability with thousands of websites submitting millions of URLs and getting them indexed on Bing instantly.“

Step 1: Generate an API Key

Webmasters need an API key to be able to access and use Bing Webmaster APIs. This API key can be generated from Bing Webmaster Tools by following these steps: 

• Sign in to your account on Bing Webmaster Tools. In case you do not already have a Bing Webmaster account, sign up today using any Microsoft, Google or Facebook ID.
• Add & verify the site that you want to submit URL for through the API, if not already done.
• Select and open any verified site through the My Sites page on Bing Webmaster Tools and click on Webmaster API on the left-hand side navigation menu.

• If you are generating the API key for the first time, please click Generate to create an API Key. Else you will see the key previously generated.

Note: Only one API key can be generated per user. You can change your API key anytime; change is taken by the system within 30 minutes.

Step 2: Integrate with your website

 You can any of the below protocols to easily integrate the Submit URL API into your system. 

JSON Request Sample

POST /webmaster/api.svc/json/SubmitUrl?

apikey=sampleapikeyEDECC1EA4AE341CC8B6 HTTP/1.1

Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8

Host: ssl.bing.com

 {

“siteUrl”:”http:\/\/example.com”,

“url”:”http:\/\/example.com\/url1.html”

}

XML Request Sample

POST /webmaster/api.svc/pox/SubmitUrl?apikey=sampleapikey341CC57365E075EBC8B6 HTTP/1.1

Content-Type: application/xml; charset=utf-8

Host: ssl.bing.com 

 <SubmitUrl xmlns=”http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/Microsoft.Bing.Webmaster.Api”>

<siteUrl>http://example.com</siteUrl>

<url>http://example.com/url1.html</url>

</SubmitUrl>

If the URL submission is successful then you will receive an http 200 response. This ensures that your pages will be discovered for indexing. If Bing webmaster guidelines are met then the pages will be crawled and indexed in real time.

If you have any trouble during the integration, you can reach out bwtsupport@microsoft.com to raise a service ticket.

Also Read:

Bing Ads Launched New Extension for Desktop and Mobile Devices

What SEOs & Webmasters Should Watch At Google I/O 2019

Google I/O 2019 is starting from May 06 and will finish after 3 days, May 09, Thursday. Google I/O is the yearly festival for developers, SEOs and webmaster, where they announced new products, APIs and introduced frameworks. They published an agenda for SEOs and webmasters if they are not able to physically attend that event.  

This event held once-in-a-year, but you can also see and watch the live streamed on YouTube including conferences talks, and cross questioning. Google shared all the links that will bring to specific pages that are most relevant for SEOs and Webmasters. You can watch each session of Google I/O 2019 event – as per Pacific Central time (California time). According to Martin Splitt, it is well worth watching if you are an SEO. 

List of Google I/O 2019 Sessions which is useful to SEOs and Webmasters

• Tuesday, May 7th4pm – Building Successful Websites: Case Studies for Mature and Emerging Markets, with Aancha Bahadur, Charlie Croom, Matt Doyle, Rudra Kasturi, and Jesar Shah

• Wednesday, May 8th10.30am – Enhance Your Search and Assistant Presence with Structured Data, with Aylin Altiok and Will Leszczuk 11.30am – Create App-like Experiences on Google Search and the Google Assistant, with Allen Harvey 11.30am – Rapidly Building Better Web Experiences with AMP, with Adam Greenberg and Naina Raisinghani 6.30pm – Unlocking New Capabilities for the Web, with Pete LePage and Thomas Steiner

• Thursday, May 9th10.30am – Google Search: State of the Union, with John Mueller and Martin Splitt 1.30pm – Google Search and JavaScript Sites, with Zoe Clifford and Martin Splitt

Also Read: 

Google Search Console Monitoring Overall Structured Data Performance

Recently Google published a blog post and announced that they’ve updated their technical webmaster guidelines. Pierre Far, The Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google briefly explained that “new guidelines specifies that you should not block Googlebot to get access JavaScript, CSS, and image files for optimal rendering and indexing. If you block Googlebot it will directly impact on your indexing and harms website rankings in the search results page (SERP)”.

Why Google Updated Technical Webmaster Guidelines?

These updated technical webmaster guidelines also called the holy-grail in our SEO community. Google want to render your web pages and index properly to provide better search results for their users and that is why they have added the fetch and render feature in the Webmaster Tools so webmasters could see how Googlebot renders the page.

I think this is a good news for Googlers, Webmasters, SEOs and Site Owners but its also be a warning for those who do not follow this Updated Webmaster Guidelines. Because it will directly hit your website ranking if you disallow Googlebot in robots.txt file for not to crawl or create a delay.

What You Should Need To Do:

No one wants to lose their rankings, so here I am sharing some helpful tips provided by Google on how to optimize your website to achieve better results in SERP.

• Minify text assets
• Eliminate unnecessary downloads
• Optimize your JavaScript and CSS files
• Optimize all images – Gzip is recommended
• Configure your server to compress resources
• Include progressive enhancement that helps users if their browsers don’t support JavaScript implementation.

Want to learn more about Updated Webmaster Guidelines, see the Google WM Central Blog.