The relationship we used to have with Google was simple. It was a fair-use argument: we give Google content to index, and we get traffic in return. We do a good and ethical job at creating that content, we get rewarded with better rankings than those who do not.

AI has essentially turned all that on its head. Google I/O 2024 announced several AI-powered applications, the most notable being AI Overviews, which has since been rolled out in Google US. 

It’s the beginning of a disruptive search landscape, and we have very little idea how that’s going to go. And, considering how Google plans to use AI Overviews, one has to wonder whether or not this is still fair to websites. 

Worse, it brings us to this question: “What will happen to Google — and is it still valuable for me to work towards ranking in Google’s search results?” 

The State of Google Search in 2024

Google search results today are almost unrecognizable from what it was a few years ago. Gone is the era of 10 blue links, replaced now with dynamic, “enriched” search features, displayed in such a way that, theoretically, makes it easier for a user to gain more and more information right on the results page. 

In essence, Google is becoming less of a search engine and more of a portal for users.

The biggest step towards that was the launch of the Search Generative Experience (SGE). Though all their documentation and PR say that this phase is an experiment, it’s clear Google is trying to lay a foundational long-term change to the way people search on their platform. 

To create this new search experience, SGE was powered by generative AI, which added another layer of input and output, enabling Google to not only understand more complex questions but answer them and guide users to new ones. 

But that’s all in theory, and most technology sounds really, really good when it’s just in theory. But the reality of this shift in search is more consequential than most people think.

Moving towards an AI-powered search experience means reshaping how billions and billions of people find information online — and how Google makes money. 

What Are AI Overviews

Using Google’s AI models, search queries are analyzed, and an answer is formulated. This then provides an AI card with links to publishers beneath the overview section. 

They differ from featured snippets because they don’t directly show and link relevant content from websites. Instead, content is scraped, analyzed, and mashed together to provide what the AI thinks is the most comprehensive and accurate answer to your query.

If you’ve ever tried to teach yourself something complicated and reword those super technical concepts into what you think are layman’s terms, you know this is a difficult task, and one that can easily be done wrong. 

And yes, even AI trained on countless datasets can be wrong. Other articles have covered how bad the results of Google’s AI Overviews are so far, so I won’t even bother. But it’s bad, and not very reassuring to anyone using it.

Why it Matters for Websites

Ok, so Google’s newest tool isn’t doing great, why should you care? It’s not like Google hasn’t been changing things up in the last decade, and this isn’t the first time its newest products have flopped. It’s not the first time that Google’s decentered organic results, either.

But this change won’t just push organic search results further below the fold — it’ll completely change the traditional search journey of a Google user. 

By taking steps towards becoming a search portal, Google enables users to get answers to their questions without ever having to visit a website. And, it’s not unlikely that in the next few years, Google can evolve to allow users to fulfill transactions within the search interface itself.

How it Affects Independent Websites

Where is AI Overview getting its answers? From us, from SEOs, content creators, and webmasters. Google is doing this to millions and millions of websites — taking their content, without permission, for profit. All while taking that profit from our websites.

It’s unscrupulous, and is zero comfort for those who have already been negatively affected by algorithm updates in the past year. 

And Google CEO Sundar Pichai doesn’t seem to worry about how it affects the very websites their search engine indexes and uses for profit. In a recent interview with the Verge, Pichai is optimistic that Google AI Overviews and Search will drive more traffic and engagement to websites — but then also does not commit to giving us a way to definitively see that ourselves just yet.

The reason? “The more we spec it out, then the more people will design for that,” he says. Pichai also says whether or not that data will be eventually given to websites is up to the Search team, not him. 

I want to emphasize that Google definitely has that data, but they just won’t give us access to that in the Google Search Console performance reports. So we have no idea if our links in the AI Overviews have a higher or lower CTR than the normal search results 

So, we have to trust Google. But after the recent antitrust case, the Search API document leak, and the validity of their statements being called into question, can we really trust them? 

The Downfall of Google Search…

The trust in Google has been waning for several months now, if not years. Many SEOs and affiliates even say that Google search has died — an article from Edward Zitron, called “The Man Who Killed Google Search,” details how Prabhakar Raghavan ousted people like Ben Gomes from the helm of search and made its quality less of a priority, all for the short term bottom line.

And now we’re moving into what many call a “zero-click search” era, where users are becoming less and less inclined to click on organic search results. And Google is trying to capitalize on that with its AI Overviews, and failing miserably. Worse, it’s late to the game. 

AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity did it much earlier, and arguably, much better than Google is doing now. 

…and Rise of AI Chatbots

Google’s whole point is that it’s supposed to provide the best search experience to users. So when it fails, what do people do? They abandon ship and go to what serves them best.

And right now, that’s AI chatbots like Perplexity. 

I’ve been using this for a couple of months now, and the experience is great. Sources are provided and put at the priority — always placed on top of the generated answer. Answers were factual and included citations, and so far I haven’t seen any AI-generated nonsense. 

It’s a step above other chatbots like ChatGPT as well, since it does have access to the internet and a proprietary search database, so answers are, generally, more accurate and up-to-date. I also found the generated answers to be much more detailed in Perplexity than when I tried out Google Bard (now known as Gemini) a while back. 

One of the biggest complaints about Google Search is that the results are flooded with YouTube videos and Reddit forums. Perplexity avoids this completely by allowing users to opt out of those kinds of results and providing specific focus settings for those who are looking for forum answers and videos. 

Using this, it’s not hard to see why many users have switched. After all, Perplexity does what AI overviews should be doing, and it does it better. And if Perplexity can give you the answers you want, why bother with Google and other websites at all?

The Next Step for SEO

This brings me back to the first question I posed at the beginning: If AI chatbots and AI-powered search results are summarizing answers for you, why would you bother with organic search results? And if users shift towards that mentality, what’s the incentive for websites to continue their work? Why put new content on the web? 

Is this new era fair to independent publishers? And critically, what does this mean for the future of SEO and website traffic? 

It might not happen this year, or the next, but soon enough websites will be fighting for what little organic traffic is left from Google. 

So how do you stay at the top? How do you keep getting more people to visit your website?

There are really only a few things I can recommend for this new era.

Focus on Your Customers

Chatbots like Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot all need sources to cite. Providing detailed and accurate answers increases your chances of becoming that source. We may not be able to stop chatbots from using our content, but at least you can still gain some clicks whenever they do. 

Aside from that, I’m still of the mindset that there’s plenty of value in providing insightful, useful answers to the people who are looking for them. It helps you connect with your audience, proves your authority in your niche, and builds trust. Plus, high-quality content for nuanced answers is something that chatbots and AI writing tools have a hard time replicating anyway.

The recent Google search document leak, in my opinion, also proves just how important producing customer-centric content is. Their algorithm wouldn’t factor in so much click-related data for nothing.

Utilize Structured Data Markup

Making sure your content is easily understood by machines is the next step. Applying schema or structured data helps them understand and categorize web content, and increases the odds of you being featured in AI-generated results.

Diversify Your Traffic Sources

It’s becoming increasingly clear that relying solely on Google for traffic will become riskier as time goes on — even if you do end up building a strong brand presence, authority, and readership. 

Diversifying traffic sources and including social media and direct engagement strategies will be essential for keeping your website alive. It’s how you’ll get featured on publications, listicles, directories, and other platforms for users to find out about you.

Key Takeaway

Did Google just effectively kill independent publishers and websites? Are we entering the “zero-click search” era? Maybe, but what’s sure is that Google search will push organic search results down in favor of what they believe is an enhanced search experience. 

As Google transforms into an AI-driven search portal, what websites like mine and yours can do is shift SEO tactics, expand to other platforms, and adopt a holistic approach that emphasizes content quality, relevance, and user engagement.

The post The Future of Google: How AI Overviews & Chatbots Are Redefining Search appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Google’s search algorithm is, essentially, one of the biggest influencers of what gets found on the internet. It decides who gets to be at the top and enjoy the lion’s share of the traffic, and who gets regulated to the dark corners of the web — a.k.a. the 2nd and so on pages of the search results. 

It’s the most significant system of our digital world. And how that system works has been largely a mystery for years, but no longer. The Google search document leak, just went public just yesterday, drops thousands of pages of purported ranking algorithm factors onto our laps. 

The Leak

There’s some debate as to whether the documentation was “leaked,” or “discovered.” But what we do know is that the API documentation was (likely accidentally) pushed live on GitHub— where it was then found.

The thousands and thousands of pages in these documents, which appear to come from Google’s internal Content API Warehouse, give us an unprecedented look into how Google search and its ranking algorithms work. 

Fast Facts About the Google Search API Documentation

• Reported to be the internal documentation for Google Search’s Content Warehouse API.
• The documentation indicates this information is accurate as of March 2024.
• 2,596 modules are represented in the API documentation with 14,014 attributes. These are what we might call ranking factors or features, but not all attributes may be considered part of the ranking algorithm. 
• The documentation did not provide how these ranking factors are weighted. 

And here’s the kicker: several factors found on this document were factors that Google has said, on record, they didn’t track and didn’t include in their algorithms. 

That’s invaluable to the SEO industry, and undoubtedly something that will direct how we do SEO for the foreseeable future.

Is The Document Real? 

Another subject of debate is whether these documents are legitimate. On that point, here’s what we know so far:

• The documentation was on GitHub and was briefly made public from March to May 2024.
• The documentation contained links to private GitHub repositories and internal pages — these required specific, Google-credentialed logins to access.
• The documentation uses similar notation styles, formatting, and process/module/feature names and references seen in public Google API documentation.
• Ex-Googlers say documentation similar to this exists on almost every Google team, i.e., with explanations and definitions for various API attributes and modules.

No doubt Google will neither deny nor confirm that this is their work. But all signs, so far, point to this document being the real deal, though I still caution everyone to take everything you learn from it with a grain of salt.

UPDATE: On May 29, 2024, a Google spokesperson gave the following statement to Search Engine Land’s Barry Schwartz:

“We would caution against making inaccurate assumptions about Search based on out-of-context, outdated, or incomplete information. We’ve shared extensive information about how Search works and the types of factors that our systems weigh, while also working to protect the integrity of our results from manipulation.”

What We Learnt From The Google Search Document Leak

With over 2,500 technical documents to sift through, the insights we have so far are just the tip of the iceberg. I expect that the community will be analyzing this leak for months (possibly years) to gain more SEO-applicable insights.

Other articles have gotten into the nitty-gritty of it already. But if you’re having a hard time understanding all the technical jargon in those breakdowns, here’s a quick and simple summary of the points of interest identified in the leak so far:

• Google uses something called “Twiddlers.” These are functions that help rerank a page (think boosting or demotion calculations). 
• Content can be demoted for reasons such as SERP signals (aka user behavior) indicating dissatisfaction, a link not matching the target site, using exact match domains, product reviews, location, or sexual content.
• Google uses a variety of measurements related to clicks, including “badClicks”, ”goodClicks”, ”lastLongestClicks” and ”unsquashedClicks”.
• Google keeps a copy of every version of every page it has ever indexed. However, it only uses the last 20 changes of any given URL when analyzing a page.
• Google uses a domain authority metric, called “siteAuthority”
• Google uses a system called “NavBoost” that has a module which uses click data for evaluating pages.
• Google tracks which search result gets the longest click during each session.
• Google has a “sandbox” that websites are segregated to, based on age or lack of trust signals. Indicated by an attribute called “hostAge”
• May be related to the last point, but there is an attribute called “smallPersonalSite” in the documentation. Unclear what this is used for.
• Google does identify entities on a webpage and can sort, rank, and filter them.
• So far, the only attributes that can be connected to E-E-A-T are author-related attributes.
• Google uses Chrome data as part of their page quality scoring, with a module featuring a site-level measure of views from Chrome (“chromeInTotal”)
• The number, diversity, and source of your backlinks matter a lot, even if PageRank has not been mentioned by Google in years.
• Title tags being keyword-optimized and matching search queries is important.
• “siteFocusScore” attribute measures how much a site is focused on a given topic. 
• Publish dates and how frequently a page is updated determines content “freshness” — which is also important. 
• Font size and text weight for links are things that Google notices. It appears that larger links are more positively received by Google.

Author’s Note: This is not the first time a search engine’s ranking algorithm was leaked. I covered the Yandex hack and how it affects SEO in 2023, and you’ll see plenty of similarities in the ranking factors both search engines use.

Action Points for Your SEO

I did my best to review as much of the “ranking features” that were leaked, as well as the original articles by Rand Fishkin and Mike King. From there, I have some insights I want to share with other SEOs and webmasters out there who want to know how to proceed with their SEO.

Links Matter — Link Value Affected by Several Factors 

Links still matter. Shocking? Not really. It’s something I and other SEOs have been saying, even if link-related guidelines barely show up in Google news and updates nowadays.

Still, we need to emphasize link diversity and relevance in our off-page SEO strategies. 

Some insights from the documentation:

• PageRank of the referring domain’s homepage (also known as Homepage Trust) affects the value of the link.
• Indexing tier matters. Regularly updated and accessed content is of the highest tier, and provides more value for your rankings.

If you want your off-page SEO to actually do something for your website, then focus on building links from websites that have authority, and from pages that are either fresh or are otherwise featured in the top tier. 

Some PR might help here — news publications tend to drive the best results because of how well they fulfill these factors.

As for guest posts, there’s no clear indication that these will hurt your site, but I definitely would avoid approaching them as a way to game the system. Instead, be discerning about your outreach and treat it as you would if you were networking for new business partners.

Aim for Successful Clicks 

The fact that clicks are a ranking factor should not be a surprise. Despite what Google’s team says, clicks are the clearest indicator of user behavior and how good a page is at fulfilling their search intent.

Google’s whole deal is providing the answers you want, so why wouldn’t they boost pages that seem to do just that?

The core of your strategy should be creating great user experiences. Great content that provides users with the right answers is how you do that. Aiming for qualified traffic is how you do that. Building a great-looking, functioning website is how you do that.

Go beyond just picking clickbait title tags and meta descriptions, and focus on making sure users get what they need from your website.

Author’s Note: If you haven’t been paying attention to page quality since the concepts of E-E-A-T and the HCU were introduced, now is the time to do so. Here’s my guide to ranking for the HCU to help you get started.

Keep Pages Updated

Content freshness is something that Google looks for, based on the attributes “bylineDate,” “syntacticDate,” and “semanticDate,” which are the dates in the byline, URL, and on-page content, respectively. 

Aside from that, an interesting click-based measurement is the “last good click.” All these being in a module related to indexing signals suggests that outdated pages and content decay can affect your rankings. 

Be vigilant about which pages on your website are not driving the expected amount of clicks for its SERP position. Outdated posts should be audited to ensure content has up-to-date and accurate information to help users in their search journey. 

This should revive those posts and drive clicks, preventing content decay. 

It’s especially important to start on this if you have content pillars on your website that aren’t driving the same traffic as they used to.

Establish Expertise & Authority  

Google does notice the entities on a webpage, which include a bunch of things, but what I want to focus on are those related to your authors.

E-E-A-T as a concept is pretty nebulous — because scoring “expertise” and “authority” of a website and its authors is nebulous. So, a lot of SEOs have been skeptical about it.

However, the presence of an “author” attribute combined with the in-depth mapping of entities in the documentation shows there is some weight to having a well-established author on your website.

So, apply author markups, create an author bio page and archive, and showcase your official profiles on your website to prove your expertise. 

Build Your Domain Authority

After countless Q&As and interviews where statements like “we don’t have anything like domain authority,” and “we don’t have website authority score,” were thrown around, we find there does exist an attribute called “siteAuthority”.

Though we don’t know specifically how this measure is computed, and how it weighs in the overall scoring for your website, we know it does matter to your rankings.

So, what do you need to do to improve site authority? It’s simple — keep following best practices and white-hat SEO, and you should be able to grow your authority within your niche. 

Stick to Your Niche

Speaking of niches — I found the “siteFocusScore” attribute interesting. It appears that building more and more content within a specific topic is considered a positive.

The “siteRadius” attribute, which measures how far “page_embeddings” deviate from “site_embedding,” also point towards topical authority being a ranking factor.

Author’s Note: Embeddings in this context is something that machines use to understand the semantics and correlation between words used on a page.

It’s something other SEOs have hypothesized before. After all, the more you write about a topic, the more you must be an authority on that topic, right?

But anyone can write tons of blogs on a given topic nowadays with AI, so how do you stand out (and avoid the risk of sounding artificial and spammy?)

That’s where author entities and link-building come in. I do think that great content should be supplemented by link-building efforts, as a sort of way to show that hey, “I’m an authority with these credentials, and these other people think I’m an authority on the topic as well.”

Key Takeaway

Most of the insights from the Google search document leak are things that SEOs have been working on for months (if not years). However, we now have solid evidence behind a lot of our hunches, providing that our theories are in fact best practices. 

The biggest takeaway I have from this leak: Google relies on user behavior (click data and post-click behavior in particular) to find the best content. Other ranking factors supplement that. Optimize to get users to click on and then stay on your page, and you should see benefits to your rankings.

Could Google remove these ranking factors now that they’ve been leaked? They could, but it’s highly unlikely that they’ll remove vital attributes in the algorithm they’ve spent years building. 

So my advice is to follow these now validated SEO practices and be very critical about any Google statements that follow this leak.

The post The Search Algorithm Exposed: Inside Google’s Search API Documents Leak appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

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.

The post Google Announcement: E-commerce Best Practices Guide appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

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.