A while back, Google My Business launched a few new features, including the ability to make posts and the ability to create a website. I’ve written about these before. Just recently, though, I started looking into how successful these new Google My Business websites are. In effort to see more data about them, I’ve used a few tools to do a deep dive into the data about Business.Site. After all, Business.Site is, in fact a New gTLD domain name (.SITE is a Top Level Domain), and Business.Site is a domain name. [Read more…]
Google Customizes Their Home Page on Your Birthday
I haven’t noticed this before, but Google customizes their home page for you on your birthday. Perhaps this is new this year, as I didn’t notice it last year on my birthday. Yep, it’s my birthday today, November 27th. [Read more…]
How to Fake Your Location to Check Google Rankings in Search Results
With customization of the search results being so prominent these days, it’s difficult to really know where your website is ranking. Based on the actual location of the searcher, the search results will be different. Sometimes you’ll see a map in the search results, and for some search queries you won’t see a map. This can be very frustrating if you’re trying to check search engine rankings. [Read more…]
Case Study: Google My Business Business.Site Websites
A while back, Google My Business launched a feature that allows verified local businesses to create their own website. Once logged in to Google My Business, you can use their interface to upload a header image, a title and headline, and text about your business. You can link out to other web pages, and a Google map is also embedded, so visitors can get directions to your business. Before publishing, you are asked to create a URL for your website, or order a custom domain name. [Read more…]
Google Doesn’t Understand The Hreflang Tag On Their Own Site
I’m honestly scratching my head on this one. Even though Google has made several different versions of a page on their website (i.e., one for each country), and they use the hreflang tag, Google’s own search engine doesn’t display the right page. Let me explain. [Read more…]
FoxNews.com Not HTTPs: Losing Out on Lots of Ad Revenue
FoxNews.com is not currently HTTPs. As a result, the media outlet is losing out on what I suspect is a lot of ad revenue because ads are not being shown. Google AdSense ads, for example, are currently showing with an error, and ads are not loading. This is one major reason why, if you’re a website owner, you need to move your website to HTTPs immediately. [Read more…]