Can links from a social media website, such as Reddit, cause a website to get a manual action penalty from Google? Well, according to the example links provided to a site owner recently, they can. Links from the website Reddit.com were provided as examples of unnatural links to a website by Google, which apparently was at least partly responsible for the unnatural links penalty given. [Read more…]

There are times when Google’s search results are wrong. Really wrong. So wrong that you start to question whether or not you should even rely on Google’s search results for information. Case in point: When you ask Google how many legs a horse has, it says that a horse has six legs. [Read more…]

Today I learned that Google will index a domain name that has not been registered. Ever. As in no one has ever registered the domain name, the domain name is available for registration by anyone, and someone could register it if they met the requirements by the domain name registrar. This one has me shaking my head a bit. This is a perfect example of Google going overboard in their crawling and indexing, and their policy of insisting to index (and potentially rank) web pages whose owners have specifically told them not to. But with all of the recent deindexing issues and the fact that Google has been dropping pages out of the index, them indexing domains that aren’t even registered is concerning to me. [Read more…]

We knew this was coming, and we even were told via popup messages in Google Search Console. I knew the end was coming. March 28, 2019 was the date that Google’s Fetch as Google tool would be removed from Google Search Console. Now I can confirm that Google Fetch and Render has officially been removed from Google Search Console. [Read more…]

Today I learned that it’s possible to use the Google Removal Tool to request removal of pages on someone else’s website. Even if the page is on a website that you don’t own. I may be mistaken, but previously you had to be logged into a Google Account to use the Google Removal Tool and you had to be a site owner, verified in Google Search Console, to request removal. [Read more…]

Gary Illyes, Google’s Chief of Sunshine and Happiness and Trends Analyst, recently did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit. There were a lot of questions asked, and I’ve narrowed it all down to the key takeaways. I’ve pulled out the most important questions and answers, in my opinion. You can read the whole entire Reddit AMA with Gary here. [Read more…]

We’ve already heard that Google is closing down their social media site Google Plus, closing it down faster than previously expected. Now, we have yet another Google social community being closed down on January 16th, 2019: the Small Business Community from Google is shutting down rather abruptly. [Read more…]

December 13, 2018: 11:14am CST

Google illegally revealed the name of a murder suspect via a mass email sent out to subscribers of their top trends in New Zealand. A temporary suppression order was in place until the suspect went to trial for the murder of Grace Millane, a backpacker from the UK. She was found about 10 days later after she went missing from a Hostel in New Zealand. [Read more…]

A Google Ads training mistake cost Google about US $1.6 million dollars in one hour, as a single yellow ad was shown across the United States and Australia. Apparently the ad was a “training mistake made by a Google team that helps customers learn how to use the platform” according to reports. [Read more…]

As a Google Local Guide, I typically contribute to Google Maps on a regular basis. I was checking a few things today, several Google Maps listings, as well as Checking the Facts as a part of the Google Local Guide program, and noticed something rather odd. Google Maps loads over HTTP and not HTTPs. With Google being so adamant about everyone moving their sites to HTTPs and making them secure, I find it rather odd that Google’s own maps results would attempt to load over HTTPs but give a broken lock symbol–meaning that parts of the page is not secure. [Read more…]

Google has launched some new websites that are essentially shortcuts for starting a new Google doc. Instead of going to Google Drive to create a new spreadsheet, slide, document, or form, you can use a .NEW domain name to immediately create one. For example, if you type sheet.new into your web browser, it will create a new spreadsheet in Google Docs. Here are the new domains that will create new docs: [Read more…]

Based on some photos that my friend Daniel posted today, it appears that Google has quietly opened (expanded?) up a Dallas, Texas area office. As you might recall, Google has had offices in the Dallas area previously, and it has been years since Google had an office in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. With the amount of business that I know Google has been receiving from Dallas-area businesses over the years, I’m surprised that Google hasn’t officially had an office here. Google closed their Dallas office 10 years ago, in 2008. [Read more…]

It’s not that often that you see a server error on Google’s search results. For the past hour or so, if you search Google for the keyword phrase “compare the market”, you’ll see a server error. [Read more…]

That’s a really good question. Does Google have a date problem? Well, Garry Illyes (@methode on Twitter) tweeted, kind of admitting that he doesn’t like dates. That was back on September 5th, and looking at that tweet, and knowing what he’s really referring to, yes, it appears that Google still has a date problem. [Read more…]

Note: Don’t always believe everything is posted on Twitter, or any other social media website. In this case, DejanSEO and John Mueller from Google were joking about rogue bots and cloaking. Parts of this post have been edited.

There was a recent Tweet from DejanSEO to John Mueller from Google about technical SEO. Apparently DejanSEO has rogue crawlers that disobey his robots.txt file. They crawl the website even though the robots.txt file says that they can’t crawl the website. Dan Petrovic asked John how to deal with rogue crawlers. [Read more…]

Google recently renamed Google AdWords to Google Ads recently. Today, when you go to the former Google AdWords page, which was https://adwords.google.com, it redirects you to the new Google Ads page, which is https://ads.google.com/home/. This makes sense, as Google AdWords is now Google Ads. [Read more…]

For certain search queries, Google is suggesting HTTP URLs over the preferred HTTPs URLs in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Certain search queries, such as when an HTTPs URL is put in the search box, will prompt Google to ask if the searcher meant the HTTP URL instead. With all of Google’s emphasis on HTTPs, and moving your site from an HTTP URL to an HTTPs URL, does it makes sense for Google to recommend an HTTP URL instead of an HTTPs URL? [Read more…]

I don’t take negative SEO lightly–it’s something that is certainly something that can be difficult to deal with and identify if your website is the victim of a negative SEO attack. In the past week, I’ve had several different people I know tell me about the same issue they’re having. They all have had the same thing happen to them: someone supposedly reported their website as having malware. But, their websites do not have malware. Google apparently has flagged the websites with a malware-like notice in the search results, and notified the website owners of the malware in Google Search Console. [Read more…]

According to Google, this Tweet above is a video.

According to Google, tweets that contain animated GIFs (very short videos, usually a few seconds long) are considered to be videos. In the search results, Google is showing a Tweet from someone. That Tweet, along some of the replies to it, contain animated GIFs. Google is listing that tweet as a video in the organic search results. I typically don’t think of animated GIFs as being videos, let alone Tweets that contain animated GIFs. This is new to me. [Read more…]

Google has had enough when it comes to the Google My Business scammers. They’re taking legal action against Kydia Inc. d/b/a BeyondMenu, Point Break Media, LLC (and affiliated entities), and Supreme Marketing Group, Inc. d/b/a Small Business Solutions. There have a been a lot of complaints that businesses get calls from these scammers, claiming to be Google or Google representatives, threatening that their Google listing will be removed or taken down if they don’t pay a fee. [Read more…]