Google, in a blog post, has announced that they will stop showing ads that they deem to be too disruptive. Beginning on February 15, 2018, Google’s Chrome web browser will stop showing all ads on websites that repeatedly display disruptive ads after they’ve been flagged. If the ads don’t comply with Better Ads Standards from the Coalition for Better Ads, then Google may deem them disruptive ads and shop showing them. [Read more…]
Google to Buy Chelsea Market for $2B Yet Google My Business Listing is Unclaimed
Google is reportedly buying the Chelsea Market Building in Manhattan, New York for $2 Billion US Dollars. However, the Google Maps listing remains unclaimed and not verified at Google’s own service, Google My Business. [Read more…]
How to Filter Google Search Console Messages in Gmail
If you are like me and have a LOT of websites in Google Search Console, you probably are getting a lot of emails lately. Google is emailing every single website owner, every verified website in Google Search Console, and telling them about the New Google Search Console that they’ve now launched. You’re getting an email like the one above. [Read more…]
Is Google Home Purposely Censoring Jesus Christ?
We all are familiar by now with Alexa and Google Home. You can ask them questions and most of the time they will provide you with the right answer. Sometimes it’s right, and sometimes it’s wrong. Sometimes you get some odd answers, as well. But this one is pretty intriguing. You would think that Google knows a lot about historical figures, especially given the fact that Google has a very extensive Knowledge Graph. [Read more…]
Should You Write Longer Meta Description Tags?
Back in May 2016, Google made some changes to the search results where they started showing longer title tags and longer meta description tags. This, overall, was a significant change from the search results where they were generally only showing up to about 60-70 characters of a web page’s title tag and about 160 characters in a meta description tag. [Read more…]
Here’s What a Negative SEO Attack Looks Like
We keep hearing about negative SEO, and negative SEO attacks against websites. If you have ever had a negative SEO attack leveraged against your website or your client’s website, then you probably know what a negative SEO attack looks like. It’s a lot of links pointed to a page or several pages on your website. In the past several years I’ve dealt with a lot of negative SEO attacks, and cleaned (and cleaned) those links up, and always disavowed those links. [Read more…]
Does Google Index Blockchain URLs?
Blockchain certainly has been on everyone’s mind lately, especially since Bitcoin’s value continues to go up. A lot more companies are accepting Bitcoin, even myself. In fact, I’ve been accepting Bitcoin for SEO services since 2013. I took a look at Google’s search results, and it’s interesting to note that Google is indexing over 8.7 million Blockchain URLs. [Read more…]
Google My Business: How Many Business.Site Websites Have Been Built?
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…]
Google Chrome 62 Beta Now Showing Not Secure
In my last post, I wrote about how Google Chrome was showing a Not Secure warning on websites that are not HTTPs. There appears to have been a recent change, whereas Google Chrome version 62 is now showing a Not Secure warning in the regular mode. Previously, it was only showing this warning if you were in incognito mode. [Read more…]
Google Chrome Beta 62 Incognito Mode Showing HTTP as Not Secure
I’ve mentioned this here before. Starting in October, Google Chrome will start warning users that an HTTP website where they’re going to enter information is not secure. In Google Chrome version 62, Google is, in fact, warning users that the page is not secure. [Read more…]
Google’s HSTS Preload List Requires Redirect Chains But It’s All Good
Last night I wrote about how you can get your domain name listed on Google’s HSTS Preload List, which is used with Google Chrome. I do recommend that you get your domain name on this list if you’ve moved your website to HTTPs already. At this point that should be everyone–if you are reading this and haven’t moved your website to HTTPs yet, what are you waiting for? [Read more…]
Moved To HTTPs? Get on the HSTS Preload List for Chrome
As you are well aware by now, I moved this site to HTTPs (a secure SSL site) back a few years ago when Google announced that HTTPs is, in fact, a search engine ranking factor. Google has announced that they’re making HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security) the default on all of the Google-owned TLDs, starting with .dev and .foo. This is really good news, as any domain name on those TLDs (Top Level Domains) will be secure and using HTTPs URLs. [Read more…]
Submit URL to Google Feature Has a Limit
It looks like there is a strict limit of the number of URLs that you can submit to Google using the submit URL to Google feature that I’ve written about before. [Read more…]
Searches Show Timeline for Evacuating Ahead of Hurricane Irma
It’s no surprise that there are a lot of keyword searches being performed for keywords related to Hurricane Irma. I’ve been following the trends of keywords related to Hurricane Irma, and have been able to see some interesting data from Google Trends. People are turning to the web, specifically Google, to help make up their decision on whether to evacuate or not, and get information about Hurricane Irma. [Read more…]
Confirmed By Google: Link Rot is Normal Website Maintenance
Google’s John Mueller has confirmed that link rot is normal website maintenance. I will go one step further and say that you should be dealing with it on a regular basis. There is no confirmation or indication that dealing with link rot will improve search engine rankings. However, I personally believe that dealing with link rot on a regular basis will improve the overall quality of your website. And, quality websites generally get more traffic from Google. [Read more…]