Archive for the SEO News & Tips Category

On March 6, 2024, Google began applying “manual actions” to websites. Affected websites received a “Pure Spam” penalty and were removed from Google’s search results (deindexed). What is a “Pure Spam” Manual Action? A manual action is manually applied by a human reviewer at Google. Sites may

On December 16, 2021, Google announced that they completed an algorithm update which impacted local search results, also known as the “local pack” results. The algorithm change occurred between November 30 and December 8, 2021. What did the Local Pack Algorithm Update change? Google announced that the

In early June 2021, Google rolled out the June 2021 Google Core Algorithm Update. As with many of Google’s core updates, some sites regained review snippets in search results. This has been repeatedly documented on this blog with my coverage of the algorithm updates. It’s a Mistake.

If you suspect you were sold toxic backlinks or your website has lost ranking in Google due to spammy backlinks, your site received a manual action or lost trust during an algorithm update, please feel free to reach out to me for a backlink audit. I have

In 2020 Google had a variety of problems indexing content and people keep asking us how they can tell if their content is indexed in Google. Sometimes it is hard to tell if a page or article is simply ranking poorly or not in the index at

With just weeks remaining until the 2020 United States Presidential Election, Google has made an interesting decision that will slow some blogger’s ability to share information quickly. Prior to October 14, 2020, website owners and bloggers could log into Google Search Console and request that Google index

On August 15, 2020, Google’s algorithm changed, affecting the way search results are ordered in Google search engine result pages (SERPs). On August 16, 2020, it appears that results reverted to their previous state. The SERP flux was noted by all the major SERP monitors, including RankRanger:

On August 10, 2020, Google’s algorithm went haywire. This was corrected and the issue was confirmed by Google. Traffic fluctuations on August 10, 2020, and August 11, 2020 were temporary. The issue resulted in several very odd results surfacing on the front page of Google’s Search Engine

On July 28, 2020, Google Local Service Ads (LSAs) arrived to a wide variety of professionals, including attorneys, financial planners, accountants and real estate agents. The rollout occurred almost exactly 5 years to the day from when Google began testing “Home Service Ads” in 2015 for plumbers,

There was a minor tweak at Google which impacted some sites on April 9, 2020. Sites impacted would see a gain or loss in keyword visibility, generally noticeable in Google Analytics by a loss or gain in traffic. Here’s a screenshot of a site which gained traffic

If you happen to follow this blog you already know I am almost never a fan of disavowing backlinks. It’s rarely necessary and Google has put a lot of effort into ignoring junk backlinks. They have a tremendous amount of data and are well aware of junk

On May 8, 2019, Google announced that they’d be displaying several new types of snippets in search results, including FAQ snippets. Shortly after the announcement I began adding FAQ markup to FAQs on client websites. I’ve been adding FAQs to much of my content for decades now

Update: As of January 29, 2020, pages which get a Featured Snippet in Google Search results will no longer rank in organic results. Google says “a Featured Snippet IS an organic result”. The rest of this article is intact in its original form as it contains relevant

On January 13, 2020, Google changed the way search results are displayed on desktop. Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) now display a favicon, it is more difficult to tell what’s an Ad, and, URLs and page titles have swapped places. Note: After an uproar, Google is

On January 13, 2020, Google began rolling out their first Broad Core Algorithm update of 2020. This article will be updated as data is collected and details emerge. Lindsey, one of our SEO managers here, began calling this algorithm the “Hindsight” algorithm. After all, hindsight is 2020,

Having multiple types of content on your website confuses search engines and may result in a rankings loss across the entire website. I have mentioned this several times when covering various algorithm updates on this blog, however, I never provided clarity, case studies, or confirmation from Google.

Today, on November 21, 2019, I was checking out some search results for someone and happened to discover a new type of Featured Snippet which has me very excited. For lack of a better term I will be referring to it here as a Multi-Featured Snippet. Check

On October 31, 2019, I saw a very odd search result for a local search. Just below the local pack was a People Also Ask (PAA) box. I chalked it up as an error or random test. Then, I saw it again November 12, 2019 and decided

In September 2019, Google rolled out a new change which was supposed to remove self-serving review stars from search results produced by businesses using markup on their websites. Some people called the change “Starmageddon”. The technical name for these review stars is Review Rich Results, or review

August 1, 2018, Google adjusted their core algorithm. Overnight, several sites with medical content tanked. Google didn’t nickname it “Medic“, people in the SEO industry did. While it is a very fitting name, the algorithm also affected a huge variety of niches including finance, news, sports, business,