In this episode our MD Ross Tavendale analyses:
Google's September algorithm update
Keywords Everywhere goes paid
Yoast issues a statement that says they will automatically opt all users into all snippet features by default.
Google adds new meta tag controls to remove and control snippets in the SERPs
John Muller came out and said that changing server was a “non-event” for Google.
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I’m Ross Tavendale, the managing director of Type A Media, a creative search agency based in London. I make videos about business leadership, web technology, SEO, PPC and how I turned being a Type A personality into a business.
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Ross: 00:00 When I hear that hotline bling, it can only mean one thing.
Ross: 00:04 Welcome to Canonical Chronicle, Episode 5,000,652.
Ross: 00:09 Let's get into it. So nothing has really happened in search this week. Just kidding.
Ross: 00:15 There was a massive f***ing algorithm update.
Ross: 00:17 So we've got loads and loads to get through.
Ross: 00:19 So without further ado, let's get into it.
Ross: 00:28 Have you seen your rankings start to do this?
Ross: 00:33 Well I've got some bad news for you. Fella. You have just been Google slapped.
Ross: 00:40 So how do we diagnose this algorithm update?
Ross: 00:43 Well, from our analysis at Type A Media HQ,
Ross: 00:45 we can see that it's probably link base.
Ross: 00:48 In particular, link relevance seems to be playing a really big part.
Ross: 00:53 So if the entities on the page that are linking to a page on your site with
Ross: 00:57 entities that are a million miles away, it's likely the value of
Ross: 01:01 these links has probably been adjusted downwards.
Ross: 01:04 Going a bit deeper, anecdotally we're seeing a downweighting of overall domain authority
Ross: 01:09 and an up waiting of page level authority. As we're seeing domains with really light back link profiles,
Ross: 01:14 but with a couple of really good contextual links pointing to the main pages,
Ross: 01:19 they're now starting to rank.
Ross: 01:21 So what should you do?
Ross: 01:25 That's right. Don't panic.
Ross: 01:27 I start looking to do more contextual link building and matching the entities on your page
Ross: 01:31 to the linking page itself. So how do you do that?
Ross: 01:35 It's a big step closer to traditional PR practices.
Ross: 01:38 So build kind of cool content and stories around your products and then pitch that to webmasters and journalists.
Ross: 01:45 At Type A Media, we spend a lot of money on tools. Every month it's like...
Ross: 01:57 So we love free tools, like Keywords Everywhere that give you a free keyword data report and inside the SERP.
Ross: 02:04 So I can quickly see the value of an individual keyword.
Ross: 02:07 However, as of October 1st it's going to go paid.
Ross: 02:10 So the guys at Keywords Everywhere are like...
Ross: 02:18 and that's fair enough.
Ross: 02:19 It is a really good tool.
Ross: 02:20 It's going to work on a credit system when you can top up credits
Ross: 02:22 to get more keyword reports, now we all use it at Type A Media,
Ross: 02:26 so I'm going to get involved and start paying for the tool,
Ross: 02:28 because I think is excellent.
Ross: 02:30 In Wordpress Plugin news, Yoast, the popular SEO plugin for WordPress
Ross: 02:33 has issued a statement that says it will automatically opt-in all users to defaults snippets.
Ross: 02:41 They said, "We realize that this means we're opting you in to all of these snippet features in Yoast SEO.
Ross: 02:46 I think it's fair to say that if you use YOAST SEO to optimize your search results,
Ross: 02:51 we can assume that that's what you want."
Ross: 02:53 Well Yoast, I have some news for you.
Speaker 2: 02:57 You should never assume, because when you assume you make an ass of you and me.
Ross: 03:07 I'm only kidding.
Ross: 03:08 I kind of have mixed feelings about that because
Ross: 03:10 I feel like snippets can kill your trafficking and can contribute to more zero click steps.
Ross: 03:15 However, in the most part, it's probably a good thing for most users.
Ross: 03:18 The way the technical bit goes.
Ross: 03:20 So essentially on every page what you're now going to see as either Max snippet minus one,
Ross: 03:25 Max image P view large or Max a video preview minus one.
Ross: 03:28 If you want to make any changes, just use WPSU robots and that will filter it out.
Ross: 03:34 So you may have heard about the recent battle between Google and
Ross: 03:37 the French courts about publishers copyright. The French were essentially like...
Speaker 3: 03:42 " You don't threaten us you English pig dogs."
Ross: 03:46 And then Google were essentially like...
Speaker 4: 03:47 "Fine, then go ahead and starve."
Ross: 03:52 And they've given us a bunch of new controls and meta tags
Ross: 03:55 to change the way snippets appear inside the SERPS.
Ross: 04:00 So the new meta tags are: no snippet, which we've had before;
Ross: 04:04 you just put in no snippet to say, don't show a snippet, Max snippet;
Ross: 04:08 this allows you to specify the length of your snippet, Max video preview;
Ross: 04:12 lets you specify the video preview land and Max image preview;
Ross: 04:16 lets you specify the actual image itself.
Ross: 04:19 So, how should we be using this stuff?
Ross: 04:22 Why I'm personally kind of against snippets because of all this no click SERP stuff that's happening.
Ross: 04:26 That kind of steals your traffic.
Ross: 04:28 However, anecdotally if you craft this snippet, so it's kind of a big description for a massive call to action.
Ross: 04:35 You technically should be able to increase your traffic.
Ross: 04:39 So maybe you should go into your pages and look at where the snippets are being pulled
Ross: 04:42 and start to change them to see if you can bump your traffic by increasing clickthrough rate.
Ross: 04:48 This week, John Miller, a Google engineer on banana enthusiasts
Ross: 04:52 came out to say that changing server, is a bit of a non event for Google.
Ross: 05:00 Well this is probably true from a short term ranking perspective.
Ross: 05:03 It is really not the whole story. For example,
Ross: 05:06 if you're moving from a shared host to some super fast load balanced AWS mega server,
Ross: 05:13 that increases your site speed.
Ross: 05:14 Then of course it's going to make a difference because Google can
Ross: 05:17 crawl it faster and more efficiently.
Ross: 05:20 Also, if speed increases as a ranking factor,
Ross: 05:23 that Google themselves have actually confirmed.
Ross: 05:25 Surely faster server means faster site means better rankings.
Ross: 05:29 The main caveat that John mentioned is that Google will adjust
Ross: 05:32 the crawl frequency temporarily when they see the tech is different,
Ross: 05:36 but the only reason they're going to do that is because they don't want to overload your server.
Ross: 05:40 That's everything for this week's Canonical Chronicle.
Ross: 05:42 We hope you've liked it.
Ross: 05:43 Please do leave a comment down below and let me know
Ross: 05:46 if you've been affected by this week's algorithm update,
Ross: 05:49 but until next time, we will see you later.