March 2015 Google Webmaster Report

I try to keep the amount of content in these recaps as short as possible but this past month was pretty busy in so many different ways around Google webmaster SEO topics.

Let's start with Google announcing new mobile friendly ranking factors coming on April 21st. Then the e-commerce update and two other unconfirmed updates this past month.

We also saw Google testing a slow label in the search results around the same time Google released an alpha version of the Search Impact report. It was Panda's 4th anniversary and it has been over 4 months since an update there. Google also told us there is no whitelist for Panda or Penguin.

Google may do away with links and use fact knowledge rank instead. While John Mueller told us to avoid link building and nofollow web design by links.

Google revamped their health results and a lot of stuff happened around hacking this past month.

Here is a categorized listing of the more important Google webmaster related stories over the past month:

Google Algorithm & Updates:

• Google To Bring Mobile-Friendly Factors To Search Ranking On April 21st
• Google's E-Commerce Update: Was Last Week's Search Tweak E-Commerce Focused?
• Google Search Testing Updated Search Quality Algorithms?
• Google Tests A Search Algorithm Update Yesterday Morning & Revert Back?

Google Slow Label:

• Google Mobile Displaying "Slow" Label In Search Results For Slow Sites?

Google Webmaster Tools:

• See The New Search Impact Reports In Google Webmaster Tools Over Here

Google Panda:

• Google Panda Turns Four Years Old Today
• No Google Panda Update In Over Four Months
• Google: We Don't Have Whitelists For The Penguin & Panda Algorithms

Google Links:

• Google Fact Rank: Google Ranking Web Pages On Facts, Not Links
• Google Health & Medical Queries Get Vastly Updated Knowledge Graph Look
• Google's John Mueller: I'd Avoid Link Building In General
• Google: Definitely Put A Nofollow On Web Design By Links
• Google To Update Widget Link Guidelines Fairly Soon
• Google: When Will Be The Next PageRank Update? Probably Never

Google SEO:

• Google: Duplicate Titles Is Not A Panda Search Quality Issue
• Google SEO: Should Titles & H1 Tags Be Exactly The Same?
• Google News Supports Sitemap Only Crawling
• Google News Publishers Should Use Standout Tags For Third-Party Sources Often
• Google News Sitemap Index Count Not Accurate
• Google News Title Tags & H1 Tags Should Be Consistent For Ranking
• Google Webmaster Tools International Targeting Reports A Month Behind
• Data Returning To Google Webmaster Tools & Google Analytics
• Google: When Moving A Site, Do It All At Once Because We Expedite Crawling
• Google: You Can't Redirect A Penalty To An Existing Site But Maybe To A Site Move

Google Hacking:

• Google "This Site May Be Hacked" Mass Warnings This Morning
• Google May Have Mistakenly Marked Your Site As Hacked: Here Is How To Fix It
• Google Search Now Warns Before You Visit Sites That Trigger Unwanted Downloads
• Google Tips On Fixing A Site That Was Hijacked
• Google Updates Binary Malware Or Unwanted Software Webmaster Tools Help Page
• Google Now Offering One-On-One Support For Webmasters With Hacked Sites

Google Misc:

• Watch Webmaster Give It To Google Over Playing By The Rules Without Seeing Results
• Google Adds Carousel Results Within The Snippet Level & Suggests Using Articles Rich Snippets

For last month's recap see over here.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.