It was a busy January with a few unconfirmed Google algorithm updates around the 15th, 9th and 6th of January. Google also said the next 50% of mobile-first indexing will be the hardest.
Google had a couple of bugs - one was an old but embarrassing knowledge panel issue they finally fixed and the other was an AMP error that caused some issues. Google also put some news publishers on notice about being legit.
On Google Search Console, some of the features in the old version are going away as soon as March. But Google brought some new features to the URL inspection tool, did some message consolidation and added the security feature to the tool. Google ran lots of tests, did some things on local and much more.
Currently, the ongoing WebmasterWorld thread is pretty quiet and stable now.
Here is a summary of stories that I wanted to highlight over the past 30 days:
Google Algorithm Updates:
- Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update Chatter January 15th
- Google Search Algorithm Update On January 9th?
- Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update Around January 6th
- Google: Last 50% Of Mobile-First Indexing Migration Will Be Harder
- Google Image Search Changes Coming This Year: Think Different
- Knowledge Panel Exploit Is Embarrassing For Google
- Google Fixed The Knowledge Panel Hack
- Google AMP Crawl Error Bug Fix Is Here
- Google Fixing AMP Errors; Nothing To Fix On Your End Now
- Google Investigating AMP Errors & AMP Pages Not Showing In Search
- Google Sends Many AMP Issue Detected Notices
- Is Google Getting Ready To Punish Google News Publishers In Violation?
- Google: Image Schema Or Noscript Tags Are Good For Images
- Google Recommends To Disavow Links That Can Trigger Manual Actions
- Google: Disavowing Bad Links May Help Google Algorithmically Trust Your Links
- Google's John Mueller: You Focus Too Much On Links
- Google's Nofollow Link Attribute Didn't Help Improve Blog Comments; Sorry
- Google: Unnatural Links By Humans Or Bots Are Your Responsibility
- Google Officially To End Some Old Search Console Features
- Google May Drop The Old Search Console In March
- Google Will Discontinue Some Old Search Console Features
- Google URL Inspection Tool Adds HTTP Response, Resources, JS Logs & Screenshots
- Google May Consolidate Even More Search Console Messages
- Google Now Sending Consolidated Mobile-First Indexing Notifications
- Google's John Mueller Can Send Personalized Messages Through Google Search Console
- Google Rich Results Test Now With Code Editing
- New Google Search Console Ports Security Issues Section
- Most SEOs Want Fetch As Google Even With URL Inspection Tool
- Google Search Console Stops Testing Domain Property?
- Google: Our SEO Success Is Not From Preferential Treatment
- A New Google Useragent Named google-speakr
- Google Tests Ghost Town Like Search Results For The EU
- Google Showing Some Europeans Sparse Search Results
- Google Rolls Out Your Related Activity Card; Showing You Past Searches
- Google Shows 2.5X More Medical Featured Snippets In Desktop Results
- Google Tests Bolding Content In Knowledge Panels
- Google Tests Event Rich Snippets On Desktop
- Social Media Icons Return To Google Knowledge Panels
- Google Knowledge Panel With Video As Top Featured Image
- Google Test Video Lightbox For Some Videos In Mobile Search Results
- Google's New Design For Lyrics In Search Results On Mobile
- Google Featured Snippets Tests Blue Feedback Bar
- Google My Business Helps Businesses Without Offices With New Sign Up Process
- Now Google My Business Bulk Users Can Download/Upload Spreadsheets
- Google Patches The Open Date Google Local Edits Hack
- Google Spammers Using Open Date Edits To Hurt Local Businesses
- Google To Host More In Person Meetups But Focused On Webmasters
- Daniel Waisberg Joins John Mueller & Google Webmaster Team As Search Advocate
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
