Daily Search Forum Recap: February 12, 2021

Feb 12, 2021 - 4:00 pm 0 by

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

  • Search Buzz Video Recap: Google Passage Ranking Live, Search & Image Algo Updates, News/Discover Manual Actions & Dark Theme
    This was one heck of a busy week, so sit back, get a drink and enjoy the show (okay, it won't be that exciting of a show but you should still subscribe and smash that like button)...
  • Google Passage Ranking Is Live In The US English Results
    The day we have been waiting for has come on Wednesday, February 10th - passage ranking (formerly known as passage indexing) is live in the US English search results. Google confirmed this after I pinged Danny Sullivan of Google about the status the other day.
  • Google Image Search Update Reduces Duplicate Images (November 2020)
    Google announced it rolled out a Google Image Search algorithm update in November 2020 aimed at reducing duplicate images in the search results, to instead show "relevant yet visually distinct" images. Plus, Google made the alternative meanings refinement boxes more helpful with better images - the company said on Twitter.
  • Google Search Scroll To Text On Free Product Results
    Google is expanding the scroll-to-text feature it has on featured snippets and some other search elements to the free top product listings boxes. Brodie Clark spotted this for a search on [bluetooth headphones] and I was able to replicate this.
  • Google: Shorter Domains Are Not Better For Ranking Or SEO
    Google's John Mueller said that having a shorter domain name or a shorter URL is not going to benefit you in terms of your SEO and ranking in Google Search. He said on Twitter "domain name or URL length is not a factor, adding that "shorter is not better for SEO."
  • Google SEO Advice On Temporarily Removing Site Functionality In Support Of Action
    Google's John Mueller shared a number of tweets the other day with specific SEO advice around what to do when you remove or disable functionality of parts of your website or your whole website in order to encourage users to take action on an issue. So maybe you replace your home page with a message or something else, you want to avoid any SEO issues with doing that.
  • Google Won't Penalize Your Site For Missing Logos, Menu Links Or Footers
    Google's John Mueller said Google does not have manual action penalties for building sites that are missing logos, or missing the menu links at the top or even the footers at the bottom. John said on Twitter "I'm not aware of any manual actions / penalties that we'd apply for lack of those items. Sometimes minimal, old, simplified, or even ugly pages rank well, sometimes that also changes over time."
  • GooglePlex Sunflower
    Here is a sunflower at the GooglePlex, the main Google offices located in Mountain View, California. It was posted on Instagram the other day. It looks pretty happy, don't you think?

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