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:
- Former Google Engineer: Google Hasn't Used PageRank Since 2006
A former Google engineer named Jonathan Tang who worked at Google on search between 2009 and 2014 said Google hasn't used PageRank since 2006. He said this in a Hacker News thread yesterday. - Google: We Made Over 3,200 Changes With 654,680 Experiments In Search Last Year
Although I am tired of Google saying they make thousands of changes per year to search, I do like when they release updated numbers here. Yesterday, Danny Sullivan from Google published a blog post saying Google made 3,200 changes to its search systems last year. - Google Fixed The Missing Or Suspended Google My Business Listings
We have been tracking the issue with Google My Business listings going missing maybe due to suspensions and other rumors around shortnames. But as we said, a fix was coming and it came. Greg Sterling from Search Engine Land updated us on Google's statement saying "all listings that were not visible have been restored." - Google AdSense To Kill iOS & Android Apps
Google has announced they are going to discontinue supporting its native iOS and Android apps for AdSense publishers. You will no longer be able to check your earnings and performance using the native apps. - Google Tests Sharable Search Results & New Snippet Buttons
Google is testing new search buttons for the search results snippets, including the ability to share a search result snippet with a friend or colleague. The new buttons are visible if you are in this Google test and then click on three dots and then a share, cache and open in new window icon. - Yoga In Google Hallways Of Mirrors
Here is a photo of a hallway made of mirrors in the Google Singapore office. In fact, someone is doing a yoga pose right in the middle of this hallway. Looks like a cool shot.
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Akesh from Publisher Quality talking about AdSense policies at #WMConf2019 . I don't envy him 👀…, Gary Illyes on Twitter
- Hello, Germany! 👋🇩🇪 It's time to say hi at some #SEO meetups soon: - In Hannover on July 25th with @seounited https://t.co/DDxgwSMHiD - In Nuremberg on July 29th with @FrankenJS https://t.co/Z, Martin Splitt on Twitter
- HSTS makes a lot of sense if you occasionally access a site from untrusted connections (eg, airport wifi, shady ISPs, etc) -- that wouldn't be a concern for Googlebot (well, at least the Googlebot I know tends to stay in its da, John Mueller on Twitter
- I appreciate the concern, I can see where that might be coming from. After all, Googlebot does tend to click on pretty much everything, much like a new computer user, before you've showed them to watch out for crazy things onli, John Mueller on Twitter
- I'd just use the normal spam report tools -- no need to do anything through me :)…, John Mueller on Twitter
- If you see them indexed, and you don't want them indexed, then noindex is fine there too :). I haven't seen an RSS file in search in a really long time now, so perhaps that's more theoretical at this point.… https://t.co/V0k, John Mueller on Twitter
- Mobile-friendliness is separate from mobile-first indexing. A site can be unfriendly on mobile devices, but still indexable normally.… https://t.co/fgZMIiVsh1, John Mueller on Twitter
- No, but with most sites, if https is set up properly, it'll become canonical, and with that the version we primarily crawl.…, John Mueller on Twitter
- Our site in Google News, but not showing in Top Stories, WebmasterWorld
- No - there's no ranking advantage to mobile-first indexing, it's just how we index pages. Also, the same indexed content is used for both mobile & desktop search results. In short, I'd make a good mobile-capable site, but not w, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Three reasons PPC campaigns fail that nobody seems to care about
- Google made 3,200 changes to search in the past year
- Amazon’s got a PPC lock on “Prime Day”
- How to use Shopping campaigns to increase enterprise leads for B2B
- B2B Site Search Best Practices
- Google says shortnames bug resolved, local listings restored
- Data scraping tools for marketers who don’t know code
- Google may be testing shareable search results snippets
- Video: Mike King on the evolution of link building
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- MozCon 2019: Moz Announces Local Market Analytics Giving Users Understanding Into True Local Competitors and Market Performance, Business Wire
Industry & Business
- A Feisty Google Adversary Tests How Much People Care About Privacy, New York Times
- Google accused of ripping off digital ad technology in U.S. lawsuit, Reuters
- Google employees take action to encourage women in computer science, Google Blog
- Peter Thiel Accuses Google of “Treasonous” Relationship With China, Vanity Fair
- To Break Google’s Monopoly on Search, Make Its Index Public, Bloomberg
- Google Protest Leader Meredith Whittaker Is Leaving the Company, Bloomberg
- MozCon 2019: The Top Takeaways From Day One, Moz
Links & Promotion Building
- Best Home Page to Deep Link Ratio for Link Building, Search Engine Journal
Local & Maps
- Waze shows how much you have to pay at the tollgate, Engadget
- Google Maps gets local restroom locator in India, 9to5Google
Mobile & Voice
SEO
- Controversial Bachelors & their Search Results, Go Fish Digital
- Google And No-Click Results, Beanstalk
- How we keep Search relevant and useful, Google Blog
- 6 Game-Changing SEO Takeaways From SMX Advanced 2019, Reef Digital
- Google Webmaster Hangout Notes: July 12th 2019, DeepCrawl
- Ranking Videos Well on Both YouTube & the Google SERP: In Search SEO Podcast, RankRanger
PPC
