7th September 2020
August has been a relatively straight forward month in terms of Google updates, whilst it doesn’t appear there was any major updates, there was some fluctuations (as covered below) and some new functions to the Google search results such as games being added.
John Mueller has tweeted, and when he tweets the SEO world listens.
This time John was asked about follow and nofollow metrics and how important is it to keep a “natural” backlink profile. Mr Mueller replied by saying whilst it does make sense “I do not think I ever looked at this metric before.” Leaving us SEO experts to believe it isn’t necessary as important as first believed.
It appears that on mobile devices Google has added some games to the search results.
First covered on Twitter when you search for ‘Ansel Adams’ for example on a mobile device you can see the game in the search results.
There’s been some insight over at SEwatch after John Mueller mentioned that negative reviews about a company online, especially lots of negative reviews and information about a business could harm it’s online rankings as Google algorithms could pick up on this.
Something we already knew about blog posts wad reiterated again on this day by John Mueller: “Those links have zero value. It’s a waste of time if you’re just doing it for the links.”
We knew this already and was advised back in June to no follow the links , but it was reiterated again during August that there is indeed no value from guest post blog links.
What appeared to be one of the biggest updates we have seen from Google actually turned out to be a glitch. It seemed the chatter from the web and forums was huge changes in search results and volatility reaching recent highs showed signs of a Google update – But things were back to their usual by the next morning.
The importance of header tags has always been played down, some SEO experts believe that header tags are vital for the websites hierarchy and believe that they SEO a big improvement in their rankings when they use them, others on the other hand, believe that as John Mueller has said previously they wont “make or break a website”.
John Mueller has tweeted again clarifying “They’re useful for understanding the context of content (text & images), but they’re not magical pixie dust that will make your site rank better.”
John Mueller added some context about word count. Whilst many SEO experts believe that word count is an important SEO metric – John Mueller put that into context when tweeting:
“Most search engines can index content with hundreds of megabytes. Assuming the average word is 8 bytes, that would mean you should have over 10 million words/page to maximize your chances. Over 12 bibles. 17x War & Peace. 200x Farenheit 451. Per page. Sounds challenging.”
You can view July’s Google updates, right here
With over 25 years website design, development and digital marketing experience, Craig Murphy is the managing director of ALT Agency and started building his first websites when he was just 12 years old. With a huge passion for web development and digital marketing, Craig is highly skilled in WordPress Development, PHP development and SEO strategy. Away from running one of the top rated web design agencies in Birmingham, Craig is a huge Formula 1 fan and speaks a lot about autism in business.
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