This day in search marketing history: January 8
A shift from keyword research to intent research, plus: search engines taking data from SEOs, PPC spending/budget cuts, and more.
Topic: Frédéric Dubut
After 13 years, Frédéric Dubut, principal product manager, core search & AI, departs Microsoft
Dubut’s contributions to the industry have furthered our understanding of both Bing and how search systems work.
Microsoft Advertising will deprecate ETAs too; Wednesday’s daily brief
Plus, October 8 is the Diversity Award nomination deadline
Google Ads API, Partner badges, and reputation algorithms; Friday’s daily brief
Plus, check out our updated guide to Bing SEO
MUM’s the word, and it’s 1,000x more powerful than BERT; Wednesday’s daily brief
Plus, updated phrase match will roll out to all languages in July
More Google Ads changes and SERP fluctuations; Thursday’s daily brief
Plus, hop on Twitter trends
Why machine learning and understanding searcher intent is so important to search
Write for the user, don't get bogged down in keywords - it is all about searcher intent.
Google shouldn’t pause algorithm updates during the pandemic, expert SEOs say [Video]
While it’s not business as usual, search engines need to continue to help users, provide vital resources and fight against misinformation.
Chapter 7: User context signals & search engine rankings
Search results for a given query can vary from user to user. It’s not that everyone sees completely different results. Instead, everyone sees many of the same “generic” listings. But there will also be some listings appearing because of where someone is, who they know or how they surf the web. Search engines also try […]
Chapter 8: Toxins & search engine spam penalties
Anyone entering the realm of search engine optimization is likely to encounter some questionable (aka “black hat”) tactics, or Toxins, as we call them in our Periodic Table of SEO Factors. These are shortcuts, or tricks, that may have been sufficient to guarantee a high ranking back in the day when the engines’ methods were […]
Chapter 2: Content & search engine success factors
Content should be your first priority when thinking about SEO. Quality content is how you engage, inform, support and delight your audiences. Creating authentic, valuable content is also critical for search engine visibility. Indeed, that’s why the Periodic Table Of SEO Factors begins with the content “elements,” with the very first element being about content […]
Chapter 5: Trust, Authority & Search Rankings
If search engines can decide to trust links or social accounts, can they learn to trust websites? Absolutely. There are several factors that go into establishing a site that both users and search engines will deem trustworthy. Here we dive into the Trust elements of the Periodic Table of SEO Factors. “Just to frame what […]
Chapter 4: HTML Code & Search Engine Success Factors
These elements in the Periodic Table of SEO Factors encompass the HTML tags that provide crucial information to search engines. They help highlight key parts of your content and influence how your pages appear in search results. Are you describing movie showtimes? Do you have ratings and reviews on your e-commerce pages? What’s the headline […]
Google’s John Mueller on intent research vs keyword research for 2020
Is Google all in on intent research versus keyword research for SEOs? Maybe not...
SEOs must focus on intent research practices in 2020
It is more important than ever to update your research methods since the release of BERT and the evolution of natural language processing.
Video: Frédéric Dubut of Bing on core ranking, spam fighting and much more
The Lead PM of Bing’s Core Ranking Team sat down and answered some questions around how Bing Search works.
Bing introduces penalty for ‘inorganic site structure’ violations
It includes penalties for subdomain leasing, doorway content and sites involved in private blog networks.
Bing is asking for feedback on its Webmaster Guidelines
“Any shady tactics you think are not penalized enough?” Bing project manager tweeted.
Google apologizes for rel=next/prev mixup
Google suggests webmasters, developers, and publisher continue to use rel=prev/next for other reasons outside of Google indexing purposes.
Robots.txt tip from Bing: Include all relevant directives if you have a Bingbot section
Pay close attention to the directives you give to Bingbot and other search engines in your robots.txt files.
Bing crawling, indexing and rendering: A step-by-step on how it works
Crawlers are technical but understandable thanks to Microsoft's Senior Program Manager Frédéric Dubut's presentation at SMX East.
Bing resolves backlog with its Webmaster Tools URL submission tool
Spammers went from the public Bing URL submission tool to the authenticated version, causing a backlog of URLs that needed to be processed.
Search Engine Land’s Guide to Bing SEO
Bing accounts for 26.5% of all desktop searches in the U.S., according to Comscore (April 2021). With the recent prevalence of working from home, people are spending more time on their desktop computers, which might also mean that more people are now using Bing. If you do nothing, then you’re leaving your competitors with the […]