After warning webmasters in early 2014 about sneaky mobile redirects, Google now says it will issue manual actions, but also offers advice on how to clean up the unwanted redirects.
Google’s John Mueller announced they have made significant changes to the Change Of Address Tool they initially added to Google Webmaster Tools in 2009. The new changes help walk-through a webmaster through the process of using the tool, while validating most of the important steps are complete. John said the tool will now “guide you […]
A couple weeks ago, we reported that Google began sending notices to webmasters over faulty mobile redirects. This notice was to inform webmasters of notices being shown to searchers that the searcher may be redirected to the home page as opposed to the specific page they are clicking on within the Google search results. It […]
Google Webmaster Tools has added two new features today, one for notifying webmasters of faulty redirects and the second to show color-coded- HTML syntax within the fetch as Google feature. Stop Redirecting Smartphone Users To Your Home Page Notification Google is now sending notifications to webmasters who are sending their mobile users to their home […]
The native UTM tagging solution was a top request for years.
Don’t annoy mobile searchers. That’s the message behind a new warning that Google is showing in mobile search results on smartphones. On the Webmaster Central blog, Google alerted webmasters late yesterday that it will let smartphone searchers know if it thinks a website has a “faulty redirect” in place that sends the searcher to your […]
Google announced on their Webmaster blog that they have updated two of their guideline documents to improve the clarity around what sneaky redirects are against Google Webmaster Guidelines. Google has expanded their guidelines to ensure webmasters are aware that using sneaky redirects through mobile site detection and redirection, is not allowed if the content is […]
Did you know that even if you try to run away from your Google penalty, it might end up finding you anyway? In a recent Google Webmaster Hangout, hosted by Google’s John Mueller, John said that even if you move your penalized site to a new domain name and don’t redirect the penalized site, Google […]
Google’s John Mueller announced on the Google Webmaster blog this morning that the Google Webmaster Tools team has updated the crawl errors report to show errors on the final URL of the redirect, as opposed to the origin URL of the redirect. What this means is that Google is now showing the errors on the […]
Ilya Grigorik, a Google developer advocate, announced last night a small tweak Google made to the mobile search experience that will speed up the mobile search experience on mobile Safari and Chrome by 200-400 milliseconds. By implementing a attribute named <a ping>, Google is able to asynchronously do the click tracking and redirect virtually at […]
As part of the US government shut down, many .gov sites have also shut down, replaced by messages like this: “Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available. We sincerely regret this inconvenience.” But one day, the government will start up again and government agencies will once again focus on ensuring […]
Almost two of every three malicious redirects in major search engines are found on Bing, according to a new report from the web security firm Sophos. Looking at data “from the last couple of weeks,” Sophos found that 65 percent of malicious search results that its web appliance blocked were from Bing. Google was responsible […]
Google’s Webmaster Tools is taking another step toward becoming a “lite” version of Google Analytics with the announcement today of additional data about search queries that drive traffic to your site and which pages benefit the most from them. There’s a new “Top pages” tab in the Search Queries section of Webmaster Tools, and this […]
Google TV is here! It includes a full web browser, so if you have a lot of video content, you might want to optimize for larger screens and audiences who are sitting on their couches. Fortunately, Google has published some optimization tips. In a blog post, they suggest optimizing for the “10-foot user interface” and […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Local Search Marketers Share Ranking Factors Nearly three dozen local search marketers from around the world have shared their opinions on what matters most this year when it comes to ranking […]
I said from time to time, I’d highlight some bad search results I come across. Here’s a killer — a top ranking for us national anthem on Google that when you click on it brings up random web sites that have nothing to do with the song. Behind the scenes, there’s an Ask.com connection. Let’s […]
Few realize that outgoing US president George W. Bush has left behind a unique legacy for future presidents, including Barack Obama — that they are all condemned to rank tops for a search on “miserable failure” in major search engines. It’s my hope that Bush will correct this before leaving office, or that Obama will […]
We have been noticing reports from several sources of a Yahoo Search index and algorithm update. It is important to note that Yahoo has not yet posted their “weather report” at the Yahoo Search Blog yet. However Aaron Wall, Loren Baker and several forums have noticed major changes at Yahoo Search.