Every fortnight the Croud SEO team collate the latest news from relevant sources around the web so you don’t have to. Read through the top SEO news stories for this week below and follow us on Twitter or sign up to our newsletter.
Google to experiment with more desktop search changes after favicon/black ad label rollout
24/01/2020
Google has announced it will be experimenting further with the desktop SERPs which will include changes to placement to bring a more “modern look”. Initially SEM’s were unhappy with the recent new designs, but Google appears to be listening to feedback from searchers and users. This will affect the CTR of the organic listings so there may be an impact on traffic.
Discovering millions of datasets on the web
23/01/2020
Google announced on its blog that Google Dataset Search is now out of beta and live. This allows users to find datasets across the web through keyword searches. It predominantly uses the dataset’s schema, meaning any site that is data driven can make use of the schema to improve accessibility.
Microsoft’s Responsive Search Ads are now available worldwide
30/01/2020
Updates to Microsoft Advertising this month included a broad roll-out of responsive search ads, clearer performance report and news regarding expanded text ads. SEJ shares a recap of the recent updates from Microsoft, sharing what these mean for paid search advertisers.
Sunsetting support for data-vocabulary
21/01/2020
Google is dropping support for data-vocabulary.org structured data – this means pages that use it will no longer be eligible for rich features from April 2020; sites that are using it will have to update to schema.org instead.
Google desktop favicon search results study
17/01/2020
A study into the effects on introducing desktop favicons to the SERPs has indicated that users are perceiving listings with favicons are ads, though whether this impacts CTR is unclear.
DuckDuckGo wants Google to change its EU search choice screen on Android
29/01/2020
DuckDuckGo has expressed dissatisfaction in the changes Google has made to search engine choice screen on Android, stating it is ‘fundamentally wrong’ and ‘artificially limits’ what is shown.
New Removals report in Search Console
28/01/2020
Google has launched a Removals report in Search Console that enables webmasters to temporarily hide a page from the Google Search results. The report also provides information on pages that have been reported via other Google public tools such as outdated content and SafeSearch flagging of adult content.
Google’s January 2020 core update: Has the dust settled?
27/01/2020
With the launch of Google’s January core update on the 13th January, there were fluctuations in the SERPs reported by the usual tracking tools which saw an overall impact similar to the previous few core updates. It appears the health, family & community and beauty & personal care verticals were hit the hardest.
