Each week 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: Google News indexing bug has been resolved
17/04/2019
On 16th April Google announced it was investigating another indexing bug, this time with Google News – this is unrelated to the bug discovered on the 4th April. This was since resolved on the 17th April, but those that have content published on Google News may have been impacted negatively by the bug.
Yoast offers revamped Schema markup with 11.0 update
17/04/2019
The Yoast SEO plugin has been updated to improve structured data implementation, this should help those using the WordPress CMS to take advantage of Schema markups to enhance how their listings are shown in the SERPs.
AMP to support custom JavaScript with amp-script
11/04/2019
AMP will soon support custom JS with AMP-script, this will help developers adopt AMP more widely across web applications and sites.
Global smart speaker installed base to top 200 million by end of 2019
15/04/2019
According to research by Canalys, the worldwide adoption of smart speakers will grow from approx. 114 million in 2019 to 208 million in 2020, with growth predicted to overtake tablets by 2021. The US is the largest market with Asia rising, in particular China.
12 Steps to Lightning Page Speed
15/04/2019
Moz released a 12 step guide to improving page speed. This covers methods to speed up the backend; configuration of Reverse Proxy, extending cache TTL , “warming” up the cache, tuning databases and focusing on the slowest queries and HTTP headers. In addition to speeding up the frontend; modifying the placement of JS, optimising images/CSS, lightening web fonts, moving external resources, using a CDN and service workers.
Three fundamental factors in the production of link-building content
17/04/2019
SEW released an article discussing the factors that produce link-worthy content based on an analysis of 120 pieces of content across 16 industries. These all shared the following factors in common: didn’t include too much data, used simple but powerful data visualisations and pandered to the press with a catchy headline.
Google Cache Date Is Old; Google Says Don’t Worry About It
12/04/2019
Google’s John Mueller has stated that if a sites cache date is old don’t worry about it – it’s a bug and doesn’t impact indexing or ranking.