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 is aware of sites hosted on another site’s subdomain
14/08/2019
Google has stated that hosting content in a subdomain or folder on another entity’s site is not against its guidelines, though it is working to improve its systems to recognise this situation and treat it accordingly. The practice of third-parties hosting content on another domain is becoming more commonplace, though Google doesn’t recommend allowing users to present content as part of the own main site as it may affect rankings.
Less than half of Google searches now result in a click
13/08/2019
SparkToro has updated its Google clickstream data study and found that for the first time, the majority of Google searches (50.33%) ended without a click on an organic or paid search result. The proportion of zero-click searches has increased over the years and leads to less organic traffic.
Google’s indexing issues are resolved
09/08/2019
On 8th August, Google stopped showing fresh content in its search results, this has since been resolved according to Google, but likely affected any sites that publish content frequently. This may have caused a dip in traffic to some sites which is worth bearing in mind for traffic reporting.
Yes, Googlebot can detect JavaScript redirects
08/08/2019
Google’s John Mueller has stated that the new Googlebot can access most of the features found on modern websites, just as a web browser. This includes client-side JavaScript redirects, which the previous Googlebot could not access. This means brands no longer have to compromise on user experience in order to prevent negative impacts on search performance.
How to get started building links for SEO
14/08/2019
Moz released a beginner’s guide to link building, including a number of recommended tactics to help garner backlinks; link gap analysis, email outreach and contributing expertise using services like Help a Reporter Out (HARO).
How to get a customer to edit their negative review
13/08/2019
Moz looks at how to get a customer to edit their negative review, this involves reaching out to that customer, rectifying their issue and giving a positive experience that outweighs the negative one, then having them edit the review to reflect the new situation. This is important due to the fact that 57% of consumers won’t use a business unless it has 4 or more stars, whilst a 1.5 star increase can increase conversion rate by 10.4%-12.8%.
Supercharge your link Building outreach! 5 tips for success – Whiteboard Friday
09/08/2019
In Moz’s latest Whiteboard Friday, they explore methods to improve link building efforts. The advice is aimed at approaching journalists to pitch an idea or piece of content: A/B test subject lines, using top converting words within the headline (“research”, “revealed”, “story”, “data”), using colours within the email body to highlight headlines etc., using emojis in the subject line and to break up text and finally using Twitter to approach journalists to build a rapport.
Google JavaScript SEO docs add meta noindex examples
13/08/2019
Google has updated its JavaScript and SEO document to include meta noindex examples to make it more clearer to webmasters.
Google: When linking images, make sure there is alt text on images
09/08/2019
Google’s John Mueller has said to ensure there is an alt text on images when using them to link as it will give an anchor text associated with that link.
Googlebot evergreen rendering in our testing tools
07/08/2019
Google has announced that it’s testing tools within Google Search Console on developer portal now use the new evergreen Googlebot for crawling. This means the tools will now show webmasters what Googlebot is seeing today making them more reliable – previously the tools were using an old version of the Googlebot and not showing exactly what the current Googlebot was seeing.
