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 selects canonical URLs based on your site and user preference
04/09/2019
In a #AskGoogleWebmasters session John Mueller explained that Google may select a canonical URL based on what they perceive your site preference to be and the URL that is the most useful to the user. This could include rel=canonical tags, redirects, internal linking, sitemap URL, HTTPS over HTTP or even the “nicer looking” URL as indications.
Google Ranking Factors 2019: Opinions from 1,500+ professional SEOs
04/09/2019
A survey conducted by Spark Toro across 1,500 SEOs has found that Google verticals, machine learning and no-clicks searches are expected to have the biggest impacts on the industry; this will involve a shift from the technical changes to more user experience. The survey also looked at ranking factors in 2019 and found that the SEOs ranked relevance of overall page content as the top factor, followed by linking sites, use of query-relevant words and domain perceived expertise and trust.
Beyond conventional SEO: Unravelling the mystery of the organic product carousel
03/09/2019
The new organic Popular Products carousel has been launched in the US and will soon be rolled out across the rest of the world. SEL released an article detailing what they are, what they may mean to the industry and how to optimise to increase the chance of triggering and rankings in the result.
Introducing Auto-DNS verification in the new Search Console
03/09/2019
Google has announced a faster way of verifying a site in Google Search Console; auto-DNS verification. This involves collaboration with some domain name registrars to automate part of the verification.
58% of global consumers ready to buy from the UK as research prompts brands to look ‘past Britain’
29/08/2019
A survey by Rakuten Marketing across seven countries and more than 3,500 consumers has found that a majority of 58% are prepared to buy more international products online if they were aware of the brands. This rise to 67% for consumers between 18-34, with the Asia-Pacific countries (Australia and Singapore) more likely to show more interest in international purchases (65%).
2019 Click, Ship & Return Report
30/08/2019
Research from Internet Retailer’s 2019 Click, Ship & Return Fulfilment Report has found that 44% of online shoppers fail to complete a purchase because it will not arrive fast enough for them. The report highlights the importance of fulfilment speed and delivery of online retailers.
Google Crawling Spikes: Large increases in GoogleBot crawl activity
04/09/2019
There was chatter within Webmaster World that some sites are experiencing large spikes in crawl rates by GoogleBot. Worth bearing in mind if analysing crawl stats across a site from the past week.
Google shows competitors local listings above the branded local knowledge panel
03/09/2019
Google appears to be showing competitor’s local listings above the branded local knowledge panel for branded search terms. This is bad news for any brand where this is taking place; essentially Google is listing a competitor above them for their own brand name.
Google begins penalising domain leasing
29/08/2019
Google has begun penalising sites that lease out their own subdomains and subfolders so other companies can boost their sites content.
