Monthly SEO Report Covering March 2018
Stuart Cole
Welcome to the March SEO report covering all the latest news which has happened over the last month.
If you have missed any of the other reports, which will still be relevant, then we definitely recommend you catch up, here is a link to the SEO Report Updates.
CSS
Google confirmed that Googlebot is based off Chrome 41 and therefore does not support CSS custom properties.
Google also confirmed that they should be able to read and understand content of a website that is using CSS grid format.
Schema
If you are using Schema and in particular the new Product Schema, Google now supports this for image search. Just to remind you that Image Search is a very good way to rank for a tough keyword so this should help with that.
Glossary
If you are new to search engine optimisation or just need a little refresh on the phrases used in our report head over to our SEO Glossary page, everything you need to know in one place.
Content
Google confirmed that by having more content on your site doesn’t help your website rank any better, additionally, if you post more frequent will also not help your site rank better.
That said, having more content on your site allows you to target more keywords and therefore your website will rank for more keywords.
Location
Google does not use the location of your server that hosts your website to understand where in the World your site is located. They have many signals they use instead so don’t worry if you move your website from a UK server to a US server.
Algorithm
Google have confirmed that there was a LARGE google algorithm update on 8th March 2018. In fact it was a “Core Search Update” and affected a LOT of websites. These kind of updates do not happen that often, around 2 or 3 times a year, compared to other algorithm updates which can most days.
TIP: If your website has dropped in ranking positions around this date and hasn’t recover then we recommend working on updating the content to answer the query better.
There might have also been an algorithm update on 23rd March and again on the 28th. No news from Google as of yet but there is a lot of discussions in the SEO world.
ZERO!
Google have been testing ZERO search results in their search results.
Yep you read that correctly. For some search terms they were not showing any search results but answering the query themselves. This is mainly for calculations – or similar – so asking what 2+2 is Google will just show the answer (it’s 4 by the way) with a button for you to press if you want to see the search results.
The future??
Google – as does all website owners – what you to stay on their site for as long as possible so why wouldn’t they not show links to other sites.
By the end of March this test had been removed, it doesn’t mean it will not be back though!
Mobile First
If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know that Google are rolling out a Mobile First Index (see previous posts here). This month Google confirmed that via their Search Console they will let you know when your site is now using Mobile first.
Broken Links (404)
It is completely natural for a website to have broken links – or 404 errors as they are known. Google have confirmed – once again – that broken links will not harm your website. If your SEO company is “selling” their services by fixing broken links to help your site rank better, it won’t. And shame on them!! tut tut!
That said it is always good to fix broken links to help the visitor find what they are looking for and to add trust to your site.
