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SEO Update Report Covering March 2019

by | 7 Apr, 2019 | SEO Monthly Update Report

Welcome to the latest SEO update report from Juicy SEO. A very busy month this time so let’s get right to it.

Just before I do, if you prefer to receive this SEO update report via email add you email address HERE, we don’t spam so you can stop them at anytime.

Algorithms

As per every month here are the dates that we think Google made a significant algorithm updates.
2nd March
5th March
12th March – Core update
20th March
22nd March
26th March
If you read our monthly SEO report regularly then you will know that Google updates their algorithms all the time, we only mention the big updates in this report. This month however we saw a core algorithm update which means they are not fixing a bug or something like that but improving their algorithm.
Because it is a core update it will be global and will affect pretty much all websites, so check your rankings!

Ecommerce

Google this month have advised not to stuff keyword content at the bottom of your ecommerce product category pages to try and get them to rank.
Instead they say it would be better to have the content throughout the page and not just all at the bottom.
That is all very well saying that but many ecommerce platforms do not offer the flexibility of adding content within the products of a category page.

Images

Google this month said it doesn’t matter where your images are hosted when it comes to SEO. So, it doesn’t make a difference if your photo of a Cat is stored on a CDN or another domain to yours it will not impact your SEO of your website.
I can understand where they are coming with in terms with CDN’s but I personally don’t understand why storing the photo on another domain won’t affect your site when it comes to image search results.
I will continue to host my images myself but with a CDN if needed.

Links to Images

Links to images aren’t counted if you redirect the image to a page. Google’s image index is different to its webpage index.

Redirecting links

If you were thinking of buying a domain and then redirect all the pages to another domain to help with your ranking – due to the links from the new domain – Google have said, don’t bother, it won’t help.
I believe them on this, this is old sammy techniques that just don’t work anymore.

Rel= Next/Prev

The big shock news this month, well, for me it was anyway, was that Google informed us that they do not use the rel=next/prev meta tags. In fact they haven’t used them for quite a while – many years!
So, what does this mean for webmasters?
After Google informed us of this they said if possible try and have all your content on one page and not use pagination.
WHAT!
The very next day they reworded their comment to say to continue using pagination, you don’t need to list all your content on one page.
Confused?
This is what you need to do, continue using pagination and use the rel=prev/next meta if you like.
BUT make sure the content on the other paginated page are found via either internal links from other pages on your site or add the paginated pages to your sitemap.
Tip: Test that search engines have found all your content by performing Google searches.
Bing however, have said they do use rel=prev/next.

Rankbrain

If you are new to SEO you may have seen the word “Rankbrain” – the AI tool – and not sure what it means.
Here is a quote from google:
“Rankbrain helps Google better relate pages to concepts.“

So, basically it will help Google understand the content on the page and return the most relevant search result even though the search term may not be on the page.

Clever stuff.

Neural Matching

You may not have heard of Neural Matching before though. More AI from Google, here is their quote on Neural Matching:
“Neural Matching helps Google better relate words to searches.“
So, it will use words that are related to the words on the page to help identify the contents subject and provide better search results.
Back in 2011 I wrote a post about LSI and how connected words on the page will help your content rank better, Rankbrain and Neural Matching are a continuation on this.

Accents

A lot of non English languages use accents above and below the letters, both Bing and Google can handle accents in URL’s so keep on using!

Quality Content

We all know how important good quality content is on your website. But, what should you do if you have a page (A) that is not ranking due to bad quality content?
TIP: If you have another page (B) which is ranking better, and the content on page A is related and would improve page B content, then move the content over to page B. Whilst you are at it, why not make it better too, after all you can always improve.
Then redirect the old page A to page B, this will then help page B perform even better.

Google Partners

Some shady SEO’s out there are saying that because they are Google partners they get special treatment from Google in terms of rankings.
This is completely untrue, if you hear/see a SEO say that they get special treatment, run a mile!
The Google partner programme refers to other parts of Google’s network like Adwords and nothing to do with SEO.
Reminder: You can not take a Google SEO exam it doesnt exist and never will.

Question & Problems

I thought it would be a nice feature for this report to answer any SEO related questions or problems you may have on your site. I will do my best to answer in the next SEO report.

We can all learn from others problems. So, if your site isn’t ranking as well as you think it should, get in touch.