SEO Update Report Covering November 2018

Low Quality Content

If there is one thing that 2018 and in fact also 2017 have thought us is that the quality of your websites content is very important.

Google this month talked about thin low quality content and what you should do with it. If possible you should increase the quality wherever possible. If however,  it is not possible – for example too many pages to change – then it might be better to remove them from your website.

Lazy Loading

Lazy loading images is a way of decreasing the page load speed, I’m sure you have seen it when as you scroll down the page more content appears.

This is a very good way to help your page speed, however, Google this month have said it is NOT a good idea to use lazy loading as it makes it harder for Google to crawl all the content on the page.

Interesting, Google want us to produce fast pages but not like this.

Anyway, Google have created some documentation to help Webmasters manage lazy loading and created a tool to test your page out. But, it’s still better not to use.

I am currently doing an experiment on speeding up websites, if interested get in touch in the comments below.

Description Tags

In the past Google have said that they will most likely ignore what you write in your meta description tag and create something themselves.

However, this month Google have said that you should fill out this tag as “you know what the content is about more than Google”. Go figure!

Algorithms

The World saw a fairly large algorithm update on the 1st November and again on the 7th. Google have not said what type of websites it affected.

Another one raised its head on the 16th too.

Google answered the question of why they only sometimes confirm or even comment on algorithm updates. Essentially they only comment if they feel the SEO community is confused about the update and they need to help explain.

Search Console and Google Analytics

Google have confirmed that there are no ranking benefits to having Google’s Search Console and Google Analytics  not connected.

ALT Tags

When adding an image to your web page you should always fill in the ALT – alternative –  tag. Its job is to explain what the image is about and used if the image can not be loaded or not needed.

Google have been saying for a while now – and I have too – that this tag is used in Google’s image search.

I have – if you have been reading my previous SEO reports – also said that I think it is also another signal to search engines which you can use to help your web page rank better.

This month Google have agreed with me.

Smug mode! 🙂

Until next month, stay safe! 🙂