SEO Update Report Covering October 2018
Stuart Cole
Welcome to our SEO report covering all the changes in October 2018. We thought this month might be a quiet one, oh, we were wrong!
This month we have seen loads a loads of Algorithm updates from Google. Some have been confirmed like the ones at the start of the month around 5th Oct and just before on the 27th September.
Most are small updates – however we all know that all updates effect all websites – which are probably tweaking last months big update.
That said we still think we got all the info you need in a 2 minute read, so enjoy!
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.
Ads
If you are using full page Adverts (popups) for desktop or mobile devices these could stop Google crawling your website as Google doesn’t wait for them to disapear – not all popup adverts are the same so some will be ok.
Popups that appear after a time or when someone if just about to leave the site are safer.
Links
Google have said that link building is making false links, which is against their guidelines.
So stop it!
Oh and keep creating links as we all know they are important. 🙂
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.
Google+
Closed. Do you remember Google+?
Real visits
Google have said that they do not include real visits to businesses as part of their search results algorithm. So if you buy a burger from Burger King it will not rank Burger King any higher.
That said, never say never it might happen in the future!
Quote and Captions
Google have said that they treat content in quotes or captions the same as normal content on the page.
TIP: To help images rank better in Google’s image search try to include keywords in the image captions as well as the ALT tags.
Bing URL tool
For some reason Bing are not listening to their own tool in Bing Webmasters Tool. This is where you can add a new url to inform Bing that it’s there.
Instead you will have to make sure it is in your sitemap.
*** update ***
Bing have fixed this, it was a bug which Bing have squashed.
Hashtag
Google have said this month that their algorithm can not handle hashtags in url’s. So, if you use hashtags to direct the user to parts of a page then Google will ignore it. They will still crawl the page just ignore the hashtag.
Here is an example:
www.juicyseo.co.uk#section2
If a user enters that in and the page is setup correctly – which ours isn’t – it would take you to section2 of the page.
Local
Google informed us that 40% of searches are local intent. A large figure indeed.
TIP: Try and rank for local versions of your keywords, ie: “plumbers in Cheltenham”.
Speed
Our monthly regular is here, yep once again we are talking about how fast your website is.
This month Google have been sending out messages to webmasters who have slow websites and for them to speed them up if they want to rank better.
If there is one thing you do today it should be looking at how fast your website is and make it faster.
If you are having trouble doing this drop us a line I will help out.
Rich Snippets and Penalties
If your website displays there rich snippets in Google’s search results it will be taken away if you receive a penalty from Google.
Internal links
Google have said that it is safer to use absolute url’s rather than relative url’s in internal links and canonicals. Example here:
Absolute: https://www.juicyseo.co.uk/jg/contact/
Relative: /contact/
IP addresses
It doesn’t matter if a lot of your links come from the same IP address, as long as you are not spamming of course. Not my words, words from Google.
