SEO Newsletter #61: Weekly SEO News & Tips

Welcome to episode #61 of the SEO Newsletter by #SEOSLY!

In this episode, you will about recent updates to Google Search and Google Search Console, structured data spam penalties, redirects, and more. You will also discover the latest tips from Google on changing the author’s name on the article and the impact of redirects. As always, I am also sharing links to articles and recourse I find especially helpful & share a few SEO Twitter nuggets.

Starting from this episode (#61), you will be able to read the entire issue of the SEO Newsletter by #SEOSLY on my website through the link I sent you via e-mail. I have run some tests and I believe this is the most valuable and the richest format for you.

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Thank you!

Let’s dive right into it.

Top SEO & local SEO news from last week

Here is the most important news from the world of SEO from last week:

Google launches new search, shopping, and maps features

Multisearch for food, Google Lens translation, AR beauty and shoes, Maps live view search, and more. Learn more.

Google on penalties for spammy structured data

Not only can you get a rich result manual action and get your rich results removed but you can also get a broad manual action that will influence your traffic and rankings.

Let’s talk redirects

In this episode of Search Off the Record, John and Martin talk about the different types of redirects and which one you may want to use. They share the differences between 301 and 302 redirects, what type of redirects 308 and 307 are, why someone may want to use a JavaScript redirect over a meta refresh-type redirect, and more. Listen to this episode.

Start showing your products on the Shopping tab with Search Console

Continuing our efforts to support merchants and help them grow their businesses across Google, Search Console is introducing a new section for Shopping tab listings to help online store owners show their products on the Shopping tab on Google. Learn more.

New content for you from me

Google Knowledge Panels – a Deep, Deep Dive with Jason Barnard 🤯

A special episode of the SEO Podcast by #SEOSLY has just been published. My today’s guest is the one and only Jason Barnard also known as the Brand SERP Guy, who is an absolute expert when it comes to Google knowledge panels, brad SERPs, entity SEO, and more. Check this episode’s notes and useful links.

Last Week’s SEO News & Tips

Here is your weekly recap of the most essential SEO news & tips from the second week of November.

Local, E-commerce, & Enterprise SEO With Garrett Sussman From iPullRank

Episode #6 of the SEO Podcast by #SEOSLY features a special guest – Garrett Sussman from iPullRank – who shares his own SEO story and lets me pick his brains on local SEO, enterprise SEO, e-commerce SEO, and more! Check this episode’s useful links and notes.

Ahrefs [Sponsor]

The SEOSLY newsletter is proudly sponsored by Ahrefs, my favorite SEO tool.

Have you already set up Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for your website? AWT lets you improve your website’s SEO and monitor how your site is doing, including how many backlinks it has, for how many keywords it is visible, how its visibility grows, and more!

Check Ahrefs Webmaster Tools

What’s new at Ahrefs? Ahrefs has introduced the new side-by-side SERP comparison feature, News mode in Content Explorer, and more. Check this out.

Top SEO Tips 

And here are the SEO tips for you.

#1: Google on changing the author’s name on an article

Google’s John Mueller was asked about the impact of changing the author’s name on an article. John gave three pieces of advice in response to the question, (1) use author annotations, (2) rewritten content should use the new author’s name, and (3) do not randomly change author names. Learn more.

#2: Redirects From Non Relevant Pages Won’t Cause The Destination Page To Be Less Relevant

Dawn Anderson asked Google’s John Mueller if redirecting a non-relevant page would cause the destination page (where the redirect is going) to be less relevant and cause any ranking issues for its relevant queries. John said no, “I can’t think of a way that would have a negative effect there,” he added. Learn more.

SEOcrawl [Sponsor] 

The SEOSLY newsletter has a new sponsor. This is SEOcrawl, SEO software for professionals and companies.

You can save time and costs, improve your results and achieve efficiency thanks to SEOcrawl, a suite of SEO tools to take your SEO management to another level.

With a special coupon code (SEOSLY) you can get SEOcrawl 50% OFF forever. You can also test SEOcrawl for 7 days for free. No credit card information is required. 

But that’s not everything. SEOcrawl also has an awesome SEO Chrome extension that allows you to instantly view all the most important SEO data (metadata, headings, links, international SEO, and more).

Don’t miss my interview with David Kaufmann from SEOcrawl. We talked a lot about SEO crawling and SEOcrawl.

Other SEO News

And here is other, less-breaking SEO news.

Google Coati Algorithm – The Google Update You Never Heard Of

I strongly recommend you watch Barry Schwartz interviewing Hyung-Jin Kim, the Vice President of Google Search, at SMX Next. At SMX Next, Google revealed that, years ago, the Panda algorithm was replaced with an updated algorithm called Coati. Learn more.

How Much Does Review Recency Impact Google Local Pack Rankings [Case Study]

Everyone wants to know what the key is to ranking well on Google. There are many theories about reviews being a ranking factor, but what is it about reviews? Is it the text in the reviews? Is it the number of reviews your listing has? Or could it be how often you get reviews? In this article, we tested whether review “recency” affects your ranking on Google. Learn more.

Beware of fake ownership requests from Google Business Profiles

“I am sure many of you have received one or two (or more) requests from Google Business Profiles saying the owner is requested access to maintain your business. I just delete them but I am hearing from Local SEOs that this is becoming more and more of an issue.” Learn more.

Are we officially saying goodbye to Twitter? It depends on who you ask

The saga continues over at Twitter. Will the platform be dead within a week, or will Musk turn it around? This is not strictly SEO news but since an SEO community has been revolving around Twitter, I think you might be interested in that. Learn more.

Sitebulb [Sponsor]

The SEOSLY newsletter is kindly sponsored by Sitebulb, an amazing desktop-based SEO crawler. The SEOSLY newsletter subscribers can get an extended 60-day free trial of Sitebulb (no credit card information required). 

Do you know that Sitebulb lets you not only create in-depth SEO audits but also learn a ton about SEO at the same time?

Sitebulb has massive documentation that covers each and every possible issue together with lots of explanations and use cases. I have personally learned a ton about technical SEO simply by reading the Sitebulb documentation I recommend you do that too.

Make sure to check Sitebulb if you haven’t already.

❗ Don’t miss my guide on how to audit a site with Sitebulb.

Don’t Miss These Articles

Advanced On-Page SEO Optimizations — Whiteboard Friday

Typically, when SEOs think about on-page optimizations, they’re thinking about core places to include their target keywords within their content. But how can you take your on-page optimizations to the next level and get beyond some of those basic tactics? In today’s episode of Whiteboard Friday, Chris Long shows you how. Learn more.

What is E-A-T?

This week we learned from Google’s HJ Kim that E-A-T is used for every single query searched on Google! In this episode, Dr. Marie Haynes shares advanced information on how to assess E-A-T.

SEO Testing: 8 Experiments To Improve Organic Traffic

Is your search engine optimization strategy stuck in a rut? Here are some things you can experiment with to improve your ranks and drive traffic. Learn more.

Mastodon: The new way to connect with other SEO pros

Here’s what search marketers need to know about joining Mastodon, along with tips for getting started and participating in discussions. Learn more.

How Enterprise Luxury Brands Can Leverage SEO to Tap Into New Markets

Luxury brands can generate millions in revenue by developing content for organic search and increasing visibility in new markets. Learn more.

Senior SEO: What skills do you really need?

In the list, there are over forty attributes that an SEO superhero should have – a superhero who, with a simple gesture… poof, manages to rank first for every keyword! Learn more.

How to search for PDFs on Google

In most cases, you use Google to look for web pages, images, or video results. But what if you want to narrow down your searches specifically to PDFs? You use a dedicated Google search operator. To refine your search even further, you can combine a few search operators at the same time. Read more.

7 takeaways from the SMX Next keynote with Hyung-Jin Kim, VP Search at Google

From the importance of E-A-T to the history of Google updates, here are seven important insights about how Google search works. Read more.

Is TikTok taking over Google?

We’ve seen the headlines, and we’ve heard that Gen Z is using TikTok a ton more to find things that maybe they would’ve queried on Google for before. Read more.

WordPress SEO: The Ultimate Guide in 28 Actionable Steps

Simply using WordPress won’t make your website rank No. 1 on Google. You still need to follow SEO best practices and—of course—provide real value to your visitors. Below, we give you 28 steps that will make your WordPress SEO on point. Read more.

JetOctopus [Sponsor]

This issue of the newsletter is kindly sponsored by JetOctopus. JetOctopus is the fastest and most affordable enterprise SEO platform that has top crawling speed, real-time log analysis, and detailed 3D SEO reports on a site’s health.

If you are not familiar with JetOctopus, make sure to check my guide on how to audit a site with JetOctopus and how to do a log file analysis.  

I strongly recommend you give JetOctopus a try. Get an extended 30-day trial of JetOctopus.

Don’t miss my interview with Julia Nesterets from JetOctopus. We talked a ton about SEO auditing, technical SEO, and JetOctopus, the fastest SEO crawler on earth.

SEO Twitter nuggets

And before we end, here are a few Twitter nuggets for you. We don’t know if Twitter is going to be here in the future, so let’s use it while it still is here.

See you next week!