Slow and sporadic – that’s what Google dished out with its recent Panda 4.2 update, which possibly will take months to roll out completely. Google says that it is not designed to confuse the webmaster but the slowness of the update is due to some technical reasons. That means some of your web pages may not be affected with the Panda algorithm still site wide. Google confirmed that some 2% to 3% English language queries may have been affected.
About the slowness of the updates, Google’s John Mueller says “This [Panda update 4.2] is actually pretty much a similar update to before. For technical reasons we are rolling it out a bit slower. It is not that we are trying to confuse people with this. It is really just for technical reasons. So, it is not that we are crawling slowly. We are crawling and indexing normal, and we are using that content as well to recognize higher quality and lower quality sites. But we are rolling out this information in a little bit more slower way. Mostly for technical reasons. It is not like we are making this process slower by design; it is really an internal issue on our side.”
What we know
Although it’s supposed to be a slow rollout, many small business owners have already started reporting about being hit by this update. We decided to run some numbers. Our dataset of 3,000+ websites and 200,000+ keywords (local and national) makes it easy for us to get a birds-eye view of how our client campaigns are performing.
We were not surprised to find that this update didn’t have any negative impact on our client campaigns. Most probably, the new improved 2015 SEO deliverables which we offer saved our clients. This is another example of how our strategies future-proof your businesses.
So, how are we protecting you?
- First up, we get the basics right i.e. focusing on On-Site optimization which includes correcting all possible 404 errors, fix duplicate (thin) content on the site, creation of landing pages, etc. Internal blog is also a good addition which we do when allowed.
- We vary anchor texts to have a proper balance between branded and non-branded links.
- Since social signals are of importance, we get social votes via Facebook likes, Tweets & Google+1’s. Client participation is encouraged.
Below are some of the additional backlink sources we’ve included in our 2015 SEO deliverables to diversify the backlink profile.
- Magazine / News Placement
- Q&A Posting
- Community Setup
Conversion friendly activities include –
- Usability & Conversion Optimization Report
- User Testing Video
- Heatmap, Scrollmap, Overlay and Confetti Report
So, if you’re hit by Panda OR want to make sure you’re not going to be a likely victim, we can help. Just connect with us and let our professional SEOs to do the work for you.
It’s not a new update from Google but a rush of new warnings that Googlebot cannot access your CSS and JS files. These fresh warnings were issued by Google via Google Search Console. Here’s an image.
impact big time. These warnings are not penalty notifications as some may think but resolving this issue is important.
So, how do you fix these issues?
Log-in to your Google Search Console account, and then go to your site dashboard. Click on Google Index > Blocked resources and check if the search console is showing anything under “Pages affected”.
Now, click on the domain under the host column, which will show all the files which are blocked for crawling. Most probably, you see files such as theme or plug ins. css &. js files which is essential for site display. If that is the case, you need to edit your site’s robots.txt file. This is applicable for almost all WordPress blogs & few other popular CMS.
If you do not see any blocked resources for your site right away, so you can use Fetch as a google feature. How to do it? Just follow these instructions:
Click on Crawl > Fetch as Google to add a fetch & render request that will be completed in few seconds. Then see how Google sees (Renders) your site. Then click on robots.txt tester to further see which line of your robots.txt file is blocking the bots from accessing your site’s CSS & JS files.
How to fix CSS and JS warning by editing robots.txt file?
If robots.txt sounds new to you then don’t worry it’s a common lingo in the SEO parlance. For WordPress websites or blogs, most of them already have “wp-includes” or “wp-content” blocked via robots.txt. A simple fix is to remove this line of code form the robots.txt which should fix most of the warnings relevant to CSS and JS.
If you are searching for answers from Google, you can probably watch a video by Matt Cutts posted way back in 2012 on why you should not block JS & CSS files on your web-page.
If you happen to visit your nearby happening place or store for some shopping or just hanging out with your friends or relatives on a non-weekender but still found yourself waiting in queue for long hours then perhaps you haven’t used the latest search feature by Google.
Google has recently introduced a new search feature, which will show when the local stores are at their busiest at any time during the entire week. According to a Google FAQ received by Mike Blumenthal, the search giant gets its data on a store’s foot traffic data from users who have opted-in to location sharing. Don’t worry Google isn’t randomly following you or tracking anything that the user haven’t opted into to begin with. The information provided is completely anonymous and the stats are based on the data provided by the users, who have opted in for the location sharing of the apps on their android phones. Because of this, only Android Mobile Phones will be enable with this latest feature. Here is how it looks:
According to Google, this data will not be shown for all businesses except for those places where users are particularly worried about how busy it typically gets during anytime of the week. Moreover, the data will show up for locations with Google Maps listings that receive regular foot traffic.
At the outset, it seems like good idea if Google starts displaying the footfall traffic data about your nearby popular place, which means that people are either virtually searching for you or are visiting your location physically. The stats provided by Google can also be a great indicator about the growing popularity of your business and can be used to drive more footfall traffic on the off peak hours. But unfortunately if you don’t happen to like it then there’s no way out of it as Google feels that it’s an important data for the online searchers which tells them when and where to go.
This latest search feature update is currently being rolled out to Android Mobile Devices worldwide which will be followed up by updates on other platforms as well.
Hope you are well aware of the latest tweaks that the social media giant has been making to its News-feed. If not, then you should! Facebook seems to be making the platform more convenient and useful for users by giving them greater control over what they see. The new features are currently available on IOS device & yet to be rolled out in Android and desktop.
Now, News-feed at its basic level and Facebook is updating the same with new personalization tools. The new options will let users choose their favourite pages or friends from whom they want to see the updates on top of their home feed. Also, they will be having the option to hide things in which they are not interested.
What it means to Brands and Businesses?
With the latest update to the Facebook news-feed, Brands need to give extra head-ups to their Facebook strategies especially the content management. It is very important to create qualitative, attractive and enriching content to make the existing fans stay connected to the page. If the Content updates are not be managed with special care then it will lead to lack of engagements in respective fan pages. We also recommend everyone to limit their posts maximum up to 4 posts in a day as there are chances that the exceeded amount of updates would prompt the users to unlike the page.
AdWords Report Editor began appearing in a random assortment of accounts, typically very small, low-spend accounts over the past few months. This general roll out is not going to be speedy. Google said that the update to all accounts would occur over another few months.
With the Report Editor, you can build out custom pivot tables and charts by dragging and dropping dimensions and metrics. You can start by filtering dimensions before starting to build your report, or you can wait until it’s built to segment, sort and filter the data shown. A drop-down enables you to switch between visualization formats including table, pie, bar or line charts.
You’ll know it’s in your account when you see the Reports tab at the top of the screen between the Opportunities and Tools tabs. When you first use Report Editor, a guide will walk you through the basics of how to use it.
You also can save or download reports or email them in formats such as CSV or XML to a set of account users on an ongoing basis. Overall, this highly anticipated tool is likely to be very popular.
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