This week at SEOPartner, we’re sharing: SEO updates that can deliver significant impact to your results, exciting changes in the marketplace to watch out for, good-to-know studies and information, and tips to try based on recent findings on search, online marketing and more.
Google rolled out a new algorithm update now dubbed as the “Possum.” Twitter finds ways to let users express themselves through longer tweets. And Penguin is now rolling out in real time. These and more are just some of the recent releases that are currently making the online marketing space abuzz.
What’s Hot
New Penguin Update and Other Key Changes To Know
Penguin recently paid another visit, and this time it intends to stay for good. This as Google announced that they are rolling out an update to the Penguin algorithm across all languages as of Friday, September 23. They also confirmed that Penguin is now part of their core algorithm.
The following are key changes to monitor and prepare for:
– Penguin’s data will be refreshed in real time. For webmasters who have improved their sites and SEO, it means they get to see the changes faster. At the same time, negative changes will also take effect as fast as Google can crawl and re-index a page.
– The impact will be more granular. When it comes to devaluing spam, ranking will be based on individual pages instead of the entire website.
Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/
Good to Know
Meet Google’s “Possum” Algo Update
Google this month has rolled out an algorithm adjustment. It was unannounced, but industry experts shared and compiled their notes and came up with the conclusion. Many believe it to be the biggest and most significant update focusing on local search since Pigeon in 2014.
Nicknamed “Possum,” the update intended to do two things:
– Diversify local results.
– Prevent spam from ranking well.
Therefore, Possum only impacts rankings in the 3-pack and local or Google Maps results.
The differences created so far:
• Businesses that fall outside of the physical city limits saw a huge spike in ranking.
• Google has begun filtering businesses based on their address and affiliation.
• Searcher location is more important than ever.
• There are more differences in search results with little variations in the keywords searched.
• The local filter appears to be operating more independently from the organic filter.
Since the update is quite new and fluctuations are still observed, the full spectrum of its effects is yet to be seen.
P.S. Wondering about the name?
Source: http://searchengineland.com/everything-need-know-googles-possum-algorithm-update-258900
Twitter Relaxes 140-Character Limit
Twitter recently rolled out changes that will allow users to post longer tweets. The 140-character limit has not been exactly lifted nor has been expanded. But some tweaks have been made to ease the restrictions a bit. Here are 4 things you should know about it:
1. Media attachments (photos, videos, GIFs, polls) will no longer be counted toward the 140-character limit.
2. Quote tweets will be exempted from each tweet’s character count as well.
https://twitter.com/twitter/status/777915304261193728
3. Text copy, links, emojis and hashtags are still included in the character count.
4. Twitter is testing out a feature that will move the @names outside the tweetbox. If this pushes through, that means usernames in replies won’t eat up the character count of a tweet anymore.
Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/twitter-140-character-limit-change/174164/?ver=174164X2
Tips to Try
Google Issues Tips on How to Fix & Validate Your AMPs
Errors on your Accelerated Mobile Pages can cause Google to overlook them. To make sure your AMP pages are validated and eligible to show on Google Search, it’s important to 1) validate your pages, 2) diagnose issues before the pages go live and 3) monitor the validation status of your pages.
Google recommends the following tools and provides tips on how to use them in a recent post:
– Google Search Console, to know which pages have been identified to contain errors.
– Developer Tools and Chrome DevTools console, to check for validation errors.
– AMP Browser Extensions (for Chrome and Opera), for identifying and debugging invalid AMP pages.
– AMP Web Validator, for testing the validity of AMP pages.
Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/validate-debug-accelerated-mobile-pages-amps/174077/
What’s Cooking
Coming Soon: Cross-Device Remarketing for AdWords
A big change is coming with Google’s cross-device remarketing for Google Display Network and DoubleClick Bid Manager. Businesses can now reach the same signed-in user across various devices, apps and sites.
They can also control the frequency and times of the day for a certain user to see their ad across devices and channels. Armed with such capability, marketers can then make more strategic moves for delivering and sequencing their messages.
Cross-device retargeting will be rolling out in the next few months.
Source: http://marketingland.com/google-cross-device-remarketing-launches-192819
SUMMING IT ALL UP
Here are the top takeaways from this week’s SEO news roundup:
What’s Hot
New Penguin Update and Other Key Changes To Know. Google announced a recent Penguin update, and confirmed that the Penguin algorithm will now be a core, real-time component of their algorithm.Good to Know
Meet Google’s “Possum” Algo Update. Know the key changes to watch out for and monitor as Google launches an algorithm change, which has been described as the biggest local update in local search since Penguin 2014.Twitter Relaxes 140-Character Limit. Users can now post tweets that are a bit longer than usual with the recent tweaks that Twitter rolled out.
Tips to Try
Google Issues Tips on How to Fix & Validate Your AMPs. To show up in search results, AMP pages need to be validated and free from errors. Google came up with a list of recommended tools for validating and fixing AMPs.What’s Cooking
Google’s Cross-Device Remarketing Capability Rolling Out Soon. Marketers will soon be able to customize a user’s conversion activity involving more than one device.