18-09-2019

Google Updates its Rules for Review Rich Search Results

18-09-2019 Google posted on the webmaster blog today that  they have updated the review rich  rules for how and when it shows the reviews rich results. Search results that are enhanced by review rich results can be extremely helpful when searching for products or services (the scores and/or “stars” you sometimes see alongside search results). Google said that to make the review rich results more helpful and meaningful, they are now introducing algorithmic updates to reviews in rich results. review rich search results The main takeaway from this is that if the functionality of posting the reviews on the site is such that they can be moderated or updated then they will not be shown. This applies to even the reviews posted via the third party widgets.

With this change, Google has also  limited the pool of schema types that can potentially trigger review rich results in search. Specifically, they will only display reviews with those types (and their respective subtypes):

According to Google:

Reviews that can be perceived as “self-serving” aren't in the best interest of users. We call reviews “self-serving” when a review about entity A is placed on the website of entity A - either directly in their markup or via an embedded 3rd party widget. That’s why, with this change, we’re not going to display review rich results anymore for the schema types LocalBusiness and Organization (and their subtypes) in cases when the entity being reviewed controls the reviews themselves.

The Leasing or Renting of Subdomains and What Google Has To Say about it.

18-09-20019-1

The logic behind leasing or renting subdomains/subfolders to third parties:

A subdomain is basically a child domain under a larger parent domain name. For example: webpro.in is the parent domain but webshop.webpro.in is the subdomain of webpro.in.

The subdomains are mostly used by people if they have a lot of content about a certain service or product and would like to give more importance to it. This can be done via a sub folder also. A subfolder is a ‘child directory’ (a folder beneath another folder) that lives under a parent (Home) directory, as is a Subdomain.

Subdomains and subfolders are similar in a lot of ways. They’re both file locations inside of a server’s ‘Home’ directory structure and the Home directory.  We refer to them differently in the URL.

For example: webshop.webpro.in is a subdomain but webpro.in/webshop is a subfolder.

If the parent domain has a good search presence and a good domain authority then the subdomain/subfolder can  get some SEO benefit from it. Here I don’t mean the domain authority metric as used by Open Site Explorer but, the actual popularity and the search presence the domain has achieved over a period of time by earning the online trust. This may be because of the age of the domain, quality content on the domain, quality inbound links, good social media presence and mentions across the web on various social media sites, etc.

In short if the domain has earned a good reputation online then, the subdomains and subfolders also get the benefit of that reputation and authority. This helps the subdomain/subfolder get a good search presence faster as compared to any other new domain.

Due to this many people started renting or leasing  the subdomains to third parties. This definitely helps them to make some additional income but can be very misleading for the users. Mainly because, the company using the subdomain may not be as genuine or trustworthy as the parent domain company.

Google has warned publishers about leasing out portion of their sites so that third-parties can benefit from the site's authority and trust and rank their content better. Google has started  penalizing some of those sections on the web sites that are leased out in late August.

This is what Google has to say about the renting or leasing of subdomains:

 

 

 

 

Hence, Google is overall against such practices, unless its activities are closely observed or monitored by the primary domain owners. It clearly says if you want the best success with Search, provide value-added content from your own efforts that reflect your own brand. Google has started penalizing subdomains/subfolders following this practice.

 

Here is a tweet from Glenn Gabe showing how CNN's efforts to lease out subdomains has got affected for some coupon partners now:

 

 

Replying to Glen Gabe Keith Fraley also shared his observation regarding coupons.businessinsider.com

 

Frankly speaking, this was new to me. I was not aware of people leasing subdomain or subfolders. Are you aware of any such domain following this practice?

 

18-09-20019-2

The Nofollow, UGC and Sponsored Link Attributes - 20 Points To Ponder On

18-09-20019-2

  1. Nearly 15 years ago, the nofollow attribute was introduced as a means to help fight comment spam. It also quickly became one of Google’s recommended methods for flagging advertising-related or sponsored links.
  2. From 10th September 2019 onwards, three new link attributes, 'sponsored', 'ugc' and 'nofollow', are applicable as hints for Google to incorporate for ranking purposes.
  3. For crawling and indexing purposes, nofollow will become a hint as of March 1, 2020.
  4. No Follow meta tag applies to all the links on the page.
  5. Rel-nofollow is applicable only to the link mentioned in the <a> tag.
  6. No follow meta tag was a directive till Google announced the ‘rel’ link for 'nofollow'.
  7. From now on, the 'no follow' meta tag ceases to be a directive but is considered a hint just like the rel attribute .
  8. All the link attributes -- sponsored, ugc and nofollow -- are treated as hints rather than directives. A directive is a direct specification on which the mentioned action has to be taken by the bots. Hence, earlier when the page had a nofollow meta tag in the header the bot completely ignored the links on that page. A hint means that Google may or may not obey the Meta Robots Nofollow when it encounters it.
  9. There’s absolutely no need to change any nofollow links that you already have.
  10. The nofollow tag is still valid.
  11. But,there is no meta tag for rel-ugc and rel-sponsored.
  12. It is valid to use more than one rel value for a link. For example, rel="ugc sponsored" is a perfectly valid attribute which hints that the link came from user-generated content and is sponsored.
  13. You need not worry if you have used the attributes incorrectly.
  14. Google says, “There’s no wrong attribute except in the case of sponsored links.
  15. If you flag a UGC link or a non-ad link as “sponsored,” we’ll see that hint but the impact -- if any at all -- would be at most that we might not count the link as a credit for another page.”
  16. For WordPress, Joost de Valk (creator of Yoast SEO Plugin) has said that it’s one line of code (for blog comments) and will be added to the next release.If any SEO informs you that Google has announced something new and there will
  17. be many changes required site wide, then he/she is lying. Do not pay heed to it. They are just trying to cheat you.
  18. There is a new New Chrome extension that highlights links using rel=”nofollow”, rel="sponsored" and rel="ugc". The extension is called “Strike Out Nofollow Links”. The extension strikes out links containing relations rel="nofollow", rel="ugc" and/or rel="sponsored". No JavaScript is used, only CSS3 selectors.
  19. Using the new attributes allows Google to better process links for analysis of the web.
  20. As SEOs/developers this can be a small contribution to make things more organized for search engines.
meta-tag-nofollow

Why Robots Nofollow Meta Tag Is a Hint Now, Like rel-nofollow ?

Google Says:

The robots meta tag lets you utilize a granular, page-specific approach to controlling how an individual page should be indexed and served to users in search results. The directives specified using the robots meta tag are used by Google for crawling and indexing the pages and the links on that particular page.

Several other directives can be used to control indexing and crawling. Each value represents a specific directive. The following table shows all the directives that Google honors and their meaning.

Google Directives

The nofollow meta tag <meta name="robots" content="nofollow"> clearly specifies that the if the header of the page has this tag then, Googlebot should not follow the links on the page.

But, the recent announcement by Google introducing the sponsored, nofollow and ugc attributes to be used as rel value in links and has changed the meta tag nofollow from a directive to a hint.

This was clearly stated by Gary Illyes in his tweet :

What is the difference between a directive and a hint?

A directive is a direct specification on which the mentioned action has to be taken by the bots. Hence, earlier when the page had a nofollow meta tag in the header the bot completely ignored the links on that page. A hint means that Google may or may not obey the Meta Robots Nofollow when it encounters it.

The reason for this is given by John Mueller as a part of the Twitter conversation is as follows:

Google directive and hint

The meta tags are specified at the page level and the rel values are specified for each link. The logic behind the nofollow meta tag becoming a hint rather than a directive is that using <meta name="robots" content="nofollow">  is like using a rel-nofollow to all the links on the page from now on.

One thing that we need to be very clear about is that there are no meta tags for ugc and sponsored. Adding that will just pollute the code with unwanted lines of code.

UGC-attributes-for-SEO

Understanding the Google Nofollow, Sponsored, & UGC Attributes For SEO

Since the time Google introduced the PageRank in the search algorithm the importance to links was an obvious development. This also brought with itself the issue of spam. To combat this spam especially the comment spam, in 2005 Google introduced the “nofollow” attribute.

Its been 15 years now and Google announced on its webmaster blog that the web has evolved and it’s high time this attribute also evolves.

Nofollow attribute

Google has  announced two new link attributes by which  webmasters can specify to Google the nature of concerned links. These are:

rel="sponsored":

This attribute to be used to identify links on your site that were created as part of advertisements, sponsorships or other compensation agreements.

rel="ugc":

UGC stands for User Generated Content, and the ugc attribute value is recommended for links within user generated content, such as comments and forum posts.

rel="nofollow":

This attribute to be used to for cases where you want to link to a page but don’t want to imply any type of endorsement, including passing along ranking credit to another page.

When "nofollow" was introduced in 2005, Google had not integrated its signals in the search algorithm. I mean to say the attribute was there but its purpose for indexing and crawling was not achieved. This will change soon.

Google mentioned :

All the link attributes, sponsored, ugc and nofollow, now will work as hints for us to incorporate for ranking purposes. For crawling and indexing purposes, nofollow will become a hint as of March 1, 2020. Those depending on nofollow solely to block a page from being indexed (which was never recommended) should use one of the much more robust mechanisms like:

The sponsored, ugc and nofollow attributes are basically to specify the nature of the links for which these will be used.

Google also added on the blog :

  • Links contain valuable information that can help us improve search, such as how the words within links describe content they point at.
  • Looking at all the links we encounter can also help us better understand unnatural linking patterns.
  • By shifting to a hint model, we no longer lose this important information.
  • The site owners get the option to indicate that some links shouldn’t be given the weight of a first-party endorsement.

From the SEO perspective the most important aspect to understand is:

The link attributes of “ugc” and “nofollow” will continue to be a further deterrent. In most cases, the move to a hint model won’t change the nature of how Google treats such links. Google will generally treat them as they did with nofollow before and not consider them for ranking purposes. But, Google will still continue to carefully assess how to use links within Search, just as they always have and as they have had to do for situations where no attributions were provided. But, for crawling and indexing purposes, nofollow will become a hint as of March 1, 2020.

Google has also answered the following FAQs on its blog:

  • Do I need to change my existing nofollows?
  • Can I use more than one rel value on a link?
  • If I use nofollow for ads or sponsored links, do I need to change those?
  • Do I still need to flag ad or sponsored links?
  • What happens if I use the wrong attribute on a link?
  • Why should I bother using any of these new attributes?
  • Won’t changing to a “hint” approach encourage link spam in comments and UGC content?
  • When do these attributes and changes go into effect?

you can find the answers on: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2019/09/evolving-nofollow-new-ways-to-identify.html

search-console-team

Google Bids Farewell To The Old Search Console

The search console is a vital and a valuable tool for the SEOs. No SEO can neglect the data offered in this tool.

As of May 20, 2015, Google rebranded Google Webmaster Tools as Google Search Console.In January 2018, Google introduced a new version of the Search Console, with a refreshed user interface and improvements.

 
Google search-console-team

Google launched the new Search Console at the beginning of 2019. Since then Google has been upgrading the new search console and also responding to the  feedback sent by the webmasters.

Google has reached another important milestone and has bid a farewell to many old Search Console reports, including the home and dashboard pages.

dashboard-Google-search-console

The old search console which was known as Webmaster Tools prior to 2015 helped site owners and webmasters to monitor and improve their performance on Google Search for over a decade.

Google says:

"From now on, if you try to access the old homepage or dashboard you’ll be redirected to the relevant Search Console pages. There are only a few reports that will still be available on the old interface for now - check the Legacy tools and reports in the Help Center. We're continuing to work on making the insights from these reports available in the new Search Console, so stay tuned!"

Google Search Console

If you want to share any Search Console memories or stories, please use the hashtag #SCmemories  on Twitter.

General changes

The new Search Console has the following improvements over the old version:

  • Sixteen months of search traffic data, versus three months in the old product
  • Detailed information about a specific page, including index coverage, canonical URL, mobile usability, and more
  • Tracking flows to help you monitor, fix, and request a recrawl of pages affected by crawling issues.
  • New and improved reports and tools, described next.
  • Works on mobile devices.

Currently unsupported features by the new Search Console:

Here are some features that aren't yet supported in new Search Console. To use them you will have to use the old Search Console, for now.

  • Crawl Stats data (pages crawled per day, KB downloaded per day, page download times)
  • Robots.txt tester
  • Managing URL parameters in Google Search
  • Data highlighter tool
  • Reading and managing your messages
  • Change of address tool
  • Setting preferred domain
  • Associating your Search Console property with an Analytics property
  • Disavow links
  • Removing outdated content from the index
spam-call-image

A Clarification Regarding Calls From WebPro

malicious calls alert

Since 3-4 weeks we have been receiving calls from people who tell us that they had received a call from our company promising them jobs.

We would like to make it very clear at the outset that we do not call people and offer them any jobs.

One caller forwarded a mail he had received. We share the content of that  email as follows for your information and awareness.

Screen Shot 2019-06-27 at 2.57.51 PM

If you get such mails, please note that, THESE EMAILS ARE NOT FROM WEBPRO TECHNOLOGIES LLP.

 

 

Voice-Search-Stats-768x822

Voice Search And Its Impact On SEO In The Coming Future

What Is Voice Search

Voice search uses speech recognition technology. The users ask their queries and search information through voice instead of typing it.

Google Voice Search or Search by Voice is a Google product that allows users to use Google Search by speaking on a mobile phone or computer, i.e. have the device search for data upon entering information on what to search into the device by speaking.

Typed search queries and voice search queries are worded differently even if the person has the same search intent.

For example: In a text search, you would probably type “best Chinese restaurants in Mumbai;” but if you were to do a voice search, you would be more likely to ask, “is there any good Chinese food around here?”
A voice search is more conversational in style.

When the user uses text search, it is a brief phrase that he keys in. In voice search the user starts a conversation with the device which is a proper question or a sentence.

Hence, more that keywords it is the intent of the search query which is assessed before the search results are served to the user.

Devices Used For Voice Search

  • There are different voice search devices are available in the market
  • Amazon Echo/Alexa.
  • Siri/iPhone.
  • Google Home.
  • Microsoft Cortana.
  • Google Assistant.
  • Android Phones.
  • Tablets (iPad and Android)

The Increasing use of Voice Search (Some Stats.)

Voice-Search-Stats

Types Of Voice Search Queries :

Voice search queries as of now can be categorized in the above 4 categories.

voice-search-micro-moments-1030x415

I want to know moments

Screen Shot 2018-08-13 at 1.36.31 PM

I want to go moments

Screen Shot 2018-08-13 at 1.41.26 PM

I want to do moments

Screen Shot 2018-08-13 at 1.48.18 PM

I want to buy moments

Screen Shot 2018-08-13 at 1.49.56 PM

How To Optimize for Voice Search

The focus for voice search is basically the searcher intent rather than the keywords. But, that does not mean that the basic on-page can be given a skip. The on-page and Technical factors will continue to be important.

In addition to the on-page and technical factors the priority needs to be given to the following:

  1. Try to rank for :

* Featured snippets

*Local Search Results

*Long tail search queries

2.Implement Schemas

3.Make Mobile Optimization a priority (Read More about Mobile Friendliness in our previous post  https://www.webpro.in/what-does-it-mean-to-have-a-mobile-ready-website-in-2018-with-an-emphasis-on-pwa-progressive-web-apps/)

PWA

What Is A Progressive Web App (PWA) ? Why Do I Need It?

A Mobile Ready website is much more than just having a Responsive Website. Let’s explore - PWA , AMP and Responsiveness.

Today if your website needs to be called mobile-ready it needs to be:

  • Responsive
  • (Accelerated Mobile Pages) AMP Enabled &
  • Should also be a Progressive Web App (PWA)

Mobilegeddon & The Google Mobile Friendly Updates. 

Google in November 2014 had announced the ‘mobile friendly’ labels for responsive websites in their search results.

In August 2016 Google stopped displaying these labels to keep the results uncluttered. As by then 80% of the websites in the Google index met the mobile-friendly criteria.

In August 2016 Google started showing the icon  for  AMP pages  in search results.

What Is AMP?

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) are pages which are light weight and load quickly on mobile devices. AMPs are served from the Google AMP Cache, which is a proxy-based content delivery network for delivering all valid AMP documents. It fetches AMP HTML pages, caches them, and improves page performance automatically.

AMP can load quickly but cannot retain the same low speed in case of complex functions like online payments and other, dynamic functionality.

To give a great user experience to the user usually people develop mobile apps. But to avoid the drawbacks of the native apps PWA comes to your rescue.

 What are Progressive Web Apps (PWA)?

A Progressive Web App (PWA) is a web app that uses modern web capabilities to deliver an app-like experience to users. These apps meet certain requirements (checklist below), are deployed to servers, accessible through URLs, and indexed by search engines.

This can work in along with Cordova to provide a multiple deploy targets for all your users.

PWA

Why do I need a PWA ?

  • PWA adds the advantages of a native app to the website.
  • According to, Flurry Analytics, 80% of the mobile user’s time was spent inside apps and 20% on the mobile web. This continues to grow year by year.
  • With mobile devices becoming smarter, the time inside apps is surely going to increase.
  • The app needs to be installed on the mobile device which takes up a lot of storage space. PWA runs from the server leaving a lot of free space for the user on the mobile device.
  • According to, a test, some native apps took up 460 MB of space whereas the PWA just needed 1 MB.
  • In the case of an app, the user needs to be notified to update it. The PWA lives on the server so there is no update distribution lag.
  • PWA can work offline.
  • PWA, being a website fortified with the benefits of an app, is linkable, searchable, and indexable.
  • com had decided to discontinue their website and go app only, but that did not go well with the users.After their PWA named FlipKart Lite the statistics showed 40% returning visitors, +63 conversions from home screen visits and more time spent on FlipKart Lite.

Case Study on https://developers.google.com/web/showcase/2016/flipkart

(Walmart Inc. has announced acquisition of 77 per cent stake in Flipkart in its biggest takeover till date)

Technical Details About PWA:

To give a Fast, Integrated, Reliable and Engaging user experience PWA uses features like Service Workers, Push Notifications, and Web App Manifests.

What Is a Service Worker?

  • A Service Worker is a scriptable intermediate layer between the web page and the network. It is a script that the browser runs in the background, separate from a web page. It includes features like push notificationsand background sync.
  • A Service Worker gives access to an API that provides a programmable network proxy within the client-side context.
  • It makes it easier to create web applications that can handle network requests offline while browsing in varying network speeds.
  • At times, an HTTP request is made but a response is not received on the mobile devices, which can happen when the user goes through a tunnel, or the network varies from 2G to 3G, or the user automatically joins a saturated WiFi network. The Service Worker allows developers to cache assets when connected and offers a seamless experience when offline so user experience is maintained.

Service Worker

Some Technicalities to Note About a Service Worker

  • A Service Worker is not HTML or XML. It is a JavaScript Worker.  Hence, the Service Worker does not access the DOM directly.
  • The script communicates with the relevant pages by responding to messages sent by using the postMessage interface, and those pages can then access the DOM if required.
  • Service Worker is basically a proxy server which serves between apps, browsers, and the network when available.
  • It allows you to control and handle network requests from the pages.
  • The Service Worker script does not run when not in use, and restarts when it’s next needed. Hence, you cannot rely on global state handlers.
  • If there is information that you need to reuse on restart, service workers do have access to the IndexedDB API, which stores data inside the user’s browser.
  • Service Workers use Javascript Promiseson a large scale. Technically, a Promise is a proxy for a value not necessarily known when the promise is created.
  • The browser needs to support Service Workers.

Web App Manifests

The web app manifest is a JSON file. It is a simple text file which has the metadata for the app.

This JSON allows you:

  • to control the look and feel of the app
  • to control how the app is launched
  • to display icons for the user home screen and splash screen which is displayed while the app is loading
  • When the app is launched, you can specify which page gets loaded as well as the screen orientation (portrait/landscape view).

PWA Checklist:

  • Site is served over HTTPS
  • Pages are responsive on tablets & mobile devices
  • All app URLs load while offline
  • Metadata provided for Add to Home screen
  • First load fast even on 3G
  • Site works cross-browser
  • Page transitions don't feel like they block on the network
  • Each page has a URL
  • Site's content is indexed by Google
  • org metadata is provided where appropriate
  • Social metadata is provided where appropriate
  • Canonical URLs are provided when necessary
  • Pages use the History API
  • Content doesn't jump as the page loads
  • Pressing back from a detail page retains scroll position on the previous list page
  • When tapped, inputs aren't obscured by the onscreen keyboard
  • Content is easily shareable from standalone or full screen mode
  • Site is responsive across phone, tablet and desktop screen sizes
  • Any app install prompts are not used excessively
  • The Add to Home Screen prompt is intercepted
  • First load very fast even on 3G
  • Site uses cache-first networking
  • Site appropriately informs the user when they're offline
  • Provide context to the user about how notifications will be used
  • UI encouraging users to turn on Push Notifications must not be overly aggressive.
  • Push notifications must be timely, precise and relevant
  • Provides controls to enable and disable notifications
  • User is logged in across devices via Credential Management API
  • User can pay easily via native UI from Payment Request API.

How do I Test the PWA?

To help teams create the best possible experiences Google hasput  together a checklist which breaks down all the things Google thinks it takes to be a Baseline PWA, and how to take that a step further with an Exemplary PWA by providing a more meaningful offline experience, reaching interactive even faster and taking care of many more important details.

You can run ‘Lighthouse’ which is an open-source, automated tool for improving the quality of web pages. You can run it against any web page, public or requiring authentication. It has audits for performance, accessibility, progressive web apps, and more.

You can run Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools, from the command line, or as a Node module. You give Lighthouse a URL to audit, it runs a series of audits against the page, and then it generates a report on how well the page did. From there, use the failing audits as indicators on how to improve the page. Each audit has a reference doc explaining why the audit is important, as well as how to fix it.

Can I submit a PWA to Google Play Store and App Store?

The PWAs are available through the browser on Android . However the PWA can also be submitted to the APP store and the Google Play Store after packaging it for the relevant store.

Converting your responsive website to a PWA and making it AMP enabled is the new mobile-ready website.

Related Posts:

The Benefits of Combining Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) & Progressive Web Apps (PWA)

Understanding The Google AMP Cache

How To Add Google Analytics To AMP Pages

 

Image credit:

http://webagility.com/posts/how-progressive-web-apps-make-the-web-great-again

 

GDPR - General Data Protection Regulation : 20 Key Points

  1. GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation.
  2. Its purpose is to unify all EU member states' approaches to data regulation, so that all data protection laws are applied identically in every country within the EU.
  3. It will protect EU citizens from organisations using their data irresponsibly.
  4. It ensures that EU citizens are in charge of the information which is shared about them.
  5. It also gives them the charge to know where and how it's shared.
  6. The GDPR will come into force on 25 May - and even though the UK is due to leave Europe in the next 12 months, it will still apply to all businesses handling EU residents' data, effectively replacing the Data Protection Act 1998.
  7. Any business found not complying  to the rules could be charged fines of up to €20 million or 4% of the company's global annual turnover.
  8. The toughest fines will be reserved for the worst data breaches or data abuse.
  9. GDPR is a regulation, not a directive, the UK does not need to draw up new legislation - instead, it will apply automatically.
  10. 'Controllers' and 'Processors' of data need to abide by the GDPR.
  11. Even if controllers and processors are based outside the EU, the GDPR will still apply to them so long as they're dealing with data belonging to EU residents.
  12. All types of data organizations who collect about people, online identifiers such as IP addresses now qualify as personal data.
  13. Other data, like economic, cultural or mental health information, are also considered personally identifiable information.
  14. Pseudonymised personal data may also be subject to GDPR rules, depending on how easy or hard it is to identify whose data it is.
  15. People have the right to access any information a company holds on them.
  16. People have the right to know why that data is being processed, how long it's stored for, and who gets to see it.
  17. Read More on Rules for the protection of personal data inside and outside the EU on https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection_en
  18. Read More On GDPR Fines on http://www.itpro.co.uk/general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/31025/gdpr-fines-how-high-are-they-and-how-can-you-avoid
  19. GDPR Compliance Checklist on https://gdprchecklist.io/
  20. Questions to Consider in order to assess if you are GDPR ready - https://www.hubspot.com/data-privacy/gdpr-checklist

 

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