The Featured Snippet is the official SEO newsletter of Performics and is dedicated to keeping you up to date with the latest SEO industry news, trends, and eventsāall in an easy-to-read, summed-up format. See below for the latest version of The Featured Snippet:
In the July 2021 issue of The Featured Snippet:Ā
Google began the July 2021 Core update rollout on July 1st and finished by July 12th. Core updates to Googleās search algorithm are more vague as Google does not reveal what exactly is changing. Core updates are designed to enhance search results. Julyās Core update could have impacted rankings on July 2nd, 9th, and 12th. In relation to recent algorithm updates, this core update is less impactful than the Page Experience Update rollout.
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Google also started to roll out a link spam update on July 26th, which continued through early August. The algorithm update was designed to identify link spam more broadly and across multiple languages. The link spam update is another initiative by Google to help provide quality links in search results and fight overall link spam. In correspondence with the link spam update, Google also released best practices on outbound links and acquiring links.
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In February 2021, Google launched a BETA version of the About This Result panel. This feature was created to provide searchers with more background information on a link in the search results. On July 22nd, Google expanded this feature to provide more insight on why Google chose to rank this site for a specific search query. The updated panel will also provide tips on how searchers can see more of what they intended.
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Google answers how to analyze Google Search traffic declines in a step-by-step guide on the Google Search Central blog. Google provides main reasons behind traffic drops like technical issues, security issues, manual actions, algorithmic changes, and search interest changes. Google also shares what data to review and how to investigate trends.
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SeekToAction markup can be used to highlight valuable moments of a video within Google Search results. This video optimization can be implemented on videos in a website where schema.org is supported (this does not include YouTube or some third-party platforms). Google was previously beta testing SeekToAction and officially rolled out the markup in July 2021.
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Google removed the AMP label in Google mobile search results. The label has not been replaced with another icon. Google has not provided insights behind this update.
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