The Featured Snippet is the official SEO newsletter of Performics and is dedicated to keeping you update-to-date with the latest SEO industry news, trends, and events—all in an easy-to-read, summed-up format. See below for the latest version of The Featured Snippet:
In the April 2021 issue of The Featured Snippet:
Google announced that the Page Experience Update will be pushed back to mid-June and will be gradually rolled out until August. Previously, the rollout was scheduled for mid-May. Below is the official announcement from Google:
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Google rolled out an algorithm update on April, 8 2021 that aimed to promote outstanding product reviews. According to Google, this update is “designed to better reward” product reviews that “share in-depth research, rather than thin content that simply summarizes a bunch of products.” Below is the official announcement from Google:
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On Wednesday, April 7, Google announced on the Google Search Central Blog that regular expressions (RegEx) can now be used within Google Search Console. This new feature allows for further filtering by pages and queries. Advanced filters allow users to explore sets of specific pages and keywords that were not previously available.
In addition to regex filtering, Google also announced later in the month that a new Page Experience Report launched in Google Search Console. This report offers a roundup of key Page Experience metrics including Core Web Vitals, Mobile Usability, Security Issues, HTTPs and Ad experiences. These checkpoints are then combined to offer a bird’s eye view of overall page experience and total impressions.
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Google recently added a new tool to report indexing issues directly to the Google Search team. A link to this form can be found within the URL inspection help document as well as the indexing coverage report document within the Google Search Console Help Center. This new feature allows site owners to fill out a form explaining the issue after completing a questionnaire to confirm all proper steps were taken (i.e. submission to Google, removal of noindex tags, etc.) Currently, this option is only a pilot in the US but should be available more widely in early May. Below is the official announcement thread from Google:
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Google works continuously to prevent spam pages from appearing in Search results and each year shares their efforts and findings in an annual webspam report. This year’s report revealed that 40 billion spam pages were identified a day in 2020. To catch spam trends earlier, Google built an advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) that led to an 80% reduction in ranking sites with auto-generated and scraped content. Google also worked to protect searchers from online scams and fraud during the pandemic. Overall, Google’s efforts help real websites rank higher and protect searchers from harmful websites.
Below illustrates Google’s process to detect and fight against spam pages.
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Screaming Frog’s latest version allows search engine marketers to better understand changes made to a website since the last crawl. Users can now identify changes to the site structure and key SEO components like metadata or structured data. This more detailed view allows users to catch website changes quicker and update as needed. Users are also now able to compare a primary website URL to a staging environment URL. This update will benefit sites that are undergoing migrations or other larger website updates. Additional smaller tweaks have also been made to help fix bugs and enhance usability in Screaming Frog. Below is the official announcement from Screaming Frog:
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