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The Featured Snippet: August 2021

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 events—all in an easy-to-read, summed-up format. See below for the latest version of The Featured Snippet:

In the August 2021 issue of The Featured Snippet: 

  • Google Introduces New System for Displaying Titles in Search Results
  • Google Drops Safe Browsing from Page Experience Ranking Factor
  • Google’s Report Indexing Issues Now Available in the U.S.
  • Link Spam Update Completes Rollout 
  • Google Adds Author URL Property to Article Schema
  • Google Officially Replaces Structured Data Testing Tool
  • Google Trends Turns 15
  • Google Updates How Search Works Website 
  • Google Search Console Lost Performance Report Data

Google Introduces New System for Displaying Titles in Search Results

August 17th (Unconfirmed): SEOs and site owners noticed that page titles were rewritten by Google on a query-by-query basis, pulling content from the web page that is most relevant to the search query and generating a title. 

August 25th (Confirmed): Google announced that within their new system generated titles will better represent  the document or web page overall vs. using the specific search query (old system). Below is the official announcement from Google:

Criteria: When generating titles, Google will use “text that humans can visually see when they arrive at a web page … main visual title or headline shown on a page, content that site owners often place within <H1> tags, within other header tags, or which is made large and prominent through the use of style treatments.”

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Google Drops Safe Browsing from Page Experience Ranking Factor

Google confirmed that Safe Browsing is no longer considered a ranking signal. This update aims to no longer unfairly punish websites who have fallen victim to third-party hijacking, which is often beyond their control. While this will no longer be filtered or presented as part of the page experience report, Google Search Console will flag any issues elsewhere within the platform.

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Google’s Report Indexing Issues Now Available in the U.S.

On Monday, August 16, Google announced via Twitter that their tool for reporting indexing issues is officially available in the US. This form submission allows site owners to submit URLs that should be indexed. This form should be used sparingly and only when all possible indexing issues have been checked and resolved on a webpage. Below is the official announcement from Google:

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Link Spam Update Completes Rollout

As of August 24, Google’s newest link spam algorithm update completed rolling out. This algorithm, which began in June, aimed to improve the ways in which Google penalizes spam on websites. The best way to avoid these issues is to ensure you are following Google’s outlined best practices for paid and affiliate links. Below is the official announcement from Google: 

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Google Adds Author URL Property to Article Schema

Google updated the article structured data help document to add new author properties to the list of recommended properties you can use in Google Search. The author.url property is a new recommended property you can add to your article structured markup that is a link to a web page that uniquely identifies the author of the article. The new recommended property helps Google better understand the scope of an author’s footprint across multiple sites.

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Google Officially Replaces Structured Data Testing Tool

Google has officially replaced its Structured Data Testing Tool with a new navigational landing page to direct you to either Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool or the Schema.org Schema Markup Validator Tool. Google initially launched its rich results tool in 2017, moving it out of beta in July 2020 and terminating its old tool. After backlash from the industry, Google decided to move the structured data testing tool from Google’s property to Schema.org. Then in May 2021, Schema.org published its very own tool, resulting in Google replacing its own tool.

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Google Trends Turns 15 

As of August 2021, Google Trends officially turned 15. To celebrate, Google compiled a list of the most popular search trends stretching back to 2006, including most popular song lyrics, TV shows, and video games. Google Trends is a tool that shows how frequently a given search term is entered into Google’s search engine relative to the site’s total search volume over a given period of time, making it especially useful for SEOs.

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Google Launches Redesigned How Search Works Website

Google launched a fully-redesigned How Search Works website on August 23 since its first official launch in 2016. The goal of the site is to explain the intricacies of Google’s Search algorithm, from the larger, more nuanced questions to small, specific details. On the site, you can find details about how Google’s ranking systems sort through hundreds of billions of web pages and other content in our Search index⁠—looking at factors like meaning, relevance, quality, usability and context.

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Google Search Console Lost Performance Report Data

Google reported an issue in Google Search Console resulting in lost Performance Report data for August 23 and August 24, 2021. Data may show a decline in clicks or impressions on those select dates, however, this is missing data and not a drop in performance. This data is most likely gone forever.

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