Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
Google: Sitemap Dates vs Web Page Dates
John Mueller from Google explained on Twitter the difference between the timestamp date in an XML Sitemaps lasmod date and the date on a web page. John said the sitemaps lastmod is when the page as a whole was last changed for crawling/indexing. The date on page is the date to be associated with the primary content on the page.
Google: You Cannot Isolate Specific Ranking Factor Successes
I am going to do it, I am going to read between the lines here on a John Mueller tweet. In short, he said that you really cannot say that one specific ranking factor is the reason why a site might be doing well or poorly in search, even if that site focused on that exclusively over the last time period.
Google Really Wants You To Use Remote Job Markup For Job Schema
In February, Google sent out Search Console notifications that you can and should add job opportunities that are available to remote workers after launching markup around that a year prior. Okay, so Google is reminding people to use the markup – okay. But yesterday, Google posts on the search blog there is a new way to find jobs for work-from-home job seekers.
Google Posts Reminder On How Structured Data Can Richen Search Results
Daniel Waisberg, who recently moved to the Google search team, posted his first blog post under his new position. In the blog post he posted a reminder on how structured data can help richen up the search results. There is nothing new in the blog post, but it is a nice reminder of how using schema and markup can help give you a competitive edge in search.
Google’s Penguin Room – Giorgio’s Center
Here is a photo of one of the rooms at the Google Zurich office – we know they have a Penguin Ave sign but here is a photo of a room that looks to be designed with Penguins. It is named Giorgio’s Cent
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
Ranking across the whole web isn’t easy :). @dawnieando has been digging into a lot of the information retrieval theory, I’m always amazed at what she runs across.… https://t.co/pBA7jpKSkK, John Mueller on Twitter
The issue didn’t involve https…, Danny Sullivan on Twitter
Facebook Q1 Revenue up 26pct to $15.08 Billion, WebmasterWorld
It’s based on the number of requests to a specific site, so if you’re pulling in content from multiple sites, and we fetch those for rendering, then those requests would be "counted" for those sites.… https://t.co/4ThHw0vayC, John Mueller on Twitter
Just because you use a specific type of markup doesn’t mean it’ll automatically be shown in search — that’s always been the case. There’s more on this at https://t.co/diKuyPtY7L & https://t.co/6tNFuL2aoG .… https://t.co/tZyx, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
SEO guide to optimizing your LinkedIn profile for more connections, better leads
Google search spend growth slows as click volume rises, reports show
App-marketer spending on Apple Search Ads Grew by 90% in less than a year
Google updates Custom Search mobile layout
Analytics
Google Optimize: How to grow your impact with this simple A/B testing tool, Whole Whale
Industry & Business
How Google is building its huge subsea cable infrastructure, VentureBeat
It’s Complicated: Mozilla’s 2019 Internet Health Report, The Mozilla Blog
The 2019 US Search Awards in Las Vegas, Pubcon
Links & Promotion Building
How to Build Trust with Your Blog, Problogger
Local & Maps
Get lost in the new Earth Timelapse, now on mobile, Google Blog
Hey Night King, Westeros Doesn’t Have Google Maps, But This One Should Do, Mashable
Mobile & Voice
Amazon’s Alexa reviewers can access customers’ home addresses, Ad Age
HomePod’s multi-user support could use iPhones to secure Siri queries using personal data, Apple Insider
SEO
How to do post Google Update SEO Analysis – #CrawlingMondays 14th Episode, Aleyda Solis
SEO Competitor Analysis Using Ahrefs and SEMRush, Pure Visibility
SEO Flatliners – The Curious Case Of A Massive 1-Month Algorithmic Demotion From Google (To The Minute) And What Could Have Triggered The Drop, GSQI
18 Best SEO Plugins for WordPress (As Voted By The Experts), Robbie Richards
PPC
How do you measure a good click-through rate (CTR) for PPC?, ClickZ
6 Tips to Improve Your PPC Landing Page Experience (& Quality Score), Search Engine Journal
70/20/10 PPC Budgeting, PPC Hero
