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 To Drop Any Support For crawl-delay, nofollow, and noindex in robots.txt
Google posted this morning that they are going to stop unofficially supporting the noindex, nofollow and crawl-delay directives within robots.txt files. Google has been saying this for years actually and hinted this was coming really soon and now it is here.
Google Image Search Tests Sticky Image Preview Box
Google is testing, I believe, another image search design, this time with making the image preview box a sticky box on the right side panel. Google has been testing many variations of these image preview boxes in search for some time but this one is bolder because it sticks.
List Of All The GoogleBot Robots.txt Specifications Changes
With Google aiming to make the robots.txt exclusion protocol a standard, they proposed some changes and submitted them the other day. Now, Google updated their own developer docs around the robots.txt specification to match. Here is a list of what has changed.
Google Shares Its Robots.txt Parser Code With Open Source World
Google announced yesterday as part of its efforts to standardizing the robots exclusion protocol that it is open sourcing its robots.txt parser. That means how GoogleBot reads and listens to robots.txt files will be available for any crawler or coder to look at or use.
Search Google For Fireworks & Get A Fireworks Show
Go to Google.com and search for [fireworks] on desktop or mobile and you will see Google light up the search results page with a fireworks display.
Robots.txt Birthday Cake With Martijn Koster At Google
Here is a photo of the inventor of the robots.txt specification at Google (I think) with a robots.txt 25 years old birthday cake. Next to the cake is the revised proposed specification for the robots
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
Okay, #seo friends in #nuremberg & around, I’ll be in town and there’ll probably be a #SEO Meetup on the 29th of July. Show of hands who’s on board? ✋… https://t.co/OGs8qsKWYQ, Martin Splitt on Twitter
One way to avoid that problem is to stop using DA.…, John Mueller on Twitter
No-Follow in the Menu (Beneficial or Harmful), WebmasterWorld
Search Engine Land Stories:
Google to stop supporting noindex directive in robots.txt
How to Build a Comprehensive Data Strategy
Google posts draft to formalize Robots Exclusion Protocol Specification
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Enhanced Ecommerce Object Builder Template For Google Tag Manager, Simo Ahava’s blog
Get to insights quicker with Data Studio’s new home page, Google Blog
How to Extract a Query Parameter with Google Tag Manager, Analytics Mania
Industry & Business
Breaking ground in Nevada, Google Blog
Links & Promotion Building
How to Super Power Your Link Building, Search Engine Journal
Local & Maps
Google Maps: Guy Points Gun at Street View Car In Detroit, Michigan, LADbible
How to Optimize Google Posts & the Q&A Feature: In Search SEO Podcast, RankRanger
Mobile & Voice
Have a laugh with the Assistant this International Joke Day, Google Blog
Next steps for enterprises transitioning to modern Android management solutions, Google Blog
Ultimate Guide for Voice Search Optimization in 2019, ReadWrite
Google can’t decide if it’s a Google Home or a Nest Home in hilarious tweet, Android Police
How to set up Google Assistant on your Sonos system, Pocket-li
Tapping the Google Assistant icon on mobile web search brings up an error page, Android Police
SEO
How to Write SEO Title Tags With Examples, Stephan Spencer
June 2019 Google Core Update – 2,100,000 Pages Analyzed Tells Us What Changed and How To Recover, Traffic Research
Leverage Incentives to Achieve SEO and Customer Acquisition Goals, Conductor
PPC
Dynamic Search Ads: What You Need to Know, WordStream
ALSA Strategy: A New Spin on Old Strategies, PPC Hero
Search Features
Google tweaked algorithm after rise in US shootings, The Guardian
Other Search
Endless AI-generated spam risks clogging up Google’s search results, The Verge