Daily Search Forum Recap: August 31, 2020

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:

Vlog #82: Kevin Lee Of Didit on Digital PR & Why It Rocks For SEO – Part One

This is the first interview I did after New York went on lock due to COVID in March – hence the lack of the haircut. Kevin Lee came to my home to do an outside vlog interview, socially distant, to discuss SEO and SEM…

Can Apple Search Compete Against Google Search?
In 2015, Apple first revealed information about AppleBot, its search engine crawler. Then a few months ago, Apple updated its information around web search to list its web ranking factors. Jon Henshaw last week published a very comprehensive blog post on Apple’s behind the scenes efforts in launching a search engine to compete with Google.

Google On Word Count As A Ranking Signal
We know Google has said numerous times that word count is not a ranking factor, nor is it indicative of quality. We know Google said short content can rank just fine. But Google has to answer this question often enough. John did that this morning in numerous tweets that I wanted to share with you.

Google Tests Related Searches With Boxed In Magnifying Glass
Here is yet another Google related search user interface that Google is testing. We’ve seen several so far, so I will list them all below again, but this new one is where Google is just shading in the magnifying glass icon and not the query with it.

Is Google Down Autocomplete Search Suggestion
If you search for [is Google down], Google will show you an answer, like it does often with other answer based queries, to tell you “no.” I guess if Google is able to give you an answer here, by definition Google is not down.

Google: We Do Not Index Links, We Index The Pages Between The Links
Google’s John Mueller clarified how SEOs should think about Google’s index and links on the web. He said on Twitter “we index pages, we don’t index links. Links are between pages.” That means, Google will index a page, that page may have links on it, and if Google sees the link, it knows there is a link but it indexes the page, not the link.

The Roller Skating Googler Misses The Office
Remember that super rad Googler who shared her roller skating sessions on Instagram? She often skated at the Google Austin office. She posted about missing the space since COVID-19. She wrote

Other Great Search Forum Threads:

It sounds like someone may have told you some wrong things. While we don’t make core updates every day, we have made over 3000 updates last year, so it’s always before some update. If you need to change, John Mueller on Twitter
There’s nothing wrong with building a reputation for yourself. You’re not going to get it by creating a dozen mediocre blogs though., John Mueller on Twitter
What happens if you stop renting your office space?, Local Search Forum
While title elements are often seen as too basic for "real SEOs", they do play a role in Search, definitely when it comes to what’s shown to users. These are just 2 data points, but: Don’t ignore your titles, folks., John Mueller on Twitter

Search Engine Land Stories:

[Updated] Is Google prepping to phase out ETAs?

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