Daily Search Forum Recap: December 2, 2019

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:

December 2019 Google Webmaster Report
This past month we had a bunch of tremors and somewhat unconfirmed and semi-confirmed Google search algorithmic updates. We also had a big Google Local and Maps update that seems to be about relevancy, not proximity. It was not an insane month of news but it was busy.

16 Years Covering The Search Industry
Today is the 16th anniversary of this website, the Search Engine Roundtable, and thus my sweet 16 for writing about search, SEO and of course Google. It is hard to imagine I’ve been writing about this topic for so long and still, every day, find a handful of things to cover and share with the devoted and valued readers here.

Google Ignoring The rel=canonical For Syndication Partners?
So we just covered that Google said the best approach is to force your syndication partners to use the rel=canonical attribute to point to the content they distributed from your site. But Glenn Gabe said on Twitter he has seen Google not honoring that.

Google: Best Approach For Syndication Partners Is To Use rel=canonical
Google said the best approach for when you allow others to syndicate and publish your content is to make them use the rel=canonical attribute, so Google knows where the source of the article is. Google said on Twitter “For syndication, using rel=canonical is the best approach (it doesn’t guarantee only one version is shown though).”

Google: We Ignore Links From Sites Where Links Are Unlikely To Be Natural
Google’s John Mueller was asked about links from from “theglobe.net and related spammy domains” and if they should be disavowed or something. John responded “We already ignore links from sites like that, where there are unlikely to be natural links. No need to disavow.”

Google: Ads.txt Is For AdSense But Not Needed For Search Or SEO
Google’s official webmaster channel on Twitter responded to a question about the ads.txt file. Someone asked if you need it for SEO or search because he sees GoogleBot trying to access it. The answer is no, you don’t need it for Google Search or SEO. It is somewhat needed for Google AdSense but not Google Search.

Google Indoor Surf Room
Here are photos from Google OC, I think Orange County, California, of a Google office that has this room where you look like you are surfing in light blue water. Here is one photo I found on Instagra

Other Great Search Forum Threads:

December 2019 AdSense Earnings & Observations, WebmasterWorld
Google showing content from top of the page instead of meta description, WebmasterWorld
Google back in EU’s antitrust crosshairs, WebmasterWorld
Incorrectly implemented lazy-loading can result in Googlebot not being able to see the content you’re lazy-loading. If that’s the case, then it can’t be indexed, and then the page won’t appear in, John Mueller on Twitter
It’s fine to use the Inspect URL & submit to indexing tools. However, I’d also recommend double-checking your site: is the internal linking OK? are you generating "too many" URLs? Is the site of the highest qualit, John Mueller on Twitter
Short URLs are different than the "actual" URLs, but since they redirect there, if Googlebot can follow the redirect, then that’s usually fine., Google Webmasters on Twitter
We deprecated the hash-bang / AJAX-crawling scheme quite some time ago; it’s recommended to move to a cleaner URL structure that doesn’t require "#" or "#!" URLs., Google Webmasters on Twitter
We try to match the title & snippet to the user’s query, to highlight how relevant the page is. Both title & snippet can change. For more information I’d check out the help center page at https://t.co/pphg, John Mueller on Twitter

Search Engine Land Stories:

How to manage search terms in the new match type world

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