Good morning, search marketers, we're sending reindexing thoughts your way.
Turns out the Google indexing glitch we reported over the weekend had not been as easily resolved as first thought. Many sites continued to see pages delisted from Google's search index — and were losing out on organic traffic to those pages as a result. Google said Sunday, there were still pages that need to be reprocessed which was taking longer than initially anticipated. What to do? You can remain patient — it should be resolved at some point today, says Google — or use the URL inspection tool in GSC to resubmit URLs to the index if you're still seeing issues. Google is still not saying what caused it or what percentage of the index was affected.
If your business has an Android app, you might see an option to view new Android app filters in the Google Search Console performance report to see how the app is performing in Google search. You'll need to have the app associated with your site in GSC. It also looks like we may soon be getting performance data on Google Discover traffic, too. Google Discover recently rebranded from Google Feed, and there are some special considerations when optimizing for it.
If you're optimizing for Amazon search, you know how important reviews are — both in volume and ratings. And you know how frustrating it is to compete against sellers with fake reviews. While Amazon has taken steps to combat fake reviews, going after buyers and sellers, it remains a problem. Yet, consumers largely trust reviews on Amazon, and for many, the number of ratings was the biggest deciding factor in their last purchase on Amazon, according to a new CPC Strategy survey. That does not mean you should go black hat, but it does underscore a need for more sweeping solutions and consumer awareness — Hello, FTC — and for having an above-board strategy for acquiring authentic reviews for your products.
Lots more below, including a Pro Tip on About pages and our latest Search Shorts.
Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief
Quick links to stories mentioned above:
+ Consumers largely unaware of fake reviews problem on Amazon
+ Google Search Console adds Android app filters to performance report
+ Google's de-indexing issue still not fully resolved but Google is working on it
+ How do you optimize for Google Discover?
