🔍 When SEOs are misquoted | Local algorithm changes

Nov 19, 2019

Good morning search marketers, happy Tuesday.

In a follow up to our earlier coverage, Barry Schwartz dove in deep with an examination of what the Wall Street Journal got wrong in its report on Google search last week. Barry heard from Glenn Gabe, who was misquoted in the WSJ piece, and from Rand Fishkin as well as others who, like Barry, had spoken with the WSJ writers about how Google search works months ahead of publication. It's worth your time.

In ads news, check to see if combined audiences are enabled in your Google Ads accounts. The new option is rolling out and allows you to build personas by layering affinity, in-market, retargeting, demographic and other audiences available in Google Ads with "And" functions. You can also exclude audiences for further precision. Happy persona building.

Google Maps is getting some social treatment with the ability to follow Local Guides, the legion of contributors to Google Maps. Users will be able to see Local Guides' recommendations of places to go and things to do from the "For You" tab in the Google Maps app — it is essentially a local discover feed, reports Greg Sterling.

Read on for a Pro Tip from local search expert Joy Hawkins on a recent algorithm update.

Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief

Pro Tip

Local SEOs still seeing volatility in ranking after latest update

"The changes we're seeing in the local results (Google Maps packs) seems very different from the last major update we got in Local SEO. I haven't seen this many drastic changes since Possum in 2016, which was a huge change to the way Google treated proximity," explains Joy Hawkins of Sterling Sky.

"For this update, the changes I'm noticing are mainly related to relevance. Specifically, I'm noticing that Google is doing a lot better job of understanding a broader set of search terms that apply to a single business. Previously, Google has always weighted Google My Business categories extremely high. Having the right categories could either make or break your ranking. Similarly, the primary category would influence ranking at a much higher rate than the additional categories. With this update, I'm seeing some changes to that."

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Search Shorts

Another Google search ranking update this weekend?

Google Search Update. Yet again this weekend, there is more chatter and signs of yet another Google search algorithm ranking update. We are watching it and will let you know if Google says anything.

Chrome mixed content. Google warns about the Chrome mixed content change. Does it affect your site's Googlebot rendering? Probably not!

Queries and intent. Here is a good line from John Mueller of Google: "those are different queries, with differing intents, and probably different competition. I don't see it unexpected that the rankings would differ, perhaps even significantly."