🔍 Page Experience update: SEOs on what to start evaluating now

Nov 20, 2020

Good morning Search Marketer, six months can feel like an eternity.

Particularly these last six… but that's about how long we have until the Page Experience update kicks in, and that kind of thing has a way of sneaking up on us. Page experience isn't just the purview of SEO after all, and there are likely to be lots of stakeholders involved in various decisions and processes. So how should you start preparing your organization or your clients?

George Nguyen spoke with Kim Dewe, head of SEO at UK-based agency Blue Array, former Googler Pedro Dias, now head of SEO at British publisher Reach PLC; Matt Dorville, SEO manager at BuzzFeed; and Alexis Sanders, SEO director at Merkle about the various factors to start considering well ahead of the Page Experience update.

Two quick things:

One, if you had a manual action showing in Google Search Console and then it suddenly disappeared, I'm sorry to tell you that doesn't mean the penalty has lifted. It's likely a bug — Google was looking into it.

Two, the Google Ads Insights page it teased last month is rolling out in beta in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia over the next few weeks.

Keep reading for more on what YouTube's latest ToS update means for advertisers (and creators) and more.

Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief

Social Short

YouTube to show ads on channels outside of the Partner Program

In it's latest terms of service update, YouTube creators agree to allow the service to monetize their content with ads (or by charging users for access) but are not necessarily entitled to revenue sharing. To be eligible for YouTube's revenue sharing Partner Program (YPP), channels need to have more than 4,000 watch hours in the past 12 months and have more than 1,000 subscribers among other requirements.

"This is part of our ongoing investments in new solutions, like Home Feed ads, that help advertisers responsibly tap into the full scale of YouTube to connect with their audiences and grow their businesses," said YouTube.

Why we care. For advertisers, the change means there's more advertising inventory on YouTube, which as the company noted, it has been focusing on. That begs the brand safety question. Do you want your ads on these channels?

YouTube says its brand suitability controls have gotten better since many advertisers boycotted the platform over ads running alongside objectionable content in 2017. "Over the past three years, we improved our ability to identify appropriate placements for advertisers, in part by working closely with our advertising partners and industry organizations," the company said.

For creators, of course, it means YouTube can start earning revenue from your content before you become eligible for YPP.

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Search Shorts

More on Google passage indexing.

More on Google passage indexing. Martin Splitt from Google was interviewed about passage indexing and he reiterated that (1) you do not optimize for them, if your site is well optimized, you are fine, this is just about Google being able to surface content within poorly optimized pages and (2) he described more about the difference between featured snippets and passages.

Google does test. Before Google launches new changes in search, it does test a lot. Even if you do not like the results, that does not mean Google did not test them, said John Mueller of Google.

Thanksgiving Google easter egg. If you launch Google translate within Google Search, Google will let you translate words into Turkey talk – gobble gobble.

Analyzing competition with SE Ranking tools

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Here's how to use SE Ranking tools to help understand who you are up against, learn your rival's best SEO tactics and always know which direction your competitors are heading.

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Are you ready for the future of search marketing?

Join 2020 Search Engine Land Award winners Areej AbuAli and Mike King for two forward-thinking keynotes, December 8-9, only at SMX. Reflect on what's changed — from evolving SERPs to new opportunities with A.I. — and prepare for what comes next!

Get the details here »