Hi SEO peeps, it’s Friday again meaning it’s the day for another SEO Update post. I hope y’all’s been enjoying these updates.

Now, without further ado, let’s get to the first update of the week!

13/6/2020 – Friendly reminder from Google – No, bounce rate is not a ranking factor

John Mueller once again confirmed during a Google Webmaster Hangout that no, bounce rate, the one you can get from Google Analytics is not taken in as a ranking factor.

Google has been pretty firm with that stance that says they do not take any of the data you can get from Analytics, such as bounce rate and exit rate directly, and use them as a ranking factor.

That didn’t stop a good number of SEO’s suspicion that Google is at least taking some form of time on page, some form of user’s action when they’re interacting with your page into account when ranking.

Though, Google is pretty firm in not spilling the beans on exactly what that is.

So while we’re waiting for Google to let us know what exactly goes into ranking – which we might never will get – here is a good blogpost about how user behavior can affect your rankings, read up!

13/6/2020 – Links on YouTube stays on YouTube

https://twitter.com/JohnMu/status/1271698632039948290

So now you know that dropping your website links under YouTube videos will not only be no help to your search rankings, it’s really just creating a nuisance to those there just to enjoy the video!

In other words, pam comments need to be gone.

But, if you’re dropping a link to be helpful and not trying to gain any kind of non-existing SEO benefits, you’re still fine in my book 😉

15/6/2020 – Google testing dropdown answer box in Image Search

Brian Freiesleben from Merkle has spotted dropdowns being featured in Image Search. These dropdowns are like little featured snippets for queries related to the item featured in the image.

Here’s the original tweet and some screenshots of what Brian noticed.

Dropdowns in image results on mobile. Anyone else spot this recently? pic.twitter.com/CJhwejkabf

— Brian Freiesleben (@type_SEO) June 15, 2020

16/6/2020 – First episode of Google’s Search Off the Record Podcast is live

https://twitter.com/googlewmc/status/1272879594476101632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

John Mueller, Gary Illyes, and Martin Splitt, who most SEOs should be familiar with are back to share more search tips right from Google.

The trio previously used the video format to tackle a few SEO topics like JavaScript, but this time they’re back with a podcast.

I personally haven’t got the chance to listen to it yet, but from the response it seems to be worth your time. Has anyone done listening to it? Let me know what you have learned from listening to the 3 Googlers!

17/6/2020 – Google Page Experience Update will measure sites based on their AMP pages

Google Page Experience Update is an upcoming Google Update that will happen in 2021, pre-announced back in May. 

John Mueller shed more light about the update in a Google Webmaster session. At the end of 2020, all websites should be switched to mobile-first indexing, in the case where the website also serves AMP pages, the Page Experience scores will be measured based on the AMP pages. Since that is what being served to mobile users. 

FYI, Core Web Vitals is a big part of this update which will focus measuring on web pages’ performance, which is then used to decide which pages get into Top Stories. 

Here’s the Webmaster office-hours recording from when John mentioned this.

18/26/2020 – Google launches Keen, a visual-based, Pinterest-esque website and app

According to this post from Google announcing the launch of Keen, it works by letting you choose a few topics that you’re interested in, the website will then curate contents based on your interests which you can then save.

Now, why does this matter to us SEOs, marketers, website owners?

1. Remember the complaints about Pinterest dominating numbers of queries after the May update?
2. Remember how both John Mueller and Gary Illyes has also been explicitly reminding the importance of image for search?

Because it showcases that image is still the next big thing for Google, they’re still pushing image to be bigger than what it is now.

I say let’s try to put more effort into images if we have the resource to do so, it might be that one thing that can separate your website as the best among the excellents.

And with that, I’m closing this week’s SEO update.

If you’ve enjoyed reading this, or if you have any SEO news you think is worthy to be included, just leave a comment below.

Thank you, and we’ll be back with another SEO News update next Friday.

Updated: 10 May 2024