Hey there SEO-enthusiasts, welcome to another week of SEO news. Let’s look at what’s on the menu for this week, shall we? 

• Google talks about Keyword Density and Word Count in their Digital Marketing Certification Coursework
• Google introduces a new Personal Information Removal Tool 
• Ahrefs introduces a new credit/report spending system

9/5 – Google talks about Keyword Density and Word Count in their Digital Marketing Certification Coursework 

Google’s digital marketing certification and courses are off to a rocky start as Google receives massive backlash following one of its slides within the course telling course takers to write more than 300 words on their web page as well as telling them to keep keywords to under 2% which is under the industry standard. 

The reason that this is receiving so much backlash is that Google has previously stated that SEOs or content writers should not focus on keyword density or word count. Danny Sullivan, Google’s public search liaison has subsequently stated that the people behind the recommendation are not part of the search team nor is Danny part of the team that produced the recommendation. 

Google has since removed the recommendations as seen below. 

What do you think? Was this an honest mistake? or could this be something that Google has let slip? 

Ahrefs introduces a new credit/report spending system

Ahrefs has recently introduced a new credit/report spending system that is receiving backlash on online SEO forums. The new credit spending system, inter alia, includes: 

• 1 credit to open any report whether it’s Backlink Profile, Organic search, Pages, Outgoing links, Paid search, or Legacy report. 
• 1 additional credit whenever you apply filters, change modes or pull additional information such as nested tables or charts which includes SERP overview, Position history, etc. 

When users exceed their allocated 500 reports, they automatically start consuming additional reports from a pool shared by all workspace users. Additional reports charged are done in blocks of 500 per month. Any unused additional reports are not carried over to the next month. 

So readers, if you have the time, do spend some time going through Ahref’s new credit spending system. It’s always best to be more informed to prevent yourself from being overcharged. 

12/5 – Google introduces a new Personal Information Removal Tool 

Google at their recent annual conference (more commonly known as Google I/O) will be introducing a new tool that will let you more easily request to remove their contact details such as home addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. This new tool will be available in the Google app and on individual Google search results.

Readers beware!

It is important to note that even with this new feature/tool, Google may deny your request for removal if it determines that leaving the information intact is in the “public interest,” perhaps because of its newsworthiness or because it is part of a public record on a government site. 

Moreover, even if Google agrees to remove your information from its search results, the material may show up in other search engines’ results, on social media, or on websites. 

And, scene!

That is it for this week’s SEO news folks. What do you think about this week’s news? I feel there is some pretty spicy news this week so don’t forget to leave your thoughts below. Till next time!

Updated: 22 November 2024