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This week was packed with algorithm and ranking topics but not the typical unconfirmed Google updates. We had Google officially begin rolling out the desktop version of the page experience update, it will take several weeks to fully rollout. I am also seeing an unconfirmed update start to roll out yesterday into today. Google quietly announced the Google Shopping experience scorecard that will give a ranking boost to those merchants that provide excellent customer experiences, it is a bit controversial right now. Google said it has strengthened the DMCA/Pirate update and if a site is hit by it, on average that site drops 89% in search traffic. Google Shopping search might not support keyword exclusions, which is weird. Google said while there is no EAT score, EAT is important and indirectly used for ranking. Google said when it comes to pagination, think about showing newer content closer to the first page of the pagination set. Google said your web stories performance in search is not indicative of your overall search performance. Google said the referring URLs in the URL inspection tool is not really important. Google said using the Indexing API for other content that it is not meant for, won’t hurt you. Google said it fixed the high latency issues and error messages in the Google Ads console. Over 70% of search marketers said their CPC costs are up from last year. Google said standard shopping campaigns will continue to be supported for the foreseeable future. Google is testing three images in search ads, each taking you to a different landing page. Google is testing a messaging feature for Google Merchant Center sites in Google Shopping. Google AdSense is adding an AdSense for YouTube section, which is really not a great thing. Microsoft Advertising launched dynamic descriptions for DSAs. Google image search is testing rounded corners on images. And if you want to help sponsor those vlogs, go to patreon.com/barryschwartz. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

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Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

I am seeing signs of an unconfirmed Google search ranking update, I don’t think it is related to the page experience update. Google Shopping is testing messaging with customers within Google Merchant Center. Google is testing three image links in search ads. Google still is not going to recognize SEOs or give them official stamp of approvals and certification. Google said absolute or relative links are not slower or faster.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On February 24th (Unconfirmed)
  I am seeing new signs of a possible, but yet, unconfirmed Google Search ranking algorithm update that seemed to touch down on Thursday, February 24th. To be honest, this is most likely unrelated to the desktop version of the page experience update that started on Thursday, February 22nd.
• Google Testing Messaging For Google Shopping & Google Merchant Center
  Google seems to be testing a form of messaging between businesses and merchants that use Google Merchant Center. Google said in an email to some Google Merchants that it is testing a “new messaging pilot to help you connect with customers and improve your sales through Google Shopping.”
• Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Page Experience Update For Desktop, Shopping Experience Scorecard, Stronger Pirate Update & Google Ads Latency
  This week was packed with algorithm and ranking topics but not the typical unconfirmed Google updates. We had Google officially begin rolling out the desktop version of the page experience update…
• Google Tests Three Image Links In Mobile Search Ads
  Google is testing an ad format, that I think is new, where it has three images in the ad, all that link to different landing pages. So if you click on one image, it takes you to one unique URL, if you click on a different image in the ad, it takes you to a different unique URL.
• Google SEO Recognition Or Stamp Of Approvals Does Not Exist
  Google’s John Mueller if a claim found on an SEO website that says “recognized by Google as an agencies as SEO specialists in SEO for Real Estates” is legit. The answer is no, Google does not provide certification or approvals for SEO agencies.
• Google Link Speed Difference Between Absolute Vs Relative Links – Nah…
  Is there a speed difference between using absolute versus relative links and if so, does it matter to Google. I am pretty sure there is no speed difference and I am confident that either way, it won’t matter for Google SEO reasons.
• Happy Googler at Google
  Here is a smiley Googler standing in front of a Google sign whiteboard at the Google Dublin office. She looks happy and she has been at Google for two and a half years as a Senior Digital Marketing C

Other Great Search Threads:

Search Engine Land Stories:

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

Industry & Business

Links & Content Marketing

Local & Maps

Mobile & Voice

SEO

PPC

Search Features

Feedback:

Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, you can follow us on Facebook and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.

Did you know that 15% of all search queries have never been searched before? Well, that’s according to Google in a recent tweet. We don’t know about you, but we think it clearly highlights the fact that keyword research should be an ongoing process.

The last two weeks have seen several small feature releases and updates from both Google and Bing. Google is trialing a new section called “Buying Guides” in search results that may present opportunities for content marketers. The prioritization of local news in search results is also highly positive. 

Bing has also made some notable changes. Automobile-related results are showing on search pages. And PubHub has been incorporated into webmaster tools. 

Finally, Search Advocate John Mueller clarified several long-standing SEO questions. If you’ve ever wondered about whether or not to display CTAs above the fold, change dates after updating content, or use original photography, you’ll be interested in his answers. 

Let’s dig into all the latest SEO updates, feature releases, and analysis from the last two weeks. 

Google Trials Buying Guides

A new feature called Google Buying Guides is currently being trialed by the search engine. The widget currently appears for some product-related terms in mobile results. Users can choose from various options, including content suggestions that review searched-for products in more depth. 

While this feature is still embryonic, it is potentially very good news for content marketers. Buying Guides widgets use dropdowns that, when selected, describe a certain type of product – such as “baseball bats” – in more depth. These dropdowns display third-party content.

As a publisher, having your content shown here has obvious benefits in terms of generating site traffic. If Google decides on a full rollout, you should seriously consider optimizing your content to increase its chances of appearing. 

Google Prioritizes Local News Publications

Google announced that it would be giving greater priority to local news publications by including them in Top Stories, a widget that appears in generic search results. It is also giving publishers more control over which stories appear in the local section of the Google News aggregator. 

This is excellent news for small news websites which have to fight with large publications for a limited amount of search real estate.

In a post published on its main blog, The Keyword, Google said: “Today, we’re doing more to make it easier to find local publishers in Google News Showcase by bringing their panels into the local section of Google News. News Showcase publishers hand pick the content for these local panels, enabling them to highlight the most important stories of the day in their area and giving them another powerful way to deepen their relationship with readers.”

Bing Adds Automobile Search Features

Microsoft Bing has added new automobile features to its search pages. Browsers that search for car-related terms will see a dedicated area displaying a selection of cars that are listed on the MSN Autos Marketplace. Bing has also included filters for narrowing down results by budget, year of manufacture, color, and so on. 

This new feature will be of interest to car dealers and individuals in the process of selling their cars (listing on MSN autos is straightforward). From a more general perspective, it will also prove beneficial to buyers forced to navigate a tumultuous and often under-supplied post-COVID car market. 

Bing Incorporates PubHub into Webmaster Tools

News PubHub, a Bing service that helps news publishers distribute their content, has been moved to the Webmaster Tools console. It was previously accessed via its own site, which is still live but now links to Bing Webmaster. 

If you are a news site and have not already submitted your site for inclusion in the Bing news index, you can do so by following the PubHub guidelines. You can check your approval status from within the Webmaster console. 

Publishers will also have access to extra analytics features that allow them to see how readers are interacting with their stories in real time.

This should enable them to respond quickly to trends, add context to stories, and organize their panels more effectively. 

John Mueller Clears Up Issues Around CTAs Above the Fold

Although this isn’t a major announcement, it relates to a point of contention that is often raised in SEO circles. Ask the question, “Is it bad to put CTAs above the fold?” and you’ll get a whole range of differing responses. 

Well, not anymore. Google Search advocate John Mueller has said in no uncertain terms that it doesn’t matter. He said, “Google search doesn’t say anything about CTA buttons.”

If you’ve been concerned about displaying an opt-in or other call-to-action above the fold, you’re safe to do so as it might lead to more direct response conversions. However, keep in mind that above-the-fold CTAs are not pop-ups, which can be detrimental to rankings. 

Change Dates in Certain Circumstances, Says John Mueller

When should you change the publication date of evergreen or partially evergreen content? 

In a recent tweet, Search Advocate John Mueller said, “When you write something new, or significantly change something existing, then change the date.”

This might seem like common sense advice, but it’s worth restating here because it’s an area of common confusion. It means that date changes are sometimes warranted but not in all cases.

“Fake changing” dates can lead to penalties and doesn’t represent a good way of letting Google know that evergreen content is still relevant despite remaining the same. And only minor changes and reviews probably don’t warrant a date change (an in-content note is preferable). “Significant” is the key word here. 

John Mueller Recommends Using Original Photographs in Product Reviews

John Mueller has said that websites publishing product guides and reviews should use their own photographs. Original images may positively affect rankings after a manual site review by a member of Google’s Quality Rater team. 

In an SEO office-hours hangout on the 4th of February, John Mueller said, “I think the guidelines that we have for reviews, or the recommendations that we have, should really be focused on unique photos that you create of these products, so not artificial review photos.”

To close out this edition of SEO Bright Now, I leave you with a few SEO jokes:

• How does an SEO drink their tea? They serrrrrp it. 
• How do SEOs cut their hair? They snippet. 
• What kind of music do SEOs like to listen to? Heavy meta.

Social media metrics like engagement, reach, audience growth, and many others are essential for measuring and improving the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. They are relevant to all outcomes, whether you’re generating new customers, deepening engagement with your existing followers, or simply building brand awareness. 

What’s more, social media metrics allow you to demonstrate a clear return on investment (ROI) from social media spend. Great for justifying your expenditure to pesky upper management, right? 

The world’s most popular platform, Facebook, had 2.9 billion monthly users at the end of 2021. It’s understandable why businesses of all shapes and sizes are eager to take advantage of this vast source of potential traffic, leads and customers. 

Let’s look at the most important social media metrics and how you can use them to drive tangible results for your company. 

Why Are Social Media Metrics Important 

Social media metrics allow organizations to measure the success of their overall social media marketing strategy.

With a suitable collection of metrics, it’s possible to track fans and followers as they turn into subscribers, customers, repeat customers, advocates, and so on. Metrics enable you to tie user actions to specific stages of your sales funnel and equally important, to identify parts of your customer journey that require attention due to high levels of abandonment. 

Social media metrics are also vital when it comes to making improvements to specific campaigns. They provide valuable insights about your content, audience and potential clients, all of which can be used to make incremental changes and optimizations. 

Biggest Social Media Networks by Number of Users

Here’s an overview of the largest social networks by users, as reported by Statista at the beginning of 2022:

• Facebook – 2,910 million
• YouTube – 2,562 million
• WhatsApp – 2,000 million
• Instagram – 1,478 million
• TikTok – 1000 million
• LinkedIn – 810 million

10 Social Media Metrics That Matter: An Overview

There are dozens of social media metrics. Unfortunately, trying to incorporate every single one into your analytics strategy will do little more than give you a headache.

It’s important to track the metrics that are most relevant to your business goals. Some of these metrics will be available directly from social media analytics platforms, while others will require you to configure your tracking software. 

1. Engagement – Engagement is calculated by dividing the total number of meaningful audience actions (likes, comments, shares, etc.) by the total number of impressions. You can calculate this metric at both a granular level (for individual pieces of content) and a general one (for all the content associated with a campaign). 

2. Brand awareness – Generally speaking, “brand awareness” is measured by tracking the number of mentions that your brand receives over a period of time. It is possible to correlate social media activity with general brand awareness and thus gain insights into the effectiveness of a particular campaign.

3. Audience growth – Like engagement, audience growth is calculated at both a platform-specific granular level and in terms of all social media accounts. It is a measure of the number of new followers that you gained over a week, month, or quarter relative to the previous period. 

4. Content reach – “Post reach” is a standard metric that should be available from your social platforms’ analytics dashboards. It refers to the number of people that have seen a piece of content. It is useful because it helps you determine when to publish content to achieve maximum exposure. 

5. Share of voice (SoV) – Share of voice is a similar metric to brand awareness but measures how much exposure your brand is receiving compared to your competitors. It is calculated by tracking the brand mentions of several companies over a period of time and applying a percentage value to the proportion of attention they receive. 

6. Click-through rate (CTR) – Click-through rate is a well-known metric used to gauge the effectiveness of both organic content and ads. It refers to the percentage of people that interact with your content by clicking a link and tells you whether or not your call to action (CTA) is effective. CTR is important for determining your ROI on ad spend. 

7. Cost-per-click (CPC) – Cost-per-click represents the average amount you pay for a click on an ad. Like CTR, when you have a clear understanding of the cost-per-click for paid ads, you can use it to calculate higher-level metrics like cost per lead and client acquisition cost. 

8. On-site bounce rate – Your on-site bounce rate of traffic arriving on your site through social media is important because it allows you to gauge the effectiveness of your landing pages. You might have the most impressive social media strategy of all your competitors. But if your landing pages are subpar, you’re needlessly throwing away traffic.

9. Influencer score – An influencer score tells you how popular you are on a particular platform. It is a useful general indicator of your relative reach and prominence over time. Influencer scores are generated using proprietary algorithms by companies like Klear. 

10. Return on investment (ROI) –  Your overall return on investment (ROI) is ultimately the single best barometer of the effectiveness of a social media campaign. ROI is relatively easy to track for paid campaigns. However, it is also possible to calculate ROI for “organic” activities by linking content spend to engagement, site traffic and leads. 

How to Execute a Data-Driven Social Media Campaign: 

Building a successful social media campaign is a sequential process. Once you have determined your goals and picked corresponding metrics to measure your progress, you can start thinking about content. 

Follow the steps below to execute a social media campaign: 

1. Set out concrete, measurable goals – Are you aiming for brand awareness? New leads? Long-term customers? Be specific about the outcomes you are seeking.

2. Link marketing activities to specific stages of your sales funnel – Who are you targeting? A campaign that retargets existing customers will look very different from one designed to elicit interest from users new to your brand. 

3. Evaluate existing content based on audience engagement data – Existing content that has generated high levels of engagement should act as a guide for your new content. 

4. Update and create shareable, on-topic content – Ensure that your content creation processes account for evidence-based principles that lead to greater shareability and virality. 

5. Set up your tracking infrastructure – Some metrics will be available from within the dashboard of the social media platform you are using. Others will only be accessible in third-party analytics tools. Ensure that your tech stack is complete before you start publishing content. 

6. Review and refine going forward – The difference between a novice content marketer and a veteran one lies in their respective abilities to optimize their strategies through ongoing testing. The review and refine process should occur during a campaign, not once it has finished. 

So there you have it! All the ingredients to cook up a hard-hitting, lead-driving, revenue-generating social media campaign. 

Interested in learning more about social media? Check out some of the in-depth articles from BrightEdge listed below. 

Related Resources From BrightEdge

NAP is an acronym that stands for “Name, Address and Phone Number.” It’s a core concept in search engine optimization because Google uses NAP when ranking local results. 

If you operate a local business, either in the form of an independent outlet or a chain of local branches, it’s essential that your website and business profile are NAP-optimized. Failure to do so will result in lost rankings, traffic, and customers. 

In this guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know about NAP. We’ll define key terms, explain why NAP is important within the broader field of SEO, and show you how to optimize for NAP. 

What Is NAP?

In an SEO context, NAP refers to the information that local businesses include in their various listings across the web. If NAP references are consistent across different sources, Google knows that they are correct and can confidently display a company’s details to searchers. 

What Are Citations?

To leverage NAP ranking factors fully, it’s necessary to understand how the broader search process works. Local search results – also called the “Local Pack” – are shown in a dedicated section before generic search results. A map is displayed above local business listings. 

Google first determines if a keyword has geographical or “local” intent. That is, if the searcher is looking for a result tied to a particular location, such as a hair salon or bookshop. This is known as “geo-targeting.”

Google then algorithmically ranks business profiles in local results according to a range of local factors. These include keywords in an organization’s Google Business Profile, past customer reviews, the user’s IP location, and NAP citations.

A citation is a business listing published on a third-party site. Nation-wide and global business directories like Yelp have extensive collections of business entries. But local online publications are also taken into account. 

Why Is NAP Important for Local SEO?

Google looks at two NAP-related factors (among a myriad of other ranking elements) when determining where to rank a local business: the number of citations and their consistency. Having a large number of consistent citations across the web is the ideal outcome from an SEO perspective. 

If Google finds discrepancies in data when comparing different sites and business listings, it can’t be sure of the information it displays to searchers. 

It’s also worth keeping in mind that NAP consistency is important from a user experience perspective. Customers often use third-party sites to check a company’s name, address, and phone number. A lack of consistency across listings creates confusion and interrupts the buyer journey. 

What Are the Consequences of Poorly Optimized NAP Listings?

Consumer behavior data shows that a typical customer will interact with a business across multiple online touchpoints—including its Google Business Profile, Google Maps, its company website, and third-party directories—before making an in-store purchase. 

To successfully complete their journey, a customer requires access to consistent information across all touchpoints. 

For example, let’s say an internet browser encounters your brand through an ad on a website. They then use Google Maps to check the location of the nearest store before visiting your website to browse products. 

Finally, they decide to visit your store to make a purchase, checking the address in your business listing in Yelp. If the addresses displayed in Google Maps and Yelp don’t match up, it is more difficult for the customer to make a purchase. This increases the likelihood that they will lose confidence, abandon the customer journey or report a low level of satisfaction. 

How to Optimize NAP for SEO:
A 5-Step Guide

Optimizing NAP information for SEO is both a straightforward and ongoing process. It’s important to ensure that current citations and new citations are correct and up-to-date. 

Take the following steps to optimize your NAP details for search:

1. Display information clearly and correctly on your “personal assets” 

First, check NAP information is visible and free of errors on your website and Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business).

Use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to determine which Schema.org markup to use. 

2. Ensure that NAP citations are consistent across the web 

Google cross-references NAP citations on different websites, so ensure consistency across sources as best you can.

In particular, check popular business directories like Yelp, Yahoo Business Listings, Facebook, and so on, along with local listings in your area. Numerous tools can help to find your listings across the web.

3. Continue to add your business to directories 

NAP consistency is a key ranking factor. But it’s also essential to think about citation quantity. Continue to add your business to established directories to increase the number of citations around the web. This strategy will positively impact your local rankings. 

4. Follow best local SEO practices for multiple locations

If you manage multiple locations, follow best practices for local SEO, with separate site pages for each store and unique business profiles. 

5. Remember to update all listings if your NAP changes 

If you change your company’s name, address, or phone number, modify all listings across the web. Keep an up-to-date database of listings to streamline the process of updating NAP details. 

6. Avoid using different numbers for tracking purposes 

Sometimes, businesses will use unique phone numbers to track traffic from different directories. This approach is best avoided as it can result in Google treating each listing as a separate location. 

Related Resources from BrightEdge

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Google Ads said it fixed the high latency issues and weird error messages that were frustrating advertisers for days. Google Ads launched enhanced conversions for leads. Google image search is testing rounded corners. Google’s John Mueller explained when you should make a blog. Google AdSense for YouTube section is coming to the YouTube studio.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Google Ads Fixed The Latency Issues & Weird Error Messages In Ad Console
  It seems like for the past few days advertisers have been complaining about the Google Ads console being slow with some latency issues and sometimes that weird error messages were coming up. This lead to a lot of frustration and slowed down some PPC marketers day-to-day jobs. Well, as of last night at 9pm ET, Google said they fixed those issues.
• Google To Add AdSense For YouTube Section To AdSense Console & YouTube Studio
  A month ago we reported how Google has changed the AdSense earnings thresholds to be distinct between normal AdSense earnings and YouTube AdSense earnings. Well, Google announced related to that in March, Google will roll out the new AdSense for YouTube homepage by navigating to AdSense from within YouTube Studio.
• Google Ads Rolls Out Enhanced Conversions For Leads
  As reported by George Nguyen, Google is now officially launching enhanced conversions for leads. Google has enhanced conversion for web for about a year, but recently added this for leads.
• Google’s John Mueller On When You Should Make A Blog
  Google’s John Mueller posted on Reddit about when he thinks one should pursue starting down the journey of a blog. Of course, I know something about blogging and I have to say, his advice is dead on with something I’d agree with.
• Google Image Search Tests Rounded Corners On Images
  Google Image Search is testing rounding the corners on the images it displays in the search results. This is instead of showing squared off corners, Google is rounding the corners to give it a little more – um – pizzaz?
• A Google S2 Infra Fleece, Is That Search Infrastructure?
  Here is a new Google fleece I spotted on Twitter with a Google Cloud like logo that says S2 Infra on it. Does that stand for search infrastructure? The guy who shared it does work at Google in the

Other Great Search Threads:

• Google changed the look of the government help info section at the top of addiction treatment search results. Original article with old design: https://t.co/AbSsbvsKMv New design screenshot:, Michelle Kubot Segovia on Twitter
• SEO Experiment: Will Google find URLs which have no normal links pointing to them, but via hreflang meta tags only? Initial result: No Test details: On 2/11 I created an Italian version of my personal website homepage and used hr, Stephen on Twitter
• Topics: The new Privacy Sandbox proposal for interest-based advertising, Google Ads Help
• “Does migrating a website’s hosting location to another country affect SEO?” is a question @JohnMu often hears. Watch our latest episode of #AskGooglebot for the answer, Google Search Central on Twitter
• Are policies a type of documentation, or do you see them as separate things? currently thinking about how case studies seem to be different type of thing, but policies are more mysterious (are they or aren’t they documentation), Lizzi on Twitter
• Cute one… “Page indexed without content”, Barry Schwartz on Twitter
• Fixed indented parsing in MozCast. Here’s the current prevalence of page-one indented result counts in our data set (as of this morning): 1 = 27.6% 2 = 7.6% 3 = 2.0% 4 = 0.4% 5 = 0.1%, Dr. Pete Meyers on Twitter
• It’s easy to fret too much over headings — use them as headings, and don’t worry too much about the rest. With HTML5 it’s common to have multiple sets of headings too, that’s also fine., John Mueller on Twitter
• Off hand, this reminds me a bit of the cloaking, redirecting ads that used to make it through ad networks (check for users in locales or on certain mobile providers, redirect to spam / malware). It wouldn’t, John Mueller on Twitter
• Sounds like DuckDuckGo (& really Bing) might need to focus more on E-A-T -> Fed Up With Google, Conspiracy Theorists Turn to DuckDuckGo (results provided by Bing) “For many terms, Bing & DuckDuckGo surfaced more untrustworthy, Glenn Gabe on Twitter
• lM How do you mean? (It’s good to take a critical view of your own content, sometimes that’s the first step towards improvement.), John Mueller on Twitter
• We don’t differentiate. If something has useful & relevant content, if users find it helpful, we’ll try to show it for relevant queries. For example, most sites use CMSs – and CMSs are essentially just web apps, John Mueller on Twitter

Search Engine Land Stories:

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

Industry & Business

Links & Content Marketing

Local & Maps

Mobile & Voice

SEO

PPC

Search Features

Feedback:

Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, you can follow us on Facebook and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Google has started to roll out the desktop version of the Google Page Experience Update – big whoop. Google Merchant Center has a new “shopping experience scorecard” and if you prove that you provide excellent customer experience, Google may give you a boost and more visibility in Google Shopping. Most advertisers said that Google Ads CPCs costs are up this year compared to last. Google AdSense publisher reports seem off, the homepage report is showing much lower earnings than the other reports. Microsoft Advertising launched dynamic descriptions ad texts for DSAs.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Other Great Search Threads:

• I feel a @gregfinn Hulk moment coming on 🙂 -> Microsoft Ads announces auto-apply recommendations “By default advertisers will be opted in to auto-apply for all the 5 recommendation types” Although you can easily opt-out, rece, Glenn Gabe on Twitter
• Having links between the language versions of a site / page seems like a baseline usability element. That’s something I’d always recommend. I would not rely on hreflang to enable crawling of inte, John Mueller on Twitter
• How AI works in everyday life | Google AI, Barry Schwartz on Twitter
• I’m so very sad to hear about the passing of @aperfectcircle0 host of the CMO Asia Podcast 😢 I had the wonderful opportunity to meet him at Shenzhen in 2019 at an event, spent the day sightseeing with ot, Aleyda Solis on Twitter
• It’s possible to rely on a single source of traffic with SEO too though. IMO it’s critical to plan accordingly & diversify. Search can & does change over time; don’t make your site subject of the next., John Mueller on Twitter
• The Microsoft Bing team continues evolving search to be more relevant, visually immersive, and inspirational. Check out some of our new experiences across Bing that help you find ideas and information quickly and intuitively., Jordi Ribas on Twitter
• There is no generally valid answer to that question, sorry., John Mueller on Twitter

Search Engine Land Stories:

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

Industry & Business

Links & Content Marketing

Local & Maps

Mobile & Voice

SEO

PPC

Search Features

Other Search

Feedback:

Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, you can follow us on Facebook and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.

At its international developer conference, Google I/O, in 2014, Google called for “HTTPS everywhere.” The push for a secure web sits at the heart of Google’s philosophy and directly impacts its search algorithm. 

As a search engine optimizer, it’s imperative to understand the difference between HTTP and HTTPS, along with how the protocol underlying both works and how to create your site in line with best HTTPS practices. By doing so, you are set up for the secure transfer of data, fostering user trust, and achieving the highest possible rankings for your site. 

What are HTTP, HTTPS, SLS, TLS and HSTS?

The abbreviations HTTP, HTTPS, SSL, TLS, and HSTS all refer to different aspects of the same technology. Understanding how they function and overlap will ensure that you can use them effectively when optimizing your website. 

Here are brief definitions of each of the terms:

HTTP – HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. It is an internet communication, or “application layer” protocol that enables the transfer of information between connected devices. In non-tech terms, HTTP is essentially the set of rules that computers on the internet follow to communicate with each other. Whenever you visit a website, your browser retrieves information from a host server using HTTP. There was, however, one significant downside to HTTP. When you use standard HTTP to send information, like bank details or a personal address, to a website, you do so in plain text. As a consequence, anybody that intercepts your connection could access your data. 

HTTPS – HTTPS is an abbreviation for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. It is based on the same underlying technology as HTTP but adds several layers of security that protect information during transit: encryption, data integrity, and authentication. HTTPS represents an important innovation because it acts as a safeguard for internet browsers against data theft. 

SSL and TLS – HTTPS relies on secure socket layers (SSL) certificates to work. In order to establish an HTTPS connection, an SSL certificate must be installed on a website. Transport Layer Security (TLS) is the modern version of SSL, although the two terms are often and incorrectly used interchangeably. TLS is the technology responsible for encrypting information prior to transit.

HSTS – HTTP Strict Transport Security is a protocol that ensures a browser retrieves an HTTPS site, even if the HTTP version is requested. It is supported alongside HTTPS and recommended by Google. 

Is HTTPS a Ranking Factor?

In a word, yes. Google has said explicitly that it takes HTTPS into account when evaluating sites. And there’s extensive documentation covering how to secure websites with HTTPS on Google Search Central. 

In fact, Google actively penalizes websites that don’t use the HTTPS protocol, as part of its broader commitment to a secure web. Importantly this also applies to mixed content. The term “mixed content” refers to secure URLs that include page elements that are delivered through HTTP and, as a result, are unsecure. 

“The future of the web is a secure one, so make sure people in your organization understand HTTPS. It should be on the roadmap.” Thao Tran, Global Product Partnerships at Google, speaking at BrightEdge’s SHARE16.

What Are the Drawbacks of HTTP?

Let’s take a look at the main drawbacks associated with HTTP. Investor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, outlined several security issues in 1999. 

Here is a brief overview of the main points: 

• Leakage of personal information – HTTP clients can “leak” sensitive information when interacting with other sources.
• Abuse of server log information – Interception of information about browsing activity stored on server logs can be used to identify an individual’s online behavior. 
• Unsecure transfer of sensitive information – As a generic protocol, HTTP has no control over data based on its content. 
• Encoding of sensitive information in URLs – Including the source of a link in a request can potentially disclose private information. 
• Privacy issues associated with accept-request headers – The content of accept-request headers can reveal information, particularly related to location, to a server. 
• Attacks based on file and path names – Bad actors can potentially access prohibited areas of a site’s directory by navigating up the directory taxonomy via HTTP requests. 
• DNS spoofing – HTTP client reliance on the Domain Name Service (DNS) makes it possible for bad actors to mis-associate IP addresses and domain names. 
• Authentication credentials and idle web clients – HTTP provides no means of discarding cached authentication details. 
• Proxies and caching – The nature of HTTP proxies lend them to man-in-the-middle or “eavesdropping” attacks. 
• Denial of service attacks on proxies – Denial of service attacks on HTTP proxies have been documented. 

You can read more about each of these points (and others not mentioned here) by reading section fifteen of Tim Berners-Lee’s memo. 

What Are the Benefits of HTTPS?

Outside of improving the chances that your site will rank highly in Google search results, HTTPS also provides additional benefits.

HTTPS overcomes the shortcomings described above by leveraging three technologies: 

• Encryption – Data is encrypted during transit so malicious third parties can’t “listen in”
• Data integrity – Data cannot be modified during transit without detection
• Authorization – The server authenticates the user to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks

As soon as you switch your website to HTTPS, your users will automatically enjoy greater protection as a result of these security features. 

How to Switch from HTTP to HTTPS

Fortunately, switching from HTTP to HTTPS isn’t as significant an undertaking as it was a few years ago. In many cases, your web hosting service will organize the transition (if your site isn’t already using HTTPS) and renew your certificates automatically. 

Follow the six steps below to ensure a successful transition to HTTPS: 

1. Purchase an SSL/TLS certificate – An SSL certificate authenticates your website’s identity and allows for the encryption of data before transfer. 
2. Install it on your website – SSL certificates are small data files stored on your website’s server. Before you can create secure, encrypted connections, you will need to install your certificate. 
3. Ensure all internal links use HTTPS – You should ensure all internal website links use HTTPS URLs. Failure to account for remaining HTTP links can cause navigation and SEO problems. 
4. Set up 301 redirects from HTTP to HTTPS – 301 redirects let Google know that you have updated your site and reroute visitors using old URLs to the correct pages. 
5. Implement HTS – HTTP Strict Transport Security is a mechanism that ensures all connections to your site use HTTPS. Once you have installed your SSL certificate, implementing HTS is a straightforward process that involves adding several lines of code to the appropriate site file. 
6. Check indexation – Make sure you don’t have HTTP versions of web pages being crawled and indexed by search engines. To check this, type in “site:http://example.com” into Google search to see if any are still being indexed.

Download the Brightedge HTTP migration checklist to ensure a smooth transition from HTTP to HTTPS. Google Search Central also has extensive documentation about how to avoid common mistakes. 

Conclusion: One Piece in the SEO Puzzle

Search engine optimization can seem like a jigsaw puzzle, with lots of different pieces including technical, on/off page, content and more. Businesses take account of a myriad of ranking factors, testing approaches, leveraging best practices and weave them into an effective SEO strategy. 

HTTPS is one piece of that jigsaw puzzle. Migrating from HTTP to HTTPS is both straightforward and absolutely essential from an SEO perspective. If your site still uses HTTP, now is the time to transition to HTTPS. Once you see the increase in rankings, you’ll only wish you’d done it sooner. 

Fifteen years ago, Lem and I started BrightEdge because we saw a huge gap in digital. Brands were investing to produce and optimize content but had no way to predict what would make that content findable by their customers. I had myself run websites and knew how hard it was to figure this out. 

Lem and I are both engineers and we worked hard to build the DataCube, the first reverse index of the internet. I will never forget how it felt when our first customers shared with us how we had helped them. It was exciting to hear about BrightEdge working as we had designed it – and even more exciting to hear about new use cases that our customers discovered on their own. 

That is because SEO is by its nature holistic. Every element of a page influences how it ranks in search: the title, the content, how fast it loads, everything. Our dream has always been to create that holistic platform that helps marketers win at every aspect of search. And so that early success of DataCube inspired us to build ContentIQ as part of our solution in 2017, allowing for cross-team governance and SEO technical analysis on an enterprise scale. We also created pixel parsing, allowing for a truer vision of top ranking SERPs. And with Autopilot, we created the only machine learning solution that improves search performance. 

Now, we are so excited to announce that we are extending our holistic platform even further by joining forces with Oncrawl. BrightEdge and Oncrawl have combined because holistic SEO is not easy. Getting it right requires high quality enterprise data with multiple technical capabilities. At BrightEdge, we have a comprehensive SEO suite and adding Oncrawl’s advanced technical SEO capabilities through data science will represent the future of enterprise SEO.   

Oncrawl pioneered big data infrastructure in crawl technology as well as semantic analysis of SEO data, allowing for much more control and visibility. Oncrawl has rapidly become a must-have for advanced SEOs and has won numerous awards.  Oncrawl leadership shares our dream of holistic SEO and has built a following of SEO ambassadors in the industry.   

Through technical innovation, Oncrawl is positioning itself to be the driving force behind making data science core to SEO programs. With this new combination, BrightEdge and Oncrawl now provide customers with the most flexibility in SEO deployments. For SEO, some scenarios require technical crawlers to be integrated into a broader platform for things like site governance and ongoing SEO hygiene. Other scenarios demand highly customized crawls and data modeling to pinpoint what optimizations need to occur. Accommodating both is complicated for enterprise organizations, especially if they need to leverage multiple toolsets to address all these use cases. 

We are truly excited – I have never encountered a team with a vision like this. Oncrawl is as committed as we are to building AI and machine learning that helps marketers. Together we bring you the most comprehensive SEO and data platform.  

Thank you and looking forward to the next fifteen! 
Jim

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Google released a document that shares that the decade old DMCA / Pirate update can reduce traffic to a site on average by 89% and Google made some improvements to it around redirects. Google said the URL inspection tool referring page is not an important piece of information. Google Shopping added short title attributes. Google Shopping search seems not to use exclusion words. Microsoft Bing is testing colorized search ads and organic results.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Google Strengthens The Pirate (DMCA) Penalty Algorithm
  Google sent a document to the U.S. Copyright Office that explains how Google’s DMCA update (aka the Pirate update) has been strengthened by (1) catching redirect schemes and (2) a site hit by this demotion on average sees a 89% drop in Google search traffic.
• Google: URL Inspection Tool Referring Page Not Really Important
  Google’s John Mueller said the URLs listed in the “referring page” section of the URL Inspection Tool is not really important. It is just a technical thing showing which URL(s) Google first discovered the page. It has not quality indication and not something to be concerned with, according to John.
• Google Shopping Adds Short Title Attribute
  Google Merchant Center has added support to Google shopping feeds for a short title attribute. You can use the short title [short_title] attribute to briefly and clearly identify the product you’re selling, Google said.
• Google Shopping Search Might Not Support Excluding Keywords
  Google Search has long supported excluding words from your search by adding a minus sign before the word in the search box. But there are numerous complaints that this does not work in Google’s Shopping search results.
• Bing Colorized Backgrounds For Search Ads & More
  Microsoft is testing or rolling out colorized background patterns for search ads, shopping search ads. Frank Sandtmann, a German based SEO, notified me of this, he saw it in the Bing Image search results but I see them in the main Bing web search results.
• Google Chrome T-Rex Dinosaur Beanie Winter Hat
  Who doesn’t love the Chrome T-Rex dinosaur game? Well, now you can get it on a Google beanie winter hat, if you can find it. This was some swag shared on Twitter the other day.

Other Great Search Threads:

• I’m starting to believe the only people who count words are teachers and SEOs. Search engines definitely don’t count words., John Mueller on Twitter
• A MEGA video segment from @johnmu about how, and why, crawling could be impacted. Covers server issues, crawl rate, response time, Core Web Vitals, moving to a new CDN or hosting provider, specifying a crawl rate in GSC, repor, Glenn Gabe on Twitter
• Don’t get hung up on the / vs non-/, just think of it as a redirected URL getting another address. Ideally redirect directly to the final location from any URL that’s getting traffic (and update your links). Don’, John Mueller on Twitter
• So here are some nuggets for you. For $200k we sponsored: – 72 videos – 108 podcast episodes – 138 newsletter issues – 11 standalone projects and events – 9 blog articles – 7 SMM campaigns Total unique partnerships signed: 60, Tim Soulo on Twitter
• Sucks to be Wired with this broken mobile SERP listing I’m seeing. Their listing is completely botched (and I checked across devices, in Chrome and Safari). Query was “bluetooth speaker”. Just sent feedback via Chrome. https://t.co, Glenn Gabe on Twitter
• There was a Google Merchant Center feed issue that was resolved this morning, Barry Schwartz on Twitter

Search Engine Land Stories:

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

Industry & Business

Links & Content Marketing

Local & Maps

Mobile & Voice

SEO

PPC

Search Features

Feedback:

Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, you can follow us on Facebook and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.