Weekly SEO news: 25 September 2018
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Here are the latest website promotion and Internet marketing tips for you.

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1. Google's John Mueller: keep it simple if you want to get high rankings

In a discussion on Reddit.com, Google's John Mueller recommended to keep your website as simple as possible if you want to get high rankings. Chances are that search engines won't be able to index your web pages if you use too much 'fancy stuff' to create your website.

keep it simple

What exactly has John Mueller said?

John Mueller answered a webmaster who wondered if particular links on his client's website were crawlable by Google:

"My 2 cents on this is that ... even though this is "r/techseo" ... many people do too much fancy stuff when they could just be doing something basic that works just as well, and which isn't a future maintenance nightmare. Keep it simple."

If you're not sure whether search engines will be able to parse your unusual content format then better do not use it at all:

"Keep it so that you don't have to guess, ask, or test what search engines will do, and keep it so that search engines are clearly & consistently guided to do what you're trying to do. If it's unclear, but 'test says yes', then assume that search engines will change their behavior when you're in the plane headed to Timbuktu for a 3-week camel safari.

In other words, if you run across something like this where someone uses a form for navigation, and you have a chance to simplify it, then figure out what the original goals were, and simplify (& document) it in the clearest way possible. The way you describe it is hard to guess what you have, but I've seen some weird ways that sites try to hide links from search engines (I won't give inspiration, sorry :)), and most of the time it's hard to create, painful to maintain, and ends up not even working as expected."

What does this mean?

It's pretty simple: if there is an easy way and a complicated way to do something on your website, use the easy way. It's possible to use fancy JavaScript for the navigational elements on your website. However, it's also possible that Google won't be able to parse these links.

Earlier this year, Google's John Mueller said that Google won't follow JavaScript links. He also said that Google will use the canonical tag of the non-JavaScript version of a web page. In general, your website should not rely on JavaScript.

How to check your web pages

If you want to find out how search engines see your web pages, use the website audit tool in SEOprofiler The website audit tool analyzes the web pages of your website and it tells you what you have to change so that search engines can index all pages correctly.

The website audit tool checks the content of your web pages as well as technical things such as HTTP status codes, security settings, canonical tags, etc.

Improve your web page rankings now

SEOprofiler offers many more tools than just the website audit tool. The tools in SEOprofiler help you to get your web pages on Google's first results page. You can create your free SEOprofiler account here:

Try SEOprofiler now

2. Internet marketing news of the week

GoogleGoogle sending out mobile-first indexing notifications
"Many webmasters have received a “mobile-first indexing enabled for www.website.com” notification from Google during the last few days. Further information about the mobile-first change can be found here."

Bing retires anonymous URL submission tool

"Bing announced in the official Bing blog that the anonymous URL submission tool is going to be retired. You can still submit your website after logging in to Bing Webmaster Tools. [...]

If you want to get high rankings on search engines, it is much more important to make sure that your web pages contain the things that search engines want."

GoogleQ&A with Google on the future of search

"Search marketing is undergoing rapid transformation driven by new technologies. Artificial Intelligence, Voice Search, Visual Search, Amazon, and Blockchain all impact how we search for information and buy products and services online. [...]

People who have already done difficult things like learn to set up a business, hire employees, manage supply chains, learn accounting concepts and deal with inventory realize that there’s nothing magical or mystical about the technical concepts they should master to really be successful online."

Why Google Ads ‘optimize’ ad serving often fails to show your best ad

"There’s often a great debate over ad rotation. Should you use Google’s highly recommended Optimize or the ad tester’s preferred method Do Not Optimize? [...]

As soon as metrics are mixed (one ad is a winner in CTR and another in conversion rate); Google often shows the higher CTR ad more than the other ads even if the other ads have higher conversion rates or conversion per impressions."

+++ SEARCH +++ ENGINE +++ NEWS +++ TICKER +++

  • Google: AMP going to use consensus seeking governance model.
  • Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads.
  • Amazon now 3rd biggest digital ad seller in US.
  • Exploring Google’s new carousel featured snippet.
  • You must now opt out of #GoogleAds location extensions.
  • 7% of businesses world wide that have verified their business listing are using Google Posts.

3. Previous articles

Do you need better rankings for your website?

SEOprofiler is a web-based search marketing tool that helps you to get better Google rankings. You can create a free SEOprofiler account here. The step-by-step manual will help you to get started as quickly as possible.

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