Weekly SEO news: 14 May 2019
Welcome to the latest issue of our newsletter!

Here are the latest website promotion and Internet marketing tips for you.

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Best regards,
Andre Voget, Johannes Selbach, Axandra CEO

1. Is search engine optimization the same as following Google's advice?

Search engine optimization is important if you want to get high rankings on Google. But is search engine optimization the same as following Google's advice? Of course, it's advisable to follow most of Google's recommendations. However, you should do more than that. Here are four things that you should consider.

Should you follow Google's advice?

1. Google is not your friend

Google wants to make money and they tell webmasters to do things that work best for Google. That isn't necessarily the same thing as the things that work best for you.

Follow Google's recommendations and your web pages can be indexed by Google. That does not mean that your web pages will rank better than the pages of your competitors. Search engine optimization is about getting better rankings than your competitors.

2. Some things that Google says are misleading

For example, Google says that they can index and render JavaScript to some extend. That's true. However, that does not mean that JavaScript pages will get high rankings. It also doesn't mean that Google can index the full content of the web pages.

Google's often publishes very vague statements. If you're not 100% sure that something cannot have a negative impact on your rankings, better don't do it. For example, avoid websites that require JavaScript to display the content.

3. Keep things simple

It's easier to get high rankings with less complex websites. Prerendering JavaScript websites can work, but it also adds an additional layer that can fail to your website. Redirecting links can also work but it is better to use the correct links. Instead of nofollowing links on your website, just don't link to these pages.

It's easier to manage a simple website and it's also much easier to get high rankings with these websites.

4. Don't forget the basics and use the right tools

Before you apply the latest secret SEO trick to your website, make sure that you worked on the basic SEO tactics. Work on the title tags of your web pages, improve the internal linking structure of your website, optimize the web page content, etc.

The right tools help you to work as efficiently as possible. For example, the Top 10 Optimizer tool in SEOprofiler shows you how exactly you should change your web pages. The website audit tool discovers redirects, canonical tags and other things on your website. SEOprofiler offers many more SEO tools that help you to get your website ranked on the first results page.

It's usually a good idea to follow Google's advice. However, you have to do more than that if you want to rank better than your competitors. The tools in SEOprofiler help you to get better rankings than your competitors:

Optimize your website now

2. Internet marketing news of the week

Google XSS attacks on Googlebot allow search index manipulation

"There are various types of cross-site scripting (XSS) attack; we are interested in the situation where JavaScript code inside the URL is included inside the content of the page without being sanitized. This can result in the JavaScript code being executed in the user’s browser (even though the code isn’t intended to be part of the site)."


Local SEOs mixed, some peeved at idea of paying for Google My Business services

"One would speculate (speculate is the operative word) that Google is exploring the idea of a subscription service. Apple does it, Amazon does it, Slack and GatherUp do it, why shouldn’t Google? If that were the case, it would make sense to have 'vertical' upsells to G Suite that might offer different benefits in different markets."

BingMicrosoft Advertising is no longer just chasing parity with Google Ads – it’s building unique ads features

"There are currently 10 product features available or in pilot that are only offered in Microsoft Advertising [...] The company is also committed to its Microsoft Audience Network (MSAN) native ads solution."


DuckDuckGo: the do-not-track act of 2019

"When you turn on the setting in your browser that says “Do Not Track”, you probably expect to no longer be tracked on most websites you visit. Right? Well, you would be wrong. [...] big sites do not respect it."


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

  • Google’s John Mueller: bad links can be obvious.
  • Google: it's not thin content if we can't see anything; it's just a URL.
  • Google Search Console data from 9-25 April is lost.
  • Google: We don't provide support for SEO based on business relationships.
  • Google: After over 18 years on the Board, Eric Schmidt is not seeking re-election at the expiration of his current term on June 19, 2019.
  • Google bug: Manual actions just disappeared from Google search console.

3. Previous articles