Google Explains Discrepancy In Indexing Data
SEOForLunch issue #249 contains FOUR official search engine updates in addition to great resources written by the SEO community.
Hi Lunch Buddies!
Have you ever seen a 1,400-pound pumpkin hoisted up 100+ feet by a crane and dropped to the ground? That was my experience over the weekend. Lucky for you, I recorded it and you can see it below?
Don’t enjoy exploding pumpkins? Maybe you’ll enjoy my latest post on The SEO Freelancer on the topic of health insurance for freelancers instead.
Let’s jump into this week’s #SEOForLunch. We have no shortage of news this week.
-Nick
The Ratio of Wix Sites with Good CWV Scores Increase by over 10x
[sponsor]
HTTPArchive has made some exciting updates to its CWV Report, one of which being the ability to filter by geographical location.
The graph below shows the percentage of Wix websites with good CWV, filtered to the US market. We can see that over the past year, the ratio of sites built on Wix with good CWV scores has increased by over 10x. Wix expects this upwards trend to continue as they roll out additional updates to their platform.
You can change the filter to see your specific GEO and stay on top of CWV trends at the Core Web Vitals Technology Report from Google Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX).
To learn more about how Wix prioritizes CWV, check out their webinar hosted in partnership with Google.
Search Engine Updates
Video:
Absolute or Relative URLs, Which is Better?
What's Important:
Does an absolute URL (https://nickleroy.com/newsletter) provide more SEO value than a relative URL (/newsletter/). Google’s John Mueller answers this question in a quick 2 min video. The even quicker response is that BOTH are suitable to Google.
Nick's Take:
Historically, SEOs would tell you that you should consider absolute URLs on the chance that your content is scraped and or picked up by another website. However, these links nowadays provide very little if no SEO value. So as John mentioned, either is a safe approach in regards to SEO.
Article:
Aligning Search Console testing tools and the URL Inspection tool
What's Important:
The newest post on Google Search Central announced the update across three of their standalone tools - AMP, Mobile Friendly & Rich Results.
Nick's Take:
Considering the data for each tool is provided from the same source (URL inspection tool) consolidating to a single UI makes a lot of sense. Nice update Google.
Tweet:
Google Explains Discrepancy Between Index Coverage and URL Inspection Reports
What's Important:
Several SEOs took to Twitter to show a discrepancy in indexing data when comparing both Google tools. A few days later, Google responded via Twitter that the tools data is refreshed at a different rate which likely explains the difference between the two tools. Google further validates that the URL inspection tool is the fast of the two tools and should be used as the “source of truth”.
Nick's Take:
It’s always great when Google addresses legitimate concerns in an official manner. We now know what the source of truth is which is great for further auditing site issues.
Article:
Control Your Snippets/ Titles in Search Results
Google released two updates in their advanced SEO section, one for controlling meta descriptions and the other for title tags. Both documents outline best practices as well as common issues associated with both of these common SEO elements of a page.
Top SEO Resources From Last Week
10,000 Trusted Sources That Are NOT Wikipedia [Knowledge Panels]
Video by Loren Baker, Search Engine Journal
Loren Baker interviews Jason Barnard to discuss entities and alternatives to Wikipedia to get a knowledge panel to display in the search results. Don’t forget to check out Jason’s list of sources Google is citing in various knowledge panels.
Shoot Your Shot: A Guide to Effective Cold Outreach
Written by Amanda Natividad, SparkToro
Amanda shares with us how she averages an 80% response rate in her cold outreach campaigns. If you are short for time, go directly to her top 5 rules and re-read #1 five times!
What Happens to Crawling and Google Search Rankings when 67% of a Site’s Indexed URLs are Pagination?
Written by Glenn Gabe, GSQi.com
Raise your hand if you love case studies? Me too! So what’s the deal with pagination anyways? Should we index them or block them? Glenn walks us through a case study where he shares data based on one client allowing the full crawling and indexing of its pagination.
SEO Flowcharts for SEO Decision Making
Article by Aleda Solis, Aledasolis.com
Who doesn’t love a good flow chart? In a perfect world, we execute all of our priority items immediately. For the rest of us in the real world, we have to prioritize recommendations and be smart in our decision-making. This series of flow charts walk you through various situations most SEOs encounter regularly.
11 Common Enterprise SEO Problems and Solutions
Written by Andrew McDermott, iPullRank.com
My prefered SEO work is at the enterprise level. The level of complication, effort and amount of hair pulled out is at its highest. However, when you “win” the results more than makeup for it. This post (and Webinar) cover significant hurdles that most enterprise-level companies have to deal with that smaller companies rarely do. #9 will likely resonate most!
Build SEO Content Briefs With the Same Tool Nick Uses To Write Content That Ranks
[#SEOForLunch Partner]
My previous favorite content brief tool has been shuttered forcing me to do hours of research for a better solution. I landed on Content Harmony being my tool of choice.
If you think your content briefs can be done better and/or scaled then give CH a shot with their $10.00 for 10 brief demo.
You Made It To The Bottom. You’re AWESOME!
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