In July of this year, Dr. Peter J. Meyers and I published a report analyzing an element of Google’s local results we termed “local pack headers” . About a month after publication, members of the local SEO community, like Colan Nielsen , began noticing that the extraordinary diversity of headings we had captured had suddenly diminished: Today, I’m doing a quick follow-up to the manual portion of our earlier study in an effort to quantify and illustrate this abrupt alteration. A total sea change in local pack headers Between July and November of 2022, 83% of our previously-queried local pack headers underwent a complete transformation of nomenclature. Only 17% of the local pack headers were still worded the same way in autumn as they had been in the summertime. Here is a small set of examples: In our manual analysis of 60 queries in July, we encountered 40 unique local pack headers - a tremendous variety. Now, all specificity is gone. For all of our queries, headings have been redu...

Despite the resources they can invest in web development, large e-commerce websites still struggle with SEO-friendly ways of using JavaScript. And, even when 98% of all websites use JavaScript , it’s still common that Google has problems indexing pages using JavaScript. While it's okay to use it on your website in general, remember that JavaScript requires extra computing resources to be processed into HTML code understandable by bots. At the same time, new JavaScript frameworks and technologies are constantly arising. To give your JavaScript pages the best chance of indexing, you'll need to learn how to optimize it for the sake of your website's visibility in the SERPs. Why is unoptimized JavaScript dangerous for your e-commerce? By leaving JavaScript unoptimized, you risk your content not getting crawled and indexed by Google. And in the e-commerce industry, that translates to losing significant revenue, because products are impossible to find via search engines. It...

With recent shake-ups to the Google algorithm, Lily Ray joins us for this week’s episode to walk you three of the most important types of search engine updates that can affect your SEO strategies. Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab! Video Transcription Hey, everyone. I'm Lily Ray, and today I'm going to be talking about a few different types of Google updates.  Helpful content update So we're going to start with the helpful content update, which was announced and rolled out in August of 2022. The helpful content update introduced a new concept in the SEO space, which is a sitewide classifier that will be identifying unhelpful content. This is content that Google decided or determined is primarily written for search engines and is not exactly helpful for users. This new sitewide classifier that they're using with the helpful content update will be applied to sites that Google believes is doing this type of thin...

Common sense is a useful asset, and as it turns out, it’s a fairly reliable guide when it comes to navigating the big world of online local business reputation. However, for the very first time, thanks to the recent report, The Impact of Local Business Reviews on Consumer Behavior , I was able to test my intuition against original, hard data revealing the habits of real review readers, review writers, and successful owner responses. I highly recommend reading the full survey analysis, but today, I want to distill that mass of data down into three simple descriptions that emerged through the considerable work of analysis. These three descriptions codify dominant traits, characteristics and behaviors. They are meant to help you envision both the public and practices in an approachable manner, with the proviso that some people and industries will certainly fall outside these norms. For the bulk of local businesses, however, it’s my hope that this synthesis enables you to form a useful me...

These days, Google algorithm updates seem to come in two main flavors. There’s very specific updates — like the Page Experience Update or Mobile-Friendly Update — which tend to be announced well in advance, provide very specific information on how the ranking factor will work, and finally arrive as a slight anti-climax. I’ve spoken before about the dynamic with these updates. They are obviously intended to manipulate the industry, and I think there is also a degree to which they are a bluff. This post is not about those updates, though, it is about the other flavor. The other flavor of updates is the opposite: they are announced when they are already happening or have happened, they come with incredibly vague and repetitive guidance, and can often have cataclysmic impact for affected sites. Coreschach tests Since March 2018, Google has taken to calling these sudden, vague cataclysms “Core Updates”, and the type really gained notoriety with the advent of “Medic” (an industry nickna...

Typically, when SEOs think about on-page optimizations, they’re thinking about core places to include their target keywords within their content. But how can you take your on-page optimizations to the next level and get beyond some of those basic tactics? In today’s episode of Whiteboard Friday, Chris Long shows you how. Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab! Video Transcription Howdy, Moz fans. I'm Chris Long with Go Fish Digital, and today we're going to talk about advanced on-page optimizations. Commonly in SEO, when we think about on-page optimizations, we're typically thinking about core places to include the keywords, such as the title, the H1, the URL within the content. But some people might be wondering, how can you take your on-page optimizations to the next level and get beyond some of those basic tactics? So that's what I want to cover today. Entities So one of the best ways I found to shift away from the ...

A warm welcome to Moz’s first large-scale survey on the habits of local business review readers, review writers and successful owner responses. Our survey uncovered interesting insights and actions local businesses can take to better serve their customers, earn more reviews, and build relationships. Read our free report today to peruse the findings, our thoughtful analysis, and expert commentary from local SEO industry professionals. Read the report! We surveyed 1,000+ US residents to assess trending behaviors surrounding reviews and responses and gained a powerful picture of the role this type of online sentiment is playing in consumer journeys, conversions, and most importantly, reputation. Local business owners and their marketers can access the full report today for strategic takeaways like these: Only 11% of consumers trust brand messaging over public sentiment In the complete report, you’ll learn that 96% of consumers now read online local business reviews. That’s basically ...

Google’s featured snippets started as an experiment almost a decade ago . They have since become an integral part of Google’s SERPs, showing up for lots of queries. In fact, featured snippets are now considered organic position #1, so it is part of any SEO strategy. What are featured snippets? Featured snippets are selected search results that are featured on top of Google's organic results below the ads in a box. Featured snippets aim at answering the user's question right away (hence their other well-known name, "answer boxes"). The recent studies reveal that featured snippets have an average 35% click-through rate. Being featured means being on top of everything (except for ads), in the most prominent spot: Types of featured snippets There are three major types of featured snippets: Paragraph (an answer is given in text). List (an answer is given in a form of a list) Table (an answer is given in a table) Each type can also include an image, ...