Digital Marketing News – Bots, JavaScript, and Google hiding website links in 59% of local packs – December 29th, 2021

Today we’ll be talking about the most blocked crawler bot, some takeaways from SEOs & Devs: Harmony in Tech, and a new notification system on Google Search Console that wasn’t supposed to be public yet.

Ahrefs is the most blocked bot from robots.txt files as tweeted by Malte Landwehr from data via builtwith. Something to note – Ahrefs is blocked by default on Shopify sites as well as by default on any plesk servers. Majestic and SEMRush were the only other SEO tools in the top 10. Some more data: https://trends.builtwith.com/robots


A great article by Mirriam Ellis at Moz that sums up a lot of SEO with a bit of emphasis on local business.A few big takeaways from this are: 

  • 69% of people say at least half of their searches have a local intent
  • “Available near me” searches increased by 100% globally in 2020.
  • 33% of searches result in a Google local pack being returned
  • Google hiding website links in 59% of local packs.
  • 87% of consumers read reviews. 
  • 78% of consumers want to text with your business
  • 60% of shoppers say they would change their purchasing habits to protect the Earth and 
  • 83% of young people want to patronize brands which align with their values

https://moz.com/blog/local-seo-industry-story

Worth a listen talking about separating the content and the technical and making sure that’s not the same person. In fact, it can be two completely different agencies that you work with.

SEO and JavaScript – a hot topic for many as Google recommends server side rendering instead of client side rendering, but how can you work with you dev team. 

You might have seen this happen to your advertisements on Google. You may have had an ad that was originally disapproved because of a past violation, but now it’s not!

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-past-violations-32652.html


Google is testing a new feature that will show products at the top of their search results pages. The option to mark as special has just been added, so we’ll see how this improves your online retail experience!

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-business-profile-products-mark-as-special-option-32660.html


Google’s April 2021 and December 2021 product reviews update only targeted English language content. Has it already rolled out to other languages though?

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-product-reviews-update-other-languages-32658.html


We were excited to see a new announcement bar on the Google Search Console interface! The most recent update had three levels of urgency depending upon how important it is for you know about this issue. 

https://searchengineland.com/google-search-console-testing-announcement-bar-378064

Transcript:

Welcome to the opinionated SEO, where we talk about recent news and updates in the digital marketing world of SEO paid advertising and social media that impact you as a marketer. Also throwing some my opinion into the mix.

Today, we’ll be talking about the most blocked crawler, bot, some takeaways from SEO and devs, harmony, and tech, and a new notification system on Google search console that wasn’t supposed to go public yet.

A Hrefs is the most blocked bot from robot’s text files as tweeted by a Malte Landwehr from data via built with something to note, a hrefs is actually blocked by default on Shopify sites, as well as by default on Plesk servers. Majestic and SEMrush were the only other SEO tools in the top 10.

Go ahead and take a look at the data there, right from on BuiltWith, some takeaways from this, if you are concerned about different tools, seeing different backlinks and not aligning with search console, it may be because it’s blocked. So I’m a big believer in looking at links as a trend.

You’re not going to be able to see every single. There’s a great article by Miriam Ellis over at Moz, that sums up a lot of SEO with a bit more emphasis on the up business. Couple takeaways from that, that I thought would be interesting, but definitely jump in there. Take a look at the article. It’s got a ton of links to other articles, but.

69% of people say at least half of their searches have local intent available near me. Searches increased by 100% globally. In 2020 alone, 33% of searches resulted in a Google local pack being returned. And Google is. Website links in 59% of local pack. So yeah, that’s increasing the number of results in the local pack.

And yet we are not seeing links to your website. 87% of consumers are reading reviews. 78% of consumers want to text with your business. 60% of shoppers say they would change their purchasing habits to protect the earth. An 83% of young people want to patronize brands, which align with their values. The takeaway here is that people are looking at reviews, so it’s not just price. And they’re also looking at what type of company you are.

So it’s very important for you to make sure that is. Big part of how you sell. And if you do something that helps align with their values or helps things like protect earth, carbon neutral, or offsets, things like that, make sure that’s a major part of what you are talking about. And it’s not just in a footnote.

So the SEO, devs, harmony, and tech, it’s a relatively new YouTube show put on by Google. A couple of things that I wanted to point out as takeaways, definitely worth a listen to the segment, talking about separating the content. Technical team making sure that’s not the same person. In fact, in many cases, it should be two completely different agencies.

Take a look at that. It’s really an interesting take on it. And I think it’s the whole, this job descriptions and entire it department. It was something mentioned, I think it all line and give you some ideas on how you might be able to discuss that with management. The next is SEO and JavaScript. It’s actually a hot topic for many because Google recommends server side rendering instead of client side rendering.

How can you work with your dev team on this? It’s really discussed a bit at length and I think it’s an interesting discussion. Something that. Also have your dev team listened to and might be a little bit IO. Now there’s some interesting stuff going on with Google ads. There were a few tweets and comments about this over at SEO round table.

They put together a quick little article talking about a Google ad that may have had a past violation. And it’s now limiting the amount of views, even though it was Google’s own fault for that. And you should definitely take a look at that. So should your strategy be to create a brand new ad instance?

So that it doesn’t carry with it. Any of that negativity from a false pass violation, leave that up to you. But I think that might be the best route. Google’s also testing a new feature. That’s going to show products at the top of their search result pages by marking special. Have a special product or something that’s on special that you want listed at the top there’s a way to do that is pretty brand new.

So we’ll be taking a look at that and see how that affects the visibility there. And then we talked about this a little bit yesterday about English language updates, and specifically the product reviews updates. There was a bit of a back and forth on Twitter with John Mueller about whether this was updated in Germany or not.

And it looks like it may have been, however, he said that, that wasn’t specifically announced, take a look at this article, if that’s affecting you. They could have rolled out in, they just haven’t announced. And then a search consult interface has a new announcement bar that was not supposed to be visible.

They were just doing a test and it looks like it rolled out to pretty much everybody. When you click on any of the announcements and there were, I think, nine or 10 of them, there were three different levels of urgency non dismissible dismissible, and then Something to look into a little bit more kind of an interesting thing that they’re going to be doing there.

And I think it’s actually in a perfect spot. That’s it for today. We’ll see you tomorrow.