September SEO Updates – Has Google gone too far with ads placed on the SERP?

1. Algorithm Updates
1. 04/9/2019 – Suspected link quality updates by the Mary Haynes team.
2. Google Announcements
3. SERP Updates
1. 05/09/2019 – With mobile first indexing, Google more likely to show the M-DOT version of your website on desktop search
4. Local SEO and Google Maps Update
1. 05/09/2019 – Google My Business retiring distance-based service area
5. Other Interesting News
1. 04/09/2019 – All is fair game in Google Ads
2. 05/09/2019 – Google adds new structured data documentation for movie

Welcome to a new month! Hope you’ve been enjoying our weekly updates and would look to hear your thoughts on the series so far. Leave us a message below even if it’s just a HELLO!

Now let’s jump right in to see what’s happening in the SEO industry this week.

Algorithm Updates

04/9/2019 – Suspected link quality updates by the Mary Haynes team.

SEO expert Mary Haynes observed a spike in organic traffic for sites that has previously disavowed bad links following the team’s suggestion. While the opposite happens to some of the sites who did not follow through with the same advice.

Though it is still too early to be sure, the team advise webmasters to review their backlink profile and disavow any bad links in the case that organic traffic starts dropping last week.

They recall that John Mueller from Google affirms the usefulness of disavowing bad links and maintaining a clean and organic backlink profile earlier this year.

To quote Mueller: “So it’s something where our algorithms when we look at it and they see, oh, there are a bunch of really bad links here. Then maybe they’ll be a bit more cautious with regards to the links in general for the website. So if you clean that up, then the algorithms look at it and say, oh, there’s– there’s kind of– it’s OK. It’s not bad.”

SERP Updates

05/09/2019 – With mobile first indexing, Google more likely to show the M-DOT version of your website on desktop search

John Mueller from Google touched on the topic of M-DOT sites on this week’s Google webmaster hangout video.

He phrased it as an “unstable situation” where sites having mobile first indexing may be shown their M-DOT site, even when the search is done on desktop and not mobile.

To fix that, Mueller suggests redirecting desktop users to the correct desktop site, so Google can better understand the situation in the case they didn’t catch it at first.

At the end of the day, Google still recommends adopting responsive design to handle desktop and mobile users.

Here’s the video of Mueller discussing the issue.

Local SEO and Google Maps Update

05/09/2019 – Google My Business retiring distance-based service area

Previously, business owners can set a service area based on a distance around their physical location. But now, Google is retiring that option and business owners will have to choose a closest named area instead.

Listings still using the distance based service area will be automatically converted to the closest named areas.

The move of retiring the distance based area was started since last November, so business owners are actually given ample time to edit and update their GMB listing.

Nevertheless, Google will be sending out notification emails about the change.

Other Interesting News

04/09/2019 – All is fair game in Google Ads

Base Camp CEO Jason Fried tweeted his dismay on having to compete for his own company name for SERP real estate.

Making users scroll through not one not two but four paid ads before getting to the company website they are specifically searching for is probably stretching the term – efficient user experience.

Though we understand that such ads are handled by the GoogleAds team, it’s still disheartening seeing companies having to compete for their own brand name. Though easily solved with some dollar bills.

To provide users with the most relevant ads, we don’t restrict trademarked terms as keywords. We do restrict trademarked terms in ad text if the trademark owner files a complaint here: https://t.co/J1P7oJ5BTN

— Google Ads (@GoogleAds) September 4, 2019

The GoogleAds team did try to offer an olive branch, but it only fuels more witty pokes from the enraged.

How generous of you to let us manually flag trademark violations! We'd hate to be burdened with the automated system you use to protect your own trademarks. pic.twitter.com/AoWzbgthX4

— Adam Stoddard (@AdamStddrd) September 4, 2019

Fair game the big G said.

06/09/2019 – Google adds new structured data documentation for movie

New structured data incoming! Google is constantly pushing for the implementation of structured data and also keen on providing tools and new markups to help webmasters to get a little bit more edge in the SERP.

They announced the new markup via Twitter, check out the documentation here if you’re interested.

"You can't handle the markup!"There's new structured data documentation for Movie carousels : https://t.co/JU6iGtPi5x

— Google Webmasters (@googlewmc) September 5, 2019

#optin-template-3{
float: left;
margin: 0;
width: 100%;
max-width: 654px;
height: 100%;
}
#optin-template-3 .container{
float: left;
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
text-align: center;
background: #fff;
border: 0px solid #4a78bd;
padding-bottom: 16px;
}
#optin-template-3 .top-row{
display: inline-block;
width: 88%;
padding: 3% 6% 0%;
}
#optin-template-3 .top-row h2{
margin: 5px 0 0;
font-family: “roboto”, helvetica, sans-serif;
color:#4a78bd;
font-weight: 600;
text-align: center;
padding:0px 0px 5px;
font-size:2.2em;
}
#optin-template-3 .left-column{
display: inline-block;
width: 100%;
max-width: 270px;
min-width: 270px;
height: 100%;
vertical-align: top;
padding-top: 32px;
}
#optin-template-3 .ebook-img{
width: 100%;
min-width:270px;
height: 330px;
background: url(https://seopressor.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Best-Strategy-To-Rank-On-Google.png);
background-size: cover;
}
#optin-template-3 .right-column{
display: inline-block;
width: 60%;
min-width: 250px;
max-width: 305px;
padding: 24px 4% 32px;
}
#optin-template-3 .bodycopy ul{
text-align: left;
padding-left: 0;
}
#optin-template-3 .bodycopy ul li{
font-family: “roboto”, helvetica, sans-serif;
margin-left: 20px;
}
#optin-template-3 .optIn-form{
display: block;
bottom: 0;
}
#optin-template-3 .email{
display: block;
width: 100%;
border: 0;
padding: 8px 0;
font-size: 18px;
text-align: center;
border: 1px solid #4a78bd;
}
#optin-template-3 .submit-button{
display: block;
margin-top: 4%;
width: 100%;
padding: 8px 0;
font-family: “roboto”, helvetica, sans-serif;
font-weight: 400;
color: #fff;
background: #4a78bd;
font-size: 21px;
border: 0;
outline: 1px solid #4a78bd;
cursor: pointer;
}