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Tag: google

  • Google Delays Page Experience Ranking Signal Rollout until June 2021, Adds New Report to Search Console

    Google Delays Page Experience Ranking Signal Rollout until June 2021, Adds New Report to Search Console

    Google announced this week that it will be delaying the rollout of the new page experience ranking signal to mid-June 2021. Page experience will be included along with existing search signals like mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS-security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines. The rollout, previously planned to begin in May, will be gradual and page experience will not be in full force…

    Sarah Gooding

  • WordPress Contributors Propose Blocking FLoC in Core

    WordPress Contributors Propose Blocking FLoC in Core

    WordPress contributors are proposing the project take an active position on Google’s Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC). This particular mechanism is Google’s alternative to third-party cookies that doesn’t require collecting users’ browsing history. The GitHub repository for FLoC explains how Google will group people together and label them using machine learning: We plan to explore…

    Sarah Gooding

  • Google Accuses Microsoft of “Breaking the Open Web”

    Google Accuses Microsoft of “Breaking the Open Web”

    Just before the weekend, Google published a caustic statement on Microsoft’s public support of Australia’s new law that forces Google and Facebook to pay publishers for their content. The law requires the companies to negotiate licensing agreements with publishers in order to include news articles in both search and news feeds, including snippets. Last month,…

    Sarah Gooding

  • Chrome is Testing a Follow Button for Websites

    Chrome is Testing a Follow Button for Websites

    Chrome Canary, the browser’s nightly build for developers, has been testing a new Follow button, as spotted on Android by the publishers of Chrome Story. The button appears on the homepage of a site, as well as in the browser menu: Chrome Story speculates that it may be integrated with Google’s Discover feature, allowing sites…

    Sarah Gooding

  • Google Introduces Performance Report for Google News Publishers

    Google Introduces Performance Report for Google News Publishers

    Google has launched a new Search Console performance report for sites that appear in Google News. Publishers can now track clicks, impressions, and CTR for traffic coming from news.google.com and the Google News apps for Android and iOS. The report helps publishers see how often their articles appear to users in Google News and which…

    Sarah Gooding

  • AMP Under Fire in New Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google

    AMP Under Fire in New Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google

    AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), an open source initiative that originated with Google, is coming under greater scrutiny at the tail end of 2020, as the company is facing a rash of antitrust lawsuits beginning in October. The second suit is the one most pertinent to the AMP project. (A third suit brought by 38 state…

    Sarah Gooding

  • Google to Migrate Structured Data Testing Tool to New Domain after Backlash from Deprecation Announcement

    Google to Migrate Structured Data Testing Tool to New Domain after Backlash from Deprecation Announcement

    Google’s Rich Results Test came out of beta in July with support for all Google Search rich result features like carousels, images, or other non-textual elements. At that time, Google announced it would be deprecating the Structured Data Testing Tool, which SEOs, developers, and site owners have relied on for testing structured markup and troubleshooting…

    Sarah Gooding

  • Google Search to Add Page Experience to Ranking Signals in May 2021

    Google Search to Add Page Experience to Ranking Signals in May 2021

    Six months ago, Google announced its plans to introduce a new ranking signal for Search, based on page experience as measured by Core Web Vitals metrics. At that time, Google promised to give site owners at least six months notice before rolling out the update so they can improve their scores on the metrics before the update. The company…

    Sarah Gooding

  • Using the Web Stories for WordPress Plugin? You Better Play By Google’s Rules

    Using the Web Stories for WordPress Plugin? You Better Play By Google’s Rules

    What comes as a surprise to few, Google has updated its content guidelines for its Web Stories format. For users of its recently-released Web Stories for WordPress plugin, they will want to follow the extended rules for their Stories to appear in the “richer experiences” across Google’s services. This includes the grid view on Search,…

    Justin Tadlock

  • Google Podcasts Manager Adds More Data from Search: Impressions, Top-Discovered Episodes, and Search Terms

    Google Podcasts Manager Adds More Data from Search: Impressions, Top-Discovered Episodes, and Search Terms

    Google announced an expansion of listener engagement metrics today for those using its Podcast Manager. Previously, audience insights included data about the types of devices listeners are using, where listeners tune in and drop off during a given episode, total number of listens, and listening duration, but the service lacked analytics regarding how visitors were…

    Sarah Gooding

  • Google Officially Releases Its Web Stories for WordPress Plugin

    Google Officially Releases Its Web Stories for WordPress Plugin

    Two and a half months after the launch of its public beta, Google released its Web Stories for WordPress plugin. So far, the plugin has over 10,000 active installations and has garnered a solid five-star rating from four reviews. Google created the Web Stories format through its AMP Project to allow publishers to create visually-rich…

    Justin Tadlock

  • Google Delays Mobile-First Indexing Deadline to March 2021

    Google Delays Mobile-First Indexing Deadline to March 2021

    Google had set September 2020 as the deadline for when it would begin to fully switch over to crawling and indexing sites using mobile-first indexing but announced today that site owners will have more time to prepare. The deadline has been extended to March 2021. Mobile-first indexing is a long-term plan that Google began rolling…

    Sarah Gooding

  • Google Launches Beta of AMP-Powered Web Stories Plugin for WordPress

    Google Launches Beta of AMP-Powered Web Stories Plugin for WordPress

    Google announced a public beta of its new Web Stories WordPress plugin this week. The plugin’s description aptly reads, “Visual storytelling for WordPress.” It is essentially a custom editor for creating AMP-powered stories within WordPress. Users can download the beta plugin directly from the Web Stories beta page. Developers who want to contribute or take…

    Justin Tadlock

  • Google Search to Introduce New Page Experience Ranking Signal in 2021

    Google Search to Introduce New Page Experience Ranking Signal in 2021

    Google is preparing to introduce a new ranking signal for Search, based on page experience as measured by Core Web Vitals metrics. This includes factors like page speed, responsiveness, and the stability of content as it loads. The upcoming update will combine these signals with previously announced UX-related signals for mobile-friendliness, safe browsing, HTTPS security,…

    Sarah Gooding

  • Google Patches Critical Vulnerability in Site Kit Plugin

    Google Patches Critical Vulnerability in Site Kit Plugin

    In late April Wordfence discovered a critical vulnerability in Google’s Site Kit plugin for WordPress that would make it possible for any user on the site to gain full access to the Google Search Console without verifying ownership. Google patched the vulnerability and released the fix in version 1.8.0 on May 7, 2020. Wordfence published…

    Sarah Gooding