Google SEO: Innovations, Changes and Expert Recommendations.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of improving the visibility of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO involves optimizing a website for keywords that people use to search for information online. When a website is optimized for keywords, it has a higher chance of being shown in SERPs when people search for information related to that website.

SEO is a complex process that involves many factors, such as:

Choosing the right keywords
Optimizing titles and meta descriptions
Creating high-quality content
Building backlinks to the website

SEO is an important process for any website that wants to get more traffic from search engines. It can help websites increase website traffic, brand awareness, and sales.

Here are some tips for optimizing a website for SEO:

Use the right keywords. Keywords are the words and phrases that people use to search for information online. When choosing keywords, it is important to consider the interests of your target audience and the search queries that they use.
Optimize titles and meta descriptions. Titles and meta descriptions are the text that appears in SERPs. When optimizing titles and meta descriptions, it is important to use keywords and phrases that will attract users’ attention and encourage them to click on your website.
Create high-quality content. High-quality content is content that is interesting, informative, and useful for users. When creating content, it is important to use keywords and phrases that will be relevant to your target audience.
Build backlinks to the website. Backlinks are links to your website from other websites. When building backlinks, it is important to choose websites with high rankings and relevant content.

Google SEO 2023: Latest Updates and Insights

Google’s Gary Illyes: Don’t Use AI & LLMs To Diagnose SEO Issues

Gary Illyes from the Google Search team said on LinkedIn that you should avoid using LLMs and AI for diagnosing potential SEO issues or other issues with your site. Gary wrote, “Don’t use them for diagnosing potential issues with it.”

Later Gary wrote, “LLMs have a very high wow factor, but they have no clue about your website; don’t use them for diagnosing potential issues with it.”

“Also remember that LLMs will hallucinate; pressed in the right way, they WILL give you information that’s completely detached from reality because the predictions on the word order make sense,” he added.

“Can they give you factually correct information in general? Yes! Can they give you information that has nothing to do with reality? Also yes!” “Use LLMs at your own risk and be very picky about what you accept from their output, otherwise you’ll be in for a very disappointing ride,” Gary warned.

I am sure you all have seen it, a slew of AI tools or AI added to existing tools, backed by LLMs, to try to give you advice on how to improve your site.

These are tools, and just like any tool, do not blindly just take their tips and advice and implement them. Review what they say, and think about whether it makes sense to implement or not. Just like when you use Bard or ChatGPT or Bing Chat, you know when the responses seem off, do your research before just implementing these suggestions. And if you are new to SEO, then it probably makes sense for you to avoid using these tools completely until you know SEO well.

Google: Video Doesn’t Have To Be First Element But Should Be In Your Face

A few months ago, Google changed when it shows video thumbnails in its search results to only show the video thumbnail when the video is part of the page’s main content. Gary Illyes from Google said that does not mean the video needs to be the first element on the page, but the video does need to be in your face for Google to determine if a video thumbnail should show in the search results.

As a reminder, Google said that “video thumbnails only appear next to Google search results when the video is the main content of a page.” “This will make it easier for users to understand what to expect when they visit a page,” Google added.

Gary Illyes was asked at the 13:04 mark “Does “main content” mean that the video has to be the absolute first element on the page?”

Gary responded, “No” It does not need to be the absolute first element on the page. But Gary did say that the video should be “in their face right away.” He said, look at what YouTube and Vimeo do, do it like they do it.

Gary said, “Think about the user’s perspective. They end up on your page and then they have to actively look for the video instead of having it basically in their face right away.” “The former is pretty confusing and that’s why we are looking for videos that are the main content, basically in your face. If you look at the large video sites such as Vimeo or YouTube then you can get a sense of what our algorithms are looking for,” he added.

Google: Word Count For SEO & Google Rankings Is Not A Thing

The Google Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, posted another PSA last week on Twitter, saying word count is not a thing again. He said, “Reminder. The best word count needed to succeed in Google Search is … not a thing! It doesn’t exist. Write as long or short as needed for people who read your content. That’s aligned with what our ranking systems aim to reward.”

Then John Mueller responded to a question from an SEO who wrote, “So why a direct correlation between word count and outranking competition?” John responded saying, “Are you saying the top-ranking pages should have the most words? That’s not the case.”

This topic of word count and Google SEO is something I covered here countless times. Google said in 2022 word count is not a sign of unhelp content. In 2019, John said word count is not a ranking factor and in 2018 John said word count is not indicative of quality. Google won’t penalize you for short articles and Google said short articles can rank well and then again in 2014 said short articles are not low quality. Google has been recently saying to avoid fluff leading some to believe Google may not rank fluff well in the future.

New Web Sites Homepages Should Get Indexed

Gary Illyes from Google on the last Search Off The Record podcast said that for brand-new websites, their homepages should be indexed without a problem. If not, then the site has a bigger issue. Plus, Google’s John, Martin, and Gary spoke more about indexing.

Gary said at the 6:33 mark into the podcast, “For new sites, especially the home page, should be very simple to get indexed. If that doesn’t get indexed, then that points to some bigger problem.” “Our systems are built such that homepages, like domain.com, will get crawled pretty much first and get indexed first,” he added. Then he said, “If we don’t– don’t even crawl it, which you can check from Search Console or your server logs – then that points to a bigger problem.”

One more: Gary says for sites with w/high-quality content, you should never really have to use the request indexing tool in GSC. If something HAS TO BE indexed quickly (like something newsy), then it’s an option. But most don’t have to use it for normal content

Google Selling Google Domains Won’t Impact Your SEO Or Google Rankings

I have seen some folks in the SEO industry suggest that there will be some sort of search ranking and SEO impact with the sale of Google Domains to Squarespace. I just wanted to clarify this sale should have zero impact on your Google Search rankings or SEO efforts.

Some think that when Google sells Google Domains it will lose its status as a domain registrar. And if Google doesn’t have DNS records it can impact some search signals, like when the domain was registered, if it was dropped, if it was transferred, etc.

I doubt that Google will drop its status as a domain name registrar.

Google became a domain registrar in 2005, 9 years before opening Google Domains in 2014. So I doubt Google was thinking in 2005, let’s become a seller of domain names 9 years later. The two, are probably unrelated and I doubt Google will give up its status there.

Also, I guess it is possible that during the transfer those on Google Domains can run into DNS issues when the migration happens. But that I am sure is highly unlikely. And if that does happen, Google Search will figure it out fast and things will go back to normal when it is resolved. Although, things going wrong with the transfer are highly unlikely.

So I don’t think the sale of Google Domains will have any SEO or Google ranking impact