A Smattering Of SEO - A Light Week

After last week’s rollercoaster of a week, we have something of a quiet week of news this time out, with the biggest deal being more mobile-first index details. Enjoy!

Google News

• More Mobile-First Details Emerge – At SMX Munich, Google’s John Mueller gave some more tidbits as to what we can expect when the mobile-first index begins to roll out soonish. First off, webmasters will be notified in Search Console that a site has been moved to the index. Secondly, Google is focusing on the sites they feel are most ready to be in the index. Mueller also said that one shouldn’t rush to make a mediocre mobile site just to get in the index, as a good desktop site is fine for now.
• Some Of The Winners & Losers Of The Latest Algorithm Update – Searchmetrics posted a blog update about the latest Google algorithm update that had some interesting info. They found some of the biggest winners of the latest update to be YouTube, Urban Dictionary, the AV Club, and Bloomberg. Losers included Wikia and some other sites. Interesting enough, all of these sites are pretty content-heavy, but apparently the update focused on the quality of keyword searches, meaning these losing sites might have not had the most relevant search results.
• More Reports Added To Search Console – Google recently added a few visual updates to Search Console in the hopes of making it more useful. These include annotation cards, a difference column to see changes over time, and a redesigned filter/compare look.
• Google News Kicks Off Subscriber Initiatives – Google hopes to help news publishers gain more subscribers with a couple of new initiatives that were just announced and are still in testing. The first would allow users to subscribe to a publication directly through Google, if they have payment information on file. The second is a new signal called “Propensity to Subscribe” in which Google will use machine learning to try and target subscription-based content to users they feel have a high probability of subscribing. Finally, a News Consumer Insights Dashboard is being built on top of Google Analytics.
• Google AdWords To Ban Ads For Cryptocurrencies – Starting in June of this year, Google will no longer allow ads for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. This is in response to many reports of cryptocurrency-based scams that harmed many customers.