June 2020 – SEO and Marketing News

0
Jun 19, 2020 / by
June 2020 – SEO and Marketing News

Another month in lockdown and another month of crippling uncertainty for industries across the globe. For most of us, to say work is slow at the moment would be an understatement and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are still being felt.

Then, of course, there’s the righteous anger of the BLM protests to unpack, with social media platforms all seeking to rally behind the cause.

But we’re not here to talk about hundreds of years of systemic racism and we’re not here to talk about coronavirus. We’re here to talk about SEO. Let’s begin.

Bing ‘site scan’ tool audits sites for technical SEO issues

Bing’s new Site Scan tool gives site owners an easy way to check for technical issues that may be negatively impacting performance in search engines.

Site Scan is being launched as an upgrade to Bing Webmaster Tools, making it convenient to access the tool alongside other data that can assist with improving site performance.

Fixing issues found by Bing’s Site Scan tool can help make websites more search engine friendly and user friendly.

DuckDuckGo questioned over antitrust investigation

DuckDuckGo, one of Google’s major competitors,  has reportedly been in talks with the US Justice Department regarding an investigation into Google’s alleged anti-competitive practices.

In a report from Bloomberg, DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg reveals US authorities are looking for ways to limit Google’s dominance in the search market. Weinberg spoke with authorities just a few weeks ago, who came prepared with detailed questions about Google.

For those who might have been living under a rock for the last few months, it’s alleged that Google is engaging in anti-competitive behaviour by having its own search engine and web browser as defaults on Android.

The Justice Department declined to comment on this investigation when questioned by Bloomberg, as did multiple state attorneys general. A Google spokesperson acknowledged the investigation, but offered no further information.

Google can use historic data for ranking your site

John Mueller of Google recently claimed Google can and indeed does use historic or legacy data about your web site for ranking purposes.

He gave a few examples of how Google uses it; your links over time, the adult SafeSearch filter and some of Google’s quality algorithms.

Prabhakar Raghavan replaces Ben Gomes as lead of Google Search

Prabhakar Raghavan, who has been running the ads and commerce teams at Google since 2018, replaces Ben Gomes as the head of Google Search and Assistant.

Ben Gomes is still with Google, he is just moving to Google Education. Gomes took over as head of Google Search in 2008 when he replaced John Giannandrea, who replaced Amit Singhal.

Prior to joining Google, Raghavan worked at Yahoo! Labs. Before that, Raghavan worked at IBM Research and later became senior vice president and chief technology officer at enterprise search vendor Verity. Now he is leading up the most important division in Google.

SEMRush drops paid guest blogging service after policy scrutiny

SEMrush, a very popular SEO toolset, has been under intense scrutiny ever since it began selling guest posts on their marketplace last year to “drive natural links” to sites.

This mounting scrutiny has ultimately led to SEMrush dropping the service from its site. SEMRush has removed the ability to purchase guest blog placements and says it does not pay for placed articles and is no longer selling links.

Bing Webmaster Tools now give competitive link data

Bing has pushed out a new feature for its backlinks tool within Bing Webmaster Tools. The new feature is named “similar sites” and it lets you compare your site’s backlinks to another site.

This essentially means that we now have a free tool from a search engine that gives you backlink data on your competitors.

There are many link tools in the SEO space, but here is one directly from a search engine that not only gives you your site’s link data; like Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools has always provided. But now Bing can show you link data of sites you do not have verified access to.

Indexing issues continue to blight Google

There have been various indexing issues for Google throughout the year so far, and the most recent issue came just last week when they confirmed indexing issues are causing some stale search results.

For publishers that rely on their content being indexed quickly and efficiently, these indexing problems pose a risk. Having said that, each time there have been issues, Google has always been quick to acknowledge and resolve.