On the 27th of December, 2016, a Google Webmaster Central Hangout was held, whereby John Mueller from Google Switzerland answered a number of important questions with regards to Google's algorithm. A lot of these questions have been floating around for a while and it was really valuable to receive some conclusive answers directly from Google.
Below are some of the more important matters that were discussed, the videos below are positioned at the exact moment where various announcements are made. These are important topics for 2017, anybody who owns a website and wants to be able to compete in the search results should be giving these quick videos a watch.
Anchor text assist Google with website language:
Amount of unique content per page and the number of pages with unique content are considered by Google:
SERP click behaviour used by Google for rankings:
Algorithm influence changes per query and over time:
Domain link profiles are reset when a domain expires and content changes:
Page speed does not affect rankings:
Mobile-first index is unlikely to happen in 2017:
Not all text in CSS animations is indexed:
Some interesting feedback given by John, it's great to have a few of these topics cleared up. However, never forget that this isn't always a set in stone thing. For example, on a private discussion forum that we are part of, a number of SEO's ran tests on the concept of Google removing a website's link profile if the domain expires and is replaced by completely different content. The results show clearly that this isn't happening and that link profiles are preserved. This might change, but for the time being an expired domain is still really valuable.
Have you picked up on anything else that's happening in the SERPs?
[Hat Tip DeepCrawl]
Below are some of the more important matters that were discussed, the videos below are positioned at the exact moment where various announcements are made. These are important topics for 2017, anybody who owns a website and wants to be able to compete in the search results should be giving these quick videos a watch.
Anchor text assist Google with website language:
Amount of unique content per page and the number of pages with unique content are considered by Google:
SERP click behaviour used by Google for rankings:
Algorithm influence changes per query and over time:
Domain link profiles are reset when a domain expires and content changes:
Page speed does not affect rankings:
Mobile-first index is unlikely to happen in 2017:
Not all text in CSS animations is indexed:
Some interesting feedback given by John, it's great to have a few of these topics cleared up. However, never forget that this isn't always a set in stone thing. For example, on a private discussion forum that we are part of, a number of SEO's ran tests on the concept of Google removing a website's link profile if the domain expires and is replaced by completely different content. The results show clearly that this isn't happening and that link profiles are preserved. This might change, but for the time being an expired domain is still really valuable.
Have you picked up on anything else that's happening in the SERPs?
[Hat Tip DeepCrawl]