From the SMX West Conference in San Jose, California, March 21-23, 2017. SESSION: Solving SEO Issues In Google's Post-Update World. PRESENTATION: Busting Google's Black Box: Navigating Google Algorithms in a Post-Update World - Given by Kristine Schachinger, @schachin - SitesWithoutWalls.com, Owner. #SMX #31A

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Busting Google’s Black Box
Navigating Google Algorithms in a Post-Update World
Kristine@SitesWithoutWalls.com

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Long Ago & Kind of Far Away
There Were the Days of M.C.
(maybe not that long)

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In the Age of MC, there was this guy.
He liked to do dinosaur impressions. No really.

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Matt Cutts.

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Some saw Matt like this …

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From Matt’s Blog
https://www.mattcutts.com/images/matt-cutts-jack3.jpg

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And others like this …

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But either way…

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People listened to what Matt said …

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Because he knew a lot.

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And shared a lot!

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Some called it information …
Some called it disinformation …

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But … You still listened.

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Because some days …

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Zzzzzz …

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You woke up to this …

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And did this …

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(@#*(@#*()##!!!!
(@#*(@#*()##!!!!
(@#*(@#*()##!!!!
%#@!!!! %#@!!!!
And said this…
Google*@#$&*#$&#*

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In the Age of MC, you would go to
Google Blog, Matt’s blog or straight to
Twitter to read the tweets…

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WAS THERE AN UPDATE???!!!

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WHAT DID MATT SAY????

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But that was then …

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Matt Cutts said “Bye Felicia”…
ok he didn’t really say that… outloud

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So he probably did …

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So… what now?

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NEW GOOGLE SPOKESPEOPLE
Gary Illyes (@methode) & John Mueller (@johnmu)

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“I only high-five with my neck in impossible positions.”
real Gary Illyes quote
image: http://golocalinteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/HighFive.jpg
GARY
JOHN

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But they don’t play the same role …

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AND …
Google no longer announces updates
on algos like Panda and Penguin
because they have been
“rolled up” into
the main algorithm(s)
SHHHHHH….
We are NINJA now!

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I’M REAL TIME!
I am NOT RealTime, but I roll when I WANNA!

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And gone are the 200 ranking factors…
actually been gone a long, long time

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So when this happens …

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Where do we start?

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Google in a (MOSTLY) Post-Update World

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49. #SMX #31A @schachinWhy did you get burned or more importantly did you get burned at all?

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Was there an update?
Check Google Webmaster Blog, Gary & John on Twitter or Glenn Gabe’s Blog GSQI
Yes he is the other speaker on this panel ;)

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Presence of an UPDATE does not mean
that is why your site is down …

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Know the site history…
Is there a historical or current site issue that could
be the cause of an algorithmic downturn?

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YOU
are now a
detective!

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Site history is like a medical history
You are like a doctor, you don’t care how much they drank
last night you just need them to be honest.
Because things like bad links can kill…
Your site that is…
Know the Site History!

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Just because it walks like a
duck & talks like a duck…..
QUACK!

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This looks like a penalty

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Still looks like a penalty

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When we check year over year

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It is not a penalty.
It’s a seasonal business.
NEVER ASSUME! EVER.
It may walk like a duck
& talk like a duck…
and not be a duck.

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Distance from "Perfect”*
how close or far are we
to the points of the algorithms.
*Term coined by Portent

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Know Your Algorithms.

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What algos could be affecting the site?
• Internal (on-page, technical, etc)
• Algo(s): Panda, Phantom, Penguin
• External (links, citations, etc)
• Algo(s): Penguin
• Third Party (advertising etc)
• Algo(s): Panda, Phantom
Process of deductive reasoning!
NOTE there are the core algos, there are others.
Algorithms

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Panda

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Know Your Algorithms. Panda.

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KEEP in MIND
Panda Rollouts were no longer announced
after 4th Quarter 2015!
Rolls out around every 3 months. (per Gary Illyes)
First Rollout was in 2016
Likely Feb 27th/28th through the first week in March.
Can be confused with Phantom, though results are similar.
Algorithms - Panda

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Panda focuses on content quality MOSTLY
also some site quality items.
Algorithms - Panda

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What is Panda content quality?
• No “thin” Content
• Length DOES matter = Time, Effort, Amount
• Exceptions do exist
• Be careful of Duplicate Content
• Make sure you have proper canonicals
• No Duplicate Penalty, but there is a filter!
• Make sure your titles/descriptions are unique
Algorithms - Panda

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•Content Clarity
•Content Specificity (RELEVANCE)
•Content Length
•Blogs 350-550 << These are arbitrary, BUT they are good guides
•Articles 750-950+ << These are arbitrary, BUT they are good guides
ESPECIALLY for sites that deal with news, information, or
education (Entertainment especially gossip is an exception)
Note: Query Deserves Freshness (QDF) does not matter for all sites.
Algorithms - Panda

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What else?

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• ContentTechnical
• Grammar / Spelling / Readability
• Site Architecture
• Confirmed by John Mueller February 2017.
• Advertisements
• Too many ads on a site can cause devaluations
•Site LoadTime
• EspeciallyTime to First Byte (TFB)
• Needs to be under .80ms for best results
Algorithms - Panda

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Know Your Algorithms. Phantom.

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Quality Update (Phantom)
“Panda Plus "witha wider quality focus including UI/X
Summary: Google update that affected sites with low quality indicators.
Focus: Low Quality Pages
TopTakeaways.
• Not typically confirmed by Google
• Can change focus – kind of a catch-all of quality algos
• Have to look for other indicators
• Overlaps Panda in some areas
• Affects Organic SERPs
Algorithms - Phantom

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Phantom
Quality Update Issues (that are most likely Phantom)
• Appears to focus on items such as
• Aggressive Ad Placements
• Content
• Crawl Issues
• Deception (ads, affiliate links, etc.)
• Thin Content
• Bad UI/X
• Interstitials
Algorithms - Phantom

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How do you know which is which?

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You don’t need to!
It doesn’t matter.

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Know what is in the algo(s).
Then attack your site
“Distance from Perfect”

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Distance from "Perfect”!
GOOD DFP =
FUTURE PROOFING!

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Penguin

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Know Your Algorithms. Penguin.

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Algorithms - Penguin

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Penguin 2.0-3.x was angry!
Algorithms - Penguin

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Algorithms - Penguin

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Penguin 4.0 (Real-time)
Rollout: Approximately September 23, 2016 It also rolled out in several phases
completing these rollouts the second week of October. If you never recovered, it
would have happened by now.
Summary: This update was the first in more than 2 years. However, the new
version of Penguin is very different from the old in there is no whole site website
demotion, just granular links devaluation. In addition the links are being
evaluated in “real time” and so changes to link profiles will be assessed quickly.
Algorithms - Penguin

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Focus: Mostly links, but also other Web Spam Factors.
TopTakeaways.
• Confirmed by Google
• Updates are in “real time”
(not the instant they occur, but they are assessed rapidly)
Sites are no longer demoted in search, links are devalued.
Links are devalued?
This means their value (passed Page Rank) to the site is removed from the site’s scoring.
In the past, the entire site was demoted in the SERPs.
This is no longer the case.
Algorithms - Penguin

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If you did not recovered from a Penguin update, make sure
you submitted a proper disavow and also “acquired”
replacement links.
Without replacing the lost link values the site could be free
of Penguin, but appear to be still demoted.
Algorithms - Penguin

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Devaluations are much more granular
• Query Set
• Page Level
• Section Level
• NOT Site Level
This makes them harder to detect as their will be a slower decline
in smaller sections of the site, rather than a distinct fall-off cliff as
in previous rollouts. Also “real-time” application.
Algorithms - Penguin

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Cliff vs. Slope
Algorithms - Penguin

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Off-Site Devaluations
Devaluations can affect you if they hit other sites. If the sites
that link to you have their links devalued, then that link juice
cannot be passed.
Algorithms - Penguin

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Disavows?
According to Google, yes you should still use a disavow.
I don’t know you!
Algorithms - Penguin

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Link Free for All?
Manual Actions will take over for Penguin Devaluations,
but experiment on those thresholds.
Algorithms - Penguin

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According to Google.
No machine learning in Penguin, no AI.
Algorithms - Penguin

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Mobile Algorithms.

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Mobile Friendly.

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Mobile Site is a Must!
Best to use responsive NOT M.

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A MUST!
Mobile. Do. It.

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Mobile Algorithms. Ads & Interstitials.

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As of January 2017
Sites with Disruptive Interstitials
will be devalued!

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Maybe… so far roll out has been weak.

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Ads & Interstitials

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Interstitials THAT ARE Affected
• Showing a popup that covers the main content, either immediately after the user
navigates to a page from the search results, or while they are looking through the
page.
• Displaying a standalone interstitial that the user has to dismiss before accessing the
main content.
• Using a layout where the above-the-fold portion of the page appears similar to a
standalone interstitial, but the original content has been inclined underneath the fold.
http://searchengineland.com/interstitialgeddon-google-warns-will-crack-intrusive-interstitials-next-january-257252
Ads & Interstitials

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Ads & Interstitials

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Interstitials NOT Affected
Those types are:
• Interstitials that appear to be in response to a legal obligation, such as for cookie
usage or for age verification.
• Login dialogs on sites where content is not publicly indexable. For example, this
would include private content such as email or unindexable content that is behind a
paywall.
• Banners that use a reasonable amount of screen space and are easily dismissible.
For example, the app install banners provided by Safari and Chrome are examples of
banners that use a reasonable amount of screen space.
Ads & Interstitials

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Ads & Interstitials

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Applies to First Click from SERPS ONLY!

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Distance from Perfect.

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Distance from "Perfect”*
how close or far are we
to the points of the algorithms.
*Term coined by Portent

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RECOVERY, FUTURE PROOFING, SEO
= All the Same it’s DFP

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According to Google
Content + Links = Top Two Ranking Factors
Third is RankBrain …

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Content Quality.

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• Expertise
• Authority
• Trust
FOCUS ON EAT!

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https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf
Quality Site Pages - Content

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From the Google Quality Rater’s Guide
https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualit
yevaluatorguidelines.pdf
Quality Site Pages - Content

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What does Google thinks makes good content?
The EAT of the page.
• Is there expertise?
• Expertise can = personal experience.
• Is there evidence of time?
• Is there effort?
• Is there skill?
Quality Site Pages - Content

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http://www.thesempost.com/updated-google-quality-rater-guidelines-eat/
Quality Site Pages

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YMYL – Your Money Or Your Life.

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http://www.thesempost.com/updated-google-quality-rater-guidelines-eat/
YMYL – Your Money Or Your Life

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Distance from Perfect.

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Technical. Not Just Make-Up.

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Content & Links are the top two ranking
factors, but will add technical here
as the 2.5th

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Technical Can Do This!Technical Can Do This!

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What are we looking at?

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• Http vs. Https
• Robots
• Sitemaps
• Canonicals
• Redirects & 404s
• Architecture
• Navigation
• SchemaTagging
Technical

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• Http vs. Https
• Do the pages have mixed status?
• If pages moved to https, did the URLs change everywhere? CDN?Tag Manager?
Analytics?
• Are the pages redirected?
• Use the Aleyda Solis checklist for https migration
• Robots
• Sitemaps
• Canonicals
• Redirects & 404s
• Architecture
• Navigation
• SchemaTagging
TechnicalTechnical

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Technical SEO Audit – The Basics
• Http vs. Https
• Robots.txt
• Can it be crawled? If not, googlebot goes away!
• Is it written correctly? (test it)
• Are you using it when they should be using no-index?
• Robots.txt blocks the page crawl, but not the URL indexing
• Are you blocking CSS &/or JS?
• Must unblock!This can cause a site demotion.
• Sitemaps
• Canonicals
• Redirects & 404s
• Architecture
• Navigation
• SchemaTagging
TechnicalTechnical

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• Http vs. Https
• Robots.txt
• Sitemaps
• Do you have one?
• Is it written correctly? (test it)
• Check their sitemaps for
• Limits
• Types (video, image, page, news < different XML)
• Index Sitemaps (use them!)
• TIP Google does not use priority or date modifiers
• Canonicals
• Redirects & 404s
• Architecture
• Navigation
• SchemaTagging
Technical

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• Http vs. Https
• Robots.txt
• Sitemaps
• Canonicals
• Do you have them on the site?
• Are they written correctly?
• Do they follow the rules for writing canonicals?
• Redirects & 404s
• Architecture
• Navigation
• SchemaTagging
Technical

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• Http vs. Https
• Robots.txt
• Sitemaps
• Canonicals
• Redirects & 404s
• Are they using 302 or 301?
• Google says they don’t care, but …
• How many 404s?
Are you bleeding links? Should they be 410?
• When redirecting links from removed pages topical matches
are a MUST or the links passed could lose value
• Architecture
• Navigation
• SchemaTagging
Technical

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• Http vs. Https
• Robots.txt
• Sitemaps
• Canonicals
• Redirects & 404s
• Architecture
• Is the structure vertical or horizontal?
• TIP Google prefers wide and flat over deep and tall
• Are you giving Google a proper content outline?
• Think 10th grade English Class
• Are you specific, certain and clear?
• Navigation
• SchemaTagging
Technical

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• Http vs. Https
• Robots.txt
• Sitemaps
• Canonicals
• Redirects & 404s
• Architecture
• Navigation
• Are you using proper navigation?
• Are you constructing a contextual view of your site?
• Are you throwing in the kitchen sink?
• TIP Users can only process 5-8 piece of information at a time
• Going to be even more important in mobile first indexing.
• SchemaTagging
Technical

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• Http vs. Https
• Robots.txt
• Sitemaps
• Canonicals
• Redirects & 404s
• Architecture
• Navigation
• SchemaTagging
• Just do it! Really. Microdata is Google preferred.
• TIP Any data point can be used in the KG without copyright
violation.
• Check Google Search Console for mark-up validity.
• Make sure to add to your mobile site for mobile first!
Technical

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What else?

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Speed.

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Speed….
You know fast….
Like really fast…

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HOW DO WETEST FAST?
WebpageTest.org and of course
Google Pagespeed Insights
Also there is information in Google Analytics.
Page Speed

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And Google …

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You want an 85 min – 90+ is bestPage Speed – Score over 85

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Mobile First Indexing

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Mobile First Indexing

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Mobile First Indexing

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https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html
Mobile First Indexing

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Mobile First Indexing
• One Index
• Mobile Crawler will be used for all sites
• Mobile Content will be used for ranking
• Mobile SERPs
• Desktop SERPs
• AMP NOT a factor in mobile first indexing
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html
Mobile First Indexing

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Content you want to
rank for MUST be in
your mobile site
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html
Mobile First Indexing

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If you do not have the content on your mobile site, the site
cannot be found for it even in desktop.
This means they will rely more heavily on sitemaps to find
content.
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html
Mobile First Indexing

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Mobile First Indexing SiteTypes
• If you have a mobile m. site
• Make sure to verify this site in Google Search console
• If you have a responsive site
• No changes needed
• If you have AMP only
• You will be evaluated on your desktop content, but mobile friendly boost
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html
http://www.thesempost.com/details-googles-mobile-first-indexing-change/
Mobile First Indexing

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UI Hidden Content.
Unlike Desktop, content hidden in accordions and tabs
will not be devalued in mobile first indexing.
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html
http://www.thesempost.com/details-googles-mobile-first-indexing-change/
Mobile First Indexing

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Schema.
If you removed schema in mobile, it must be added
back to your mobile site to get into the snippets
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html
http://www.thesempost.com/details-googles-mobile-first-indexing-change/
Mobile First Indexing

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Mobile First Indexing

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Distance from "Perfect”*
how close or far are we
to the points of the algorithms.
*Term coined by Portent

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Winning in the end
= doing more than
your competitor

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• Panguin http://barracuda.digital/panguin-tool/
• WebPageTest.org
• Page Speed Insights (Google) https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
• Screaming Frog http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/user-guide/configuration/
• Deep Crawl https://www.deepcrawl.com/
• Google Webmaster Guidelines https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en
• Google Search Console Help https://support.google.com/webmasters/?hl=en#topic=3309469
• Aleyda Solis http(s) Migration http://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/http-https-migration-checklist-
Google-docs/
Resources

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Busting Google’s Black Box
Navigating Google Algorithms in a Post-Update World
Kristine@SitesWithoutWalls.com