JavaScript is a complex topic that can be extremely difficult to get a handle on.However, it has never been more important to understand it because JavaScript is becoming increasingly prevalent on the websites that we manage.As the modern web continues to evolve, JavaScript usage continues to rise.SEO professionals may long for times gone by when websites were static and coded only in HTML and CSS. However, engaging websites often require interactivity, which is usually powered by JavaScript.The number of JavaScript bytes across the entire web has increased by 35 percent on desktop and 62.7 percent on mobile over the last three years.As Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller put it: JavaScript is “not going away.”This programming language is all around us, so we should get better acquainted with it. Let’s be proactive and learn more about JavaScript rather than fearing it.There is often a misconception that JavaScript is solely for developers to worry … [Read more...] about Understanding JavaScript Fundamentals: Your Cheat Sheet
Is Google Getting Ready To Punish Google News Publishers In Violation?
Google published on the webmaster blog some tips and advice around doing well in Google News. All of the tips and advice are known and have been published in Google's help docs - which makes you wonder, why is Google putting a new blog post out there that is near duplicate to what Google has published elsewhere? Maybe - this is a guess - Google is getting ready to penalize a set of publishers in Google News for violating some of their guidelines?I wrote up a summary of what Google wrote at Search Engine Land. In short, Google said check out the news publisher center, make sure your headlines are clear and accurate, make sure your article timestamps are correct, the structured data is correct, etc. It also goes into saying do not "artificially freshening stories" or produce duplicate content, rewritten content, republished content, etc that doesn't add any added value to the reader. Make sure to follow Google's content policies and do not do stuff against the webmaster guidelines. … [Read more...] about Is Google Getting Ready To Punish Google News Publishers In Violation?
Google Sends Many AMP Issue Detected Notices
A couple of days ago, Google sent out via Google Search Console a nice number of AMP notifications related to new issues detected. The thing is, the issue isn't new, the notification about the issue is new.The notification reads "New AMP issue detected for site." The message of the notification reads:To owner of https://www.domain.com/,Search Console has identified that your site is affected by X new issue of type AMP.Top Warnings (5 maximum)Warnings are suggestions for improvement. Some warnings can enhance your appearance on Search; some warnings can become errors in the future. The following warnings were found on your site:Image size smaller than recommended size We recommend that you learn more about these issues and fix them when possible to enable your site to have the best possible experience and coverage in Google Search.Google changed the AMP image size recommendations a year or so ago and now Google is sending notifications to those who still have not addressed the issue. … [Read more...] about Google Sends Many AMP Issue Detected Notices
Google: How Soon Can You Remove 301 Redirects?
We've covered the topic of how long Google wants you to keep 301 redirects in place here numerous times. John Mueller was asked the question again and this time he said on Twitter "After a few years the old URLs are often no longer accessed & you can drop those redirects." This is similar to his advice about being patient when removing 301 redirects and to leave them up and running for over a year. This time he said you should try to keep them up for a "few years" not after you first put them in place but after the old URLs are seen to no longer have been accessed. John Mueller then said a bit later on Twitter to keep them for "at least a year." Here are the tweets: Why keep the redirects for so long? (1) For users who may click on a link and get sent to a dead URL instead of being redirected to the new URL. (2) So Google can pass PageRank and other link signals from an old URL to a new URL.I have redirects in place for over 15 years already. :)Forum discussion at Twitter. … [Read more...] about Google: How Soon Can You Remove 301 Redirects?
Google Patches The Open Date Google Local Edits Hack
Google has reportedly resolved the issue where anyone can change the open date of a business listing in the local Google results and ultimately hurt that business from ranking in the Google local results. Jason Brown via Nate Somsen noticed Google fixed the issue and informed me of it on Twitter.As we reported earlier, Tim Colling noticed that one listing was no longer doing well in Google and noticed someone changed the listing to have a future open date. Jason explained that Google's fix here is "for open locations, user can only suggest the current day." He said he "can add tomorrow's date as an option." But "For future open dates, users may suggest month and/ year. Last option to use as a suggestion is Jan 2020."Forum discussion at Twitter and Local Search Forums. … [Read more...] about Google Patches The Open Date Google Local Edits Hack