Google made some big announcements in the SEO world this week. Below are the highlights:
- Google published a video that details some of the most common mistakes that Webmasters are making with the ‘disavow links’ tool. The most frequent mistake seems to be that folks are uploading the wrong sorts of files.
- The search giant also announced that it is getting ready for ranking changes for mobile content. If you are not giving smart phone users the same relevant content that you give them on the desktop, it could hurt your ranking. This is because some sites are using separate URLs to serve their desktop and smart phone clients. A faulty redirect will disrupt the workflow of the user and they will want to go to another site. This causes frustration among users and Google wants to curtail the problem.
- Google’s Matt Cutts indicated at the SMX Advanced conference that the speed of mobile sites could be a ranking factor in the future. Google made the speed of a site a signal about three years ago, and it appears they will be doing this with mobile too.
- Cutts also stated that Google is going to roll out a new ranking update that will clean up many spammy queries. It has been called unofficially the ‘payday loans’ update. Google warned in the past about efforts in this realm, and they are starting to take effect.
- He added that Google has not done a Panda refresh in over a month. It sounds like Panda is usually rolled out every 30 days or so, and is done slowly over about 10 days.
- Google is beta testing a new structured data tool. This allows webmasters to report any structured data errors. Providing webmasters with as much control over structured data as possible is gaining greater importance; Google is turning to that type of data more and more in search results.
From the redesign of Google Maps to updates to fight black hat SEO, Google always has tons going on. Those are the latest Google updates. Which do you think are going to have the most and least effect upon you?