Google typically finds websites through backlinks or XML sitemaps, but can it find them other ways as well?

See full show notes at: https://www.mickmel.com/podcast120

People talk about website authority scores quite a bit, and I use them from time to time myself, but Google has made it clear that they have no such official metric.

See full show notes at: https://www.mickmel.com/podcast119

XML sitemaps are a great way to help inform Google about the content on your site, and there are many great WordPress plugins to help with that. Soon, though, XML sitemaps might be part of WordPress core.

See full show notes at: https://www.mickmel.com/podcast118

Sometimes Google likes to point things out that are obvious yet need repeating, so we'll help repeat them here; links and title tags still matter.

See full show notes at: https://www.mickmel.com/podcast117

When you do a search on Google, there are times when the first page is filled almost entirely with results from the same site. With their latest update, Google is working to fix that.

See full show notes at: https://www.mickmel.com/podcast116

Google has said before that having SSL on your site is a "light-weight ranking" factor, and that continues to be the case, but Google seems to be pushing a bit harder on it now.

See full show notes at: https://www.mickmel.com/podcast115

Adding text to the alt attribute of an image is a great way to help vision-impaired users (and Google) understand what the image is about. However, removing it can be ok in some circumstances. Sort of.

See full show notes at: https://www.mickmel.com/podcast114

The most common way to let Google know about new content on your site is by using XML sitemaps. However, some folks have started using Google's indexing API to push new content to Google, but that's likely not a good idea.

See full show notes at: https://www.mickmel.com/podcast113

Google has been slowly rolling out their mobile first index, and will continue to roll it out on existing sites, but starting July 1 all new sites will automatically be indexed mobile-first.

See full show notes at: https://www.mickmel.com/podcast112

Companies have struggled over the years about whether to create one website for their entire business, or separate ones for different pieces. In most cases, Google stays stick to one.

See full show notes at: https://www.mickmel.com/podcast111