Webcology

Today on Webcology our hosts Jim Hedger and Dave Davies go through all of your weekly headlines. Google Expands Phone Call Organic Links In Search Results. Back in March 2016, it was reported that Google was showing phone number extensions in the organic search results snippets. Well, that seems to now be expanding beyond the US and into other regions. Twitter is testing a 280 character limit, while suggesting that letting people say more will get them to tweet more. However, Twitter has every intention to roll it out to everyone if the test proves to be successful. So here’s what you need to know. The small nice-ish story Twitter had going for itself for the past few quarters was that, at the very least, its monthly active users were growing quarter-over-quarter. Also Hugh Hefner's swinging Los Angeles party pad will be forever remembered as the Playboy Mansion, where the adult entertainment mogul worked and played for more than 45 years. But the fate of the hedonistic haven following the 91-year-old Playboy founder’s death on Wednesday is now in the hands of its current owner — Hefner's next-door neighbor.

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Jim Hedger and Dave Davies motor through a litany of topics from Googles new features to Politics. , Google said they will not be moving sites to the mobile first index that are not ready for the mobile first index. Not yet at least. Google has once again been called out for algorithmically encouraging the spread of dubious, politically charged speculation and misinformation around a topical news event. In the latest instance of the algorithmic amplification of misinformation, the news event in question is a shooting in a Texas church on Sunday. Authorities have identified 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley as the perpetrator.Also, Sen. Al Franken delivered some of the sharpest criticism yet about the dangers of tech giants like Facebook, Google, and Amazon during a speech on Wednesday, encouraging regulators, as well as lawmakers in both parties, to better police the market power of dominant online platforms.

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Today on Webcology we go through a massive amount content from the internet world. Google’s focus on local search the past couple of years has some expecting local search traffic to play a heightened role for brick-and-mortar retailers this coming holiday. Google is now teeing up some new shopping features and reporting capabilities ahead of the holiday shopping season. We ask the questions Do Google Posts impact ranking? A case study Columnist Joy Hawkins shares the results of a case study to see whether Google Posts can move the needle for local search rankings. Also another Google local test, this one shows a single search result towards the bottom of the Google local knowledge card. So right above the new questions answers box you may see "search result" for the local knowledge card.

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Dave Davies returns from the MERGE Conference 2017 in Orlando and welcomes aboard alongside co-host Jim Hedger:
Mary Davies (President of Beanstalk Internet Marketing, Inc.) who spoke on a panel about how to get traffic from Facebook, why you should boost posts, and how to properly manage Facebook campaigns.
Michelle Stinson-Ross (Gruen Digital Marketing Agency, VP of Marketing Sales)who spokeabout integrating social media into your online marketing campaigns to get more traffic and sales. 
Dave spoke about responsive web design, AMP, and how to rank in search on mobile devices. 

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Lurie has recently posted a presentation entitled Burying Hate Speech in the SERPS, where he explains,"Google tries to handle hate sites, but they can't. Racist, anti-semitic, misogynistic, and other content find their way into the rankings every day. Lurie talks about two strategies I've used to push those sites down the rankings. Gord Downie, the lead singer for the beloved Canadian alt-rock band the Tragically Hip, died Tuesday at the age of 53. The cause was terminal brain cancer. Downie was diagnosed with brain cancer in December 2015, but didn't reveal his disease publicly until May 2016. 

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Today on Webcology we start off with a Google Search Algorithm Ranking Update. We had a Google algorithm update over the weekend, starting probably late Friday, October 6th and rolling out over the weekend. Most took notice on Saturday, October 7th but the chatter is still fairly strong and will likely remain strong for a net couple of days. It turns out Google Mobile Ranking updated. A lot of folks are not just continuing with their chatter on the Google Columbus update but also now we are seeing specific ranking changes in Google mobile results. It is hard to tell if the chatter is specific to mobile or desktop or both. But when you look at the tracking tools, a lot of them are showing huge swings specific to the mobile Google search results. Also, Google Suggests They Use Off-Site Sentiment Analysis For Ranking as well. Gary Illyes from Google was quoted by several SEOs as saying at the State of Search event that Google uses a form of sentiment analysis for search rankings. He said that Google looks at off-site sentiment to find supporting signals about the quality of a site. He also said that can mean both positive and negative off-site sentiment. The quotes suggest that this may be taken from social signals as well as other website mentions. This is not just about links, Gary Illyes said.

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Today on Webcology we talk about everything need to know up and coming in internet toys. Plus we touch a very cool way a band used facebook live delay. Google's John Mueller confirmed yesterday in a hangout at the 15:38 mark that Google is indeed testing the mobile first index in the live search results. With this test, Google is not only looking to see how much it impacts the searchers and current rankings but they are also building new classifiers for debugging purposes. Have a session idea for SMX West? They would love to hear from you, especially if your idea is about e-commerce marketing. SMX wants your input to help them plan the upcoming SMX West conference, which will be taking place on March 13-15, 2018. Specifically, if you have a great idea for a session that you think should be on the agenda. This is almost too amazing! Using the delayed audio and video from a Facebook Live, the band managed to create a loop version of their song "Bear Claws." It's a little easier to understand if you actually see it in action, but essentially, the band performs for a Facebook Live feed that's then projected behind them. They manage to sync up and perform with the same delayed feed a few seconds later, and as the song progresses, it gets more and more interesting. 

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Today on Webcology the guys get into a bunch of different topics to keep you in the know. They speak about Google expanding phone call organic links in search results, Google was showing phone number extensions in the organic search results snippets. Well, that seems to now be expanding beyond the US and into other regions. Is Twitter on the decline? The rest of Twitter’s business looked more or less fine, but it seems that Wall Street was still relying on Twitter to continue that even small user growth. Its revenue is still falling, coming down to $574 million as its advertising business continues to decline. Then Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg doesn't seem too happy that President Donald Trump bashed his company in a tweet Wednesday morning. 

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Today on Webcology the guys talk about the Equifax leak, Google Brain, and changing your HTML to affect your search rankings. Sometimes you see the most obvious questions posted to Googlers and you think, hmm, I wonder how many others don't think this is obvious. In any event, when you change your content and HTML on a page, it can and often does, impact your rankings for better or worse. HTML changes without content changes can also do the same but it depends what exactly you change on the page. It was not 100% clear if he was talking about just training the models or if it directly impacts the live search results. It might just be used for building new models later based on the feedback they get back from these models. Google has time and time again said that they do not use click data for ranking purposes because it is too easy to spam and too noisy. Equifax has been intensely investigating the scope of the intrusion with the assistance of a leading, independent cybersecurity firm to determine what information was accessed and who has been impacted. We know that criminals exploited a U.S. website application vulnerability. The vulnerability was Apache Struts CVE-2017-5638. We continue to work with law enforcement as part of our criminal investigation, and have shared indicators of compromise with law enforcement.

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Today on Webcology the guys talk about everything from Google to mobile web development. Ever wonder what the number one, most important, search ranking factor is in Google's algorithms? Is it links? Is it content? Is it a special hidden meta tag? Nope, it is none of that. It is awesomeness.Yep, that is what John Mueller of Google said, the number one, most important ranking factor Google uses to rank search results is awesomeness. Google is offering a mobile web developer certification. for the low-low price of just 99 dollars! If you need the self-assurance of Google to vouching for you as a competent mobile web developer, this is for you. You can pay the $99 fee to take an exam and get patted on the back with an electronic badge. Once you receive the electronic badge you can add it to your resume, display it on your website, or add it to your online profiles.

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