FILE PHOTO: An illuminated Google logo is seen inside an office building in Zurich, Switzerland December 5, 2018. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia urged Google on Thursday to “focus on paying for original content, not blocking it” after the internet giant said it was running tests that limit access to domestic news content, deepening a rift between the tech giant and the government. After the Alphabet Inc owned search engine provider said it was conducting experiments to… Source link
Read More »Google Search Traffic to Pirate Sites Down After Algorithm Updates
Google’s recent algorithm updates are reportedly reducing traffic to piracy websites, according to an analysis of year-over-year data. TorrentFreak, with help from piracy tracking company MUSO, published a report which shares insights into pirate site traffic from search engines in 2020. From December 2019 to November 2020, pirate sites lost nearly a third of their search traffic. Several interesting patters were also discovered. Here are key insights from TorrentFreak’s report on what may… Source link
Read More »Sites With Any Adult Content Won’t Show Rich Results
Google’s John Mueller says websites containing any adult content, regardless of the amount, are not eligible to serve rich results. This topic is discussed during the Google Search Central SEO office-hours live stream from December 11. A site owner asks Mueller which structured data markup, if any, is allowed on adult websites. It’s known Google doesn’t serve rich results for adult content, and Mueller confirms as much in his response, but the question comes up every so often. “I think… Source link
Read More »Google on How it Handles Sites With Too Many Ads
Google’s John Mueller weighs in on how sites with lots of ads are handled when it comes to ranking in search results. This topic came up during the Google Search Central live stream on December 11 where Mueller addresses the following question: “For some queries I see Google ranking websites which have a high amount of ad content, which is creating a poor search experience. How is Google dealing with those sites?” In response, Mueller describes several factors that can determine how sites… Source link
Read More »Covid disinformation sites often use tools from Google, Facebook and Apple, report finds
Some of the tools are free “widgets” or bits of computer code that allow web designers to expand the capabilities of their sites and are used widely across the Internet, often without the companies that produce them knowing who is deploying them. Several problematic sites, for example, support financial transactions through Apple Pay, use Apple’s affiliate links or enable compatibility with Apple devices such as the iPhone, the Oxford researchers said. Some of the content pushed by the… Source link
Read More »Google News will allow free access to paywalled articles from news sites
As part of its $1 billion investment in partnerships with news publishers, Google will start paying for some paywalled content for its News Showcase program. News Showcase, a new addition to Google News that launched in October, displays story panels curated by publishers — but its not available in the US yet. News Showcase will “start offering people access to paywalled content in partnership with select news publishers,” says a Google blog post. Google will pay partners for… Source link
Read More »Are Your Clients’ Sites Ready for Google’s New Ranking Signal?
Google announced in late May that sometime in 2021, it will be adding three new search signals into the mix to play into a website’s overall page experience score and, therefore, a website’s overall search engine results pages (SERP) visibility. Beginning in May 2021, Core Web Vitals will begin making up 3/7 of the search signals Google uses to decide a webpage’s “page experience” score. The actual weight of each signal hasn’t been unannounced. To help webmasters prepare for the… Source link
Read More »Google travel sites hurt Airbnb in search results
Brian Chesky, chief executive officer and co-founder of Airbnb Inc., speaks during an Economic Club of New York luncheon at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., on Monday, March 13, 2017. Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images Airbnb says Google’s search business has prevented the home-sharing company from reaping internet traffic, according to documents the company filed as it prepares to sell shares to the public.Airbnb allows users to book short-term rentals and… Source link
Read More »Google says ‘technical error’ responsible for some news sites’ homepages not showing up in search results
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Google and big tech censorship. Google had a technical issue Tuesday morning that temporarily removed the homepages of several news sites, both conservative and liberal, from its search results. For instance, when you Googled the Daily Caller, a conservative news site, stories about the Daily Caller would show up but not links to the Daily Caller’s home page. Google said the problem, which has been fixed, was a technical issue that was not based on the ideology of… Source link
Read More »Google to ban more ads from sites promoting virus conspiracies
Google said it will block more ads from websites that promote conspiracy theories about COVID-19, starting next month. The world’s largest internet search provider will use human and automated reviews to locate and take action against rule-breaking web publishers and advertisers. The company already has a policy against harmful health claims online, and it has removed more than 200 million ads that were trying to take advantage of the mayhem caused by the pandemic. Friday’s changes are… Source link
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