NEWS
Amit Tiwari on March 5, 2023 at 07:00 PM
In a Hurry? Download all News URLs: https://amittiwari.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/SEOLastMonth-February2023-cheatsheet.pdf
Bing has announced that it will now take the lastmod attribute of XML sitemaps more seriously for crawling. Most plugins, tools, and CMSs attach the lastmod attribute to the sitemaps, indicating when the URL was last updated. Bing’s own survey revealed that 18% of websites fail to set the lastmod value correctly.
However, Bing will rely more on this value, which, they think, can improve the crawling process. Google does not attach much importance to lastmod. They previously stated that they do not look at the lastmod value, and now they only give it importance when a website sets the value at the time of updating the page.
Google Search Console has announced that it will now show video impressions in its video indexing report. Remarkably, Google has said that if a page appears twice in search results, the video view of that page will be counted twice. If you are not familiar with the video indexing report of Google Search Console or if you have forgotten about it, watch our video for more information.
Microsoft launched the AI-powered version of its Bing search engine on February 7, which allows users to switch between search results and chat directly from the search results page.
Google published a new best practice guide for links and backlinks. This guide informs website owners what not to do to avoid penalties.
The guide includes some older practices, such as the requirement for links to have an “a href” tag. Google cannot crawl links without this tag, and the guide also emphasizes the importance of ideal anchor text.
The guide also states that when a link is added to an image, the image’s alt text becomes the anchor text for that link. Google advises against using anchor texts like “click here” or “find more” for internal links. It is recommended to keep anchor texts to the point and accurate.
On February 16th, Susan Wojcicki, the current CEO of YouTube, resigned. Wojcicki had been working for Google for 25 years and leading YouTube for nine years.
Although this news is not directly related to SEO or search, the personal style and taste of CEOs of large companies are often reflected in their company’s products and features. Wojcicki played a significant role in YouTube’s dominance in the video market and content creation world. It will be interesting to see what new features and functions Neal Mohan, the new CEO, will bring to YouTube.
On February 19th, Facebook, or rather, Meta announced that they will be launching a blue tick verification program, much like Twitter. For a monthly fee of $12, users in Australia and New Zealand can avail of this feature, and eventually, it will be rolled out globally.
While the purpose of Twitter’s blue tick may not be clear, Facebook’s blue tick program offers verified users direct access to customer support. If you have ever run an ad on Facebook or Instagram, you know the value of real support. This move by Meta seems to be a clever business strategy – build a big company, create a need for support, and charge for it.
Google Search Console announced new features for property management. Verified and delegated owners can now be easily identified, and there is an option to remove delegated owners if necessary.
Users can also change delegated owners’ access levels, view current owners’ verification tokens, and even access ownership history. These new features aim to streamline the property management process and make it more efficient for website owners.
Focus Of The Month: So, February 2023 was a great month for the Search Industry. We saw the 2 biggest search engines in the world preparing to change the way search works with the use of AI and large language models.
It will be interesting to see how much impact Bing will make with its (open)AI-powered chatbot.