Below is the official transcript and audio recording of The SEO Drewsletter, an Amazon Alexa Skill for the latest digital marketing trends and SEO news. To listen to The SEO Drewsletter on your Alexa device, simply enable The SEO Drewsletter, and ask Alexa: “What’s my flash briefing?”
From Search Engine Roundtable:
Google Cuts Down Search Snippets By Half
Here’s a bigger story that’s causing a lot of discussion in the SEO community.
Google has confirmed that meta descriptions are (to quote Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land) “now shorter on average than in recent weeks.” Research from RankRanger shows meta descriptions being cut down to 160 characters and mobile meta descriptions being cut down to 130.
Official statement from Google about best practices for meta description length:
“There is no ‘this is the right’ in this. It depends on what Google adds to your search result and how much they want to show. Google might, for instance, add the date to an article, and that will reduce the number of characters. Recently, Google made changes to the length of search result snippets: 320 characters instead of 160 it used to be.”
From Search Engine Journal:
Google: Site Changes Can Take Months to Be Reflected in Search Results
Website transitions can be a pain. Google recently commented on how long it takes for sites to recover in rankings.
During a recent Google Webmaster Central hangout, John Mueller explained that it may take months for major site changes to be processed by search ranking algorithms, as it’s a lengthy process to recrawl, reindex, and reprocess a site.
From Search Engine Roundtable:
Google: Personalized Search Results is “Very Light”
This was kind of a surprising note that was reported on Search Engine Roundtable.
Barry Schwartz explained that he talked to a senior level Googler about personalized search, and he was told that personalization doesn’t greatly affect search results. What he did say was that your location and language are most influential when it comes to personalization.
Danny Sullivan officially posted on Twitter about the subject saying that “personalization of results is very light.”
FYI, personalization of results is very light. Most people searching in the same language and same location will see largely the same things. Location and language are far more influential about why results differ.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) May 15, 2018
From Backlinko:
Google Search Console: The Definitive Guide
Always love the content coming from Brian Dean and Backlinko.
Backlinko came out with the definitive guide Google Search Console this week that shows a bunch of tips and tricks to the new search console. The article spans three chapters:
- Getting started with Google Search Console
- How to optimize technical SEO with Google Search Console
- How to get more organic traffic with the performance report
- New Google Search Console features
- Advanced tips and strategies
Other digital marketing tidbits:
- Google launched its revamped app, Google News, which uses AI to curate news.
- Amazon announced that it will bring 8 new voices to Alexa Skills
Conclusion
That wraps up The SEO Drewsletter for this week. If you’ve enjoyed this Alexa Skill, please leave a review—I’ll be happy to give a shoutout for any reviews that I get. Please also visit drewmarlier.com for the official transcript of The SEO Drewsletter, which will include all links to all stories and articles that were shared.
As always, thanks for listening, and we’ll Drew it again next week!