60-Second SEO: One of my favorite "SEO secrets" is the "&filter=0" operator.
You can use this operator to see pages that Google is filtering out of the search results and identify competing content.
This was a great tip given me to years ago by the great @patrickstox .
By using this filter, you can get an idea of what the "true search results" look like before Google has applied domain clustering. Thus you can see which pages in a SERP Google wants to display but doesn't
In this example, I used it for the query "abm guide". In the first SERP, there's only one result from Drift.
But after applying the "&filter=0" operator, I can see that Google has actually filtered out their "What Is ABM?" page.
Now they can make a decision if they should consolidate these pages to make a single stronger page.
This operator is fantastic for sites where Google chooses between transactional and informational pages. You might see that Google is filtering out a transactional page and showing an informational page instead.
You might need to send stronger signals to the transactional page
I highly recommend using this for all your core site queries. You'll get a much better understanding of the content Google wants to show.
Google is doubling down on the importance of Page-Experience in #SEO. In recent guidelines, they emphasized their commitment to it and its significance in performing well in search.
1. Google will be changing the "Page Experience" report in Search Console in the coming months. This will now be a report that contains Core Web Vitals and HTTPS dashboards and links to their guidance about page experience.
2. On December 1, 2023 Google will be depreciating the "Mobile Usability" report, and the Mobile-Friendly Test tool. Google recommends using Chrome's LIghthouse for mobile usability analysis.
Next month, Google is planning on integrating AI features into the search results. According to a report from the NYT, "Google is racing to build an all-new search engine powered by the technology".
1. Electronics manufacturer Samsung has reportedly considered switching the default search engine on their devices from Google to Bing. The assumption is that this is due to the new AI features on the Bing platform.
2. The New York Times reviewed internal messages from Google about the potential change. The reaction to the news was reported as "panic".
This morning I took some time to read through Google's new eCommerce SEO best practices. Here are some of the biggest takeaways that I found:
1. Submitting your products via a feed to Google Merchant Center is another means of helping Google find all of your product information. Google seems to prefer this method of discovery over crawling for larger sites.
2. For physical store locations, Google recommends adding LocalBusiness structured data to those pages.