Google Says If Internal Nofollow Links Send A Quality Signal via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google’s Martin Splitt answered a question about whether internal nofollow links and noindex meta robots directives send the wrong signal to Google that the website is low quality.

Nofollow Link Attribute

The nofollow link attribute came about as a standard created by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft that publishers can use to signal that a link can’t be trusted (such as links in user generated content) or for paid links. The idea is that the links can’t be trusted or used for ranking purposes or for whatever reason.

SEOs discovered that PageRank didn’t flow through links that had the nofollow attribute so naturally the self-identified “white hat” SEOs tried gaming Google by adding nofollow links to their privacy and about us pages in order to funnel the maximum amount of PageRank to the pages that mattered. This practice was called PageRank Sculpting and it shows that adding nofollows to internal links is longtime practice and that it’s never been a problem before.

For the record, PageRank sculpting doesn’t work because, in a highly simplified explanation, Google essentially counts the amount of links on a page, including links with nofollows and divides the amount of PageRank that flows as if all the links counted. That’s how it was explained many years ago and that may have changed over the years, we don’t really know.

Noindex Robots Meta tag

The noindex robots meta tag is a directive that crawlers like Googlebot are required to obey. It allows a publisher a way to block crawling at the page level.

There is nothing about the noindex value of the meta element that indicates whether the page is untrustworthy or anything like that. It’s just a way to control crawlers.

Google’s Martin Splitt narrated the question:

“Can a lot of internal links with nofollow tags or many pages with noindex tags signal to Google that the site has many low-quality pages?”

Martin answered:

“No, it doesn’t signal low-quality content to us, just that you have links you’re not willing to be associated with. That might have many reasons – you’re not sure where the link goes, because it is user-generated content (in which case consider using rel=ugc instead of rel=nofollow) or you don’t know what the site you’re linking to is going to do in a couple of years or so, so you mark them as rel=nofollow.”

Nofollow Is Not A Quality Signal

Martin confirmed that there is no signal indicating a value judgement about “quality” that’s associated with the use of a nofollow link attribute or the noindex robots meta tag. Using them on internal links or for preventing crawling is fine and have no effect on Google site quality judgements.

Listen to the podcast question and answer at the 1:17 minute mark:

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Cast Of Thousands

Google Says Best Practices Can Have Minimal Effect via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google’s John Mueller answered a question the question of how long it takes for SEO to work and what it means if rankings don’t change after a year. Sometimes best practices doesn’t work and John Mueller explains why this sometimes is the case.

What Is SEO?

There is no single definition of SEO. What constitutes good SEO is subjective and highly dependent on where one learned about SEO.

• Some believe that SEO is adding keywords into content and building links.
• Others don’t really bother with links and are more concerned with building content.
• Some are highly focused on technical aspects like site performance metrics and structured data.
• In some corners of the SEO community, there are those who passionately believe that SEO doesn’t matter because Google prioritizes ads, big brands, YouTube videos, more ads, and then leaves the crumbs of what’s left for small businesses.

So when someone asks why their SEO isn’t working, the answer can be a toss-up, and if ten SEOs agree, there’s a chance they haven’t identified the problem—they’ve only agreed on the most obvious reason. This was the situation John Mueller encountered when asked why a site wasn’t ranking despite following SEO best practices.

Hard To Answer Without Specifics

John Mueller narrated the question:

“I changed my website a year ago and did a lot of work on SEO. Should this be affecting my website’s traffic by now?”

It’s a hard question to answer when you don’t have the specifics of the webpage in front of you. So Mueller answered in a fairly general manner that ends with him recommending he ask someone else for advice in Google’s help forums.

The first part of Mueller’s response acknowledges the difficulty of answering the question.

He responded:

“It’s tricky to say much here. I don’t know what specifically you did to work on SEO, and I don’t know if that would have resulted in significant changes.”

Why SEO Doesn’t Work

Mueller’s right. Maybe the website has a great layout, fast page speed performance, spot on structured data and a logical site architecture that optimizes internal linking.

What could go wrong with a properly SEO’d website, right?

• Well, the content could be incomplete.
• The content could be too comprehensive.
• The content might be unfocused, lacking a clear comprehension of the topic.
• The content might be too focused on keywords and not focused enough on users.
• The content might not match the topic suggested by the keywords in the title and the headings.
• Maybe the content is aiming too high, trying to rank for a highly competitive search phrase.

No amount of SEO is going to save a website with the above listed problems… and that’s just a sample of what can go wrong.

Mueller addressed this shortcoming of SEO in situations where it has zero effect.

He continued his answer:

“There are many best practices which have minimal effect on the day-to-day performance of a website. For example, having a clean page structure helps search engines to better understand the content on a page, but it might not necessarily result in immediate search ranking or traffic changes.”

Ranking Criteria Is Different Across Topics

Another factor that Mueller touches on is that what’s important for SEO varies according to the topic. Some topics require fresh content, some content requires establishing signals of trustworthiness and authoritativeness, maybe even signals that communicate user brand preference and popularity, signals that indicate that users expect to see a specific brand for certain queries.

There could be a geographic component that prioritizes local signals. It could be an intent thing where a user just wants to read what a person wrote in a forum.

This may be what Mueller is talking about when he says that the best elements of SEO vary across websites.

He answered:

“The most effective elements of SEO will vary across websites, it takes a lot of experience to go from a long checklist of possible items to a short prioritized list of critical items.”

Experience Is Important

The last factor Mueller discussed is the role of experience in making one a better SEO. Here’s an example: I thought I was pretty good at creating content that ranks and then I wrote a couple thousand articles for Search Engine Journal and it opened up a whole new conception of content creation, I discovered levels of understanding that could only come from writing about a couple thousand articles.

Mentorship, is an option that can cut down the amount of time it takes to learn, but experience is still important.

John Mueller recommended experience as an important factor for understanding SEO.

He wrote:

“Your experience here will grow over time as you practice.

I recommend getting input from others, and practicing by helping with challenges that others post in help forums. Good luck!”

Getting input from others is good advice.

Listen to the podcast at the 17:43 minute mark:

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Cast Of Thousands

Google On YouTube “Cannibalization” Of Web Content via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google’s Martin Splitt answered a question in the SEO Office Hours podcast about whether reproducing YouTube video content into text on a web page would be seen as duplicate content and have a negative impact on the web page rankings.

Although duplicate content is not a negative ranking factor, content published on a more authoritative site can cause the content on the less authoritative site to be outranked. It’s a valid question to ask because content on an authoritative will outrank the same content on a less authoritative one.

Some in the search community refer to one piece of content usurping the rankings of another as ‘cannibalization’ of the webpage’s ranking potential. This is the concern of the person asking the question.

Google’s Martin Splitt narrated the submitted question:

“If I create a YouTube video and then take that exact text or content and place it on a web page, could Google flag that web page or site for duplicate content?”

Different Content Media Are Treated As Separate

Martin Splitt answered that the two forms of content are different and will not be treated as the same content, thus publishing text content extracted from a video will not be considered duplicate content.

This is his answer:

“No, one is a video and the other one is text content, and that would be unique content!”

Publishing Extracted Text From Video

Martin praised the idea of extracting text content from a video and republishing it as text, noting that some people prefer to consume content in text form rather than watching a video. Reversing the flow of content from text to audio or video is probably not a bad idea also because some people have trouble reading text content and may prefer listening to it from a video or a podcast format.

Martin commented on publishing video content in a textual version:

“It’s also not a bad idea, some users (like me) might prefer a text version and others might not be able to use a video version of the content in the first place due to bandwidth or visual constraints.”

Takeaways

The idea behind the question is repurposing content and it’s a good idea. Search is more than Google, it’s also YouTube and wherever people get their audio content, like Spotify. The fact that there is no cannibalization of the content between mediums makes repurposing a viable approach to extending your content reach.

Listen to the podcast at the 8:20 minute mark:

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Roman Samborskyi

Google Updates ProfilePage Structured Data Documentation via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google updated their documentation for the profile page structured data, a structured data that all creators including recipe bloggers can use and become eligible for enhanced listings in the search results.

What is ProfilePage Structured Data?

ProfilePage structured data is a Schema.org markup that Google uses for enhanced listings in the search results. It’s well known for use with forum and discussion communities but it’s also of use for any profile page where there’s information about the author.

What Changed In The Official Documentation?

Google updated the opening paragraph to make it clearer how Google uses it in the search results and removes the mention of “Perspectives” and replaces it with references to Forums, which aligns with how Google Search refers to them in the search results.

The new version of the opening paragraph is about 26% shorter but offers more precise information.

This is the original version (64 words):

“ProfilePage markup is designed for any site where creators (either people or organizations) share first-hand perspectives. It helps Google Search highlight information about the creator, such as their name or social handle, profile photo, follower count, or the popularity of their content. Google Search also makes use of this markup when disambiguating the creator, and in features such as Perspectives and Discussions and Forums.”

This is the revised version (47 words):

“ProfilePage markup is designed for any site where creators (either people or organizations) share first-hand perspectives. Adding this markup helps Google Search understand the creators that post in an online community, and show better content from that community in search results, including the Discussions and Forums feature.”

What’s ProfilePage Markup Good For?

The ProfilePage structured data markup can be used on any profile page where there’s a creator. It’s not just for communities and can make a profile page eligible to show an enhanced listing in the search results.

This is what Google’s documentation says:

“Other structured data features can link to pages with ProfilePage markup too. For example, Article and Recipe structured data have authors…”

It seems like the ProfilePage markup is underused in the recipe blogger space, not sure why. For example, the Serious Eats profile page for recipe writer J. Kenji López-Alt has ProfilePage structured data markup on his profile page and Google appears to reward that markup with an enhanced listing for his Serious Eats profile page.

Screenshot Of Serious Eats ProfilePage Markup

Screenshot Of Rich Results For Profile Page

Another Screenshot

The above two screenshots are of rich results for the profile pages of recipe authors, pages that use the ProfilePage structured data markup.

Read Google’s updated ProfilePage documentation:

Profile page (ProfilePage) structured data

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Krakenimages.com

Google Updates Organization Structured Data Documentation via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google updated the opening paragraph of the Organization Structured Data documentation to provide a clearer, more comprehensive description of its purpose, with improved clarity on four specific points. The result is a model of how to write a high quality opening paragraph.

The new documentation has a high level of information density, which is the quality of communicating more information with less words. The importance of information density is that it communicates ideas better.

The changes add the following four points:

1. It emphasizes that organization structured data disambiguates one organization from others using structured data properties like iso6523 and naics. Disambiguate means to make something less ambiguous.
2. It explains how certain Schema.org properties can influence visual elements in search results and in a knowledge panel. A knowledge panel is a box containing data about an organization (or person) that appears on the right side of search results when a user queries about those entities.
3. It specifically mentions how organization structured data can enrich merchant knowledge panels and brand profiles with details about return policies, addresses, and contact information.
4. The new opening paragraph now states that there are no required properties for organization structured data and recommends adding as many structured data properties as necessary for relevance. This is not new to the documentation, but it is newly emphasized in the opening paragraph.

None of the four above points existed in the opening paragraph of the previous version of the documentation, serving as an example of how to keep on topic and communicate what a web page is about.

Here is the previous opening paragraph

“You can use organization structured data to let Google know about your organization’s administrative details, for example, logo, address, contact information, and business identifiers. Google can make use of this markup in knowledge panels and other visual elements (such as attribution), which helps users to find your organization’s details on Google Search.”

This is the new opening paragraph:

“Adding organization structured data to your home page can help Google better understand your organization’s administrative details and disambiguate your organization in search results. Some properties are used behind the scenes to disambiguate your organization from other organizations (like iso6523 and naics), while others can influence visual elements in Search results (such as which logo is shown in Search results and your knowledge panel). If you’re a merchant, you can influence more details in your merchant knowledge panel and brand profile, such as return policy, address, and contact information. There are no required properties; instead, we recommend adding as many properties that are relevant to your organization.”

The above opening paragraph is the only change to the document and yet it vastly improves the entire document because a reader knows what to expect as they continue reading.

Takeaways:

Understanding why the documentation is improved gives publishers and SEOs new ideas for understanding why a web page needs to be refreshed.

The changes to Google’s documentation improve it by clearly explaining what the web page is about, how organization structured data benefits users, and identifying a specific class of users who especially benefit from this kind of structured data. The opening paragraph invites readers to continue reading by ensuring they understand the web page’s purpose.

Why the new documentation is improved:

• Higher information density
• Improved topicality (communicates what the document is about)
• Gets to the point fast
• Offers more details and examples
• Is more comprehensive
• Mentions users who will benefit ( merchants)

Why the previous version needed to be fixed:

• Lacked specifics
• Limited in scope
• Lacking in actionable information
• Didn’t prepare the reader for what the entire page is about

Read the new documentation here:

Organization (Organization) structured data

Compare it to the old documentation here:

Organization (Organization) structured data – WaybackMachine

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Mix and Match Studio

Google To Replace Classic Merchant Center By September via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google to replace Merchant Center with new version by September, introducing AI tools and unified management for online and local listings.

• Google will replace classic Merchant Center with Merchant Center Next by September.
• New features include Product Studio, consolidated analytics, and unified product management.
• Transition may pose challenges, but Google promises improved functionality and provides resources.