SEO Archives SEO

Feb 27 2025

Google On Search Console Noindex Detected Errors via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google’s John Mueller answered a question on Reddit about a seemingly false ‘noindex detected in X-Robots-Tag HTTP header’ error reported in Google Search Console for pages that do not have that specific X-Robots-Tag or any other related directive or block. Mueller suggested some possible reasons, and multiple Redditors provided reasonable explanations and solutions.

Noindex Detected

The person who started the Reddit discussion described a scenario that may be familiar to many. Google Search Console reports that it couldn’t index a page because it was blocked not from indexing the page (which is different from blocked from crawling). Checking the page reveals no presence of a noindex meta element and there is no robots.txt blocking the crawl.

Here is what the described as their situation:

“GSC shows “noindex detected in X-Robots-Tag http header” for a large part of my URLs. However:

Can’t find any noindex in HTML source

No noindex in robots.txt

No noindex visible in response headers when testing

Live Test in GSC shows page as indexable

Site is behind Cloudflare (We have checked page rules/WAF etc)”

They also reported that they tried spoofing Googlebot and tested various IP addresses and request headers and still found no clue for the source of the X-Robots-Tag

Cloudflare Suspected

One of the Redditors commented in that discussion to suggest troubleshooting if the problem was originated from Cloudflare.

They offered a comprehensive step by step instructions on how to diagnose if Cloudflare or anything else was preventing Google from indexing the page:

“First, compare Live Test vs. Crawled Page in GSC to check if Google is seeing an outdated response. Next, inspect Cloudflare’s Transform Rules, Response Headers, and Workers for modifications. Use curl with the Googlebot user-agent and cache bypass (Cache-Control: no-cache) to check server responses. If using WordPress, disable SEO plugins to rule out dynamic headers. Also, log Googlebot requests on the server and check if X-Robots-Tag appears. If all fails, bypass Cloudflare by pointing DNS directly to your server and retest.”

The OP (orginal poster, the one who started the discussion) responded that they had tested all those solutions but were unable to test a cache of the site via GSC, only the live site (from the actual server, not Cloudflare).

How To Test With An Actual Googlebot

Interestingly, the OP stated that they were unable to test their site using Googlebot, but there is actually a way to do that.

Google’s Rich Results Tester uses the Googlebot user agent, which also originates from a Google IP address. This tool is useful for verifying what Google sees. If an exploit is causing the site to display a cloaked page, the Rich Results Tester will reveal exactly what Google is indexing.

A Google’s rich results support page confirms:

“This tool accesses the page as Googlebot (that is, not using your credentials, but as Google).”

401 Error Response?

The following probably wasn’t the solution but it’s an interesting bit of technical SEO knowledge.

Another user shared the experience of a server responding with a 401 error response. A 401 response means “unauthorized” and it happens when a request for a resource is missing authentication credentials or the provided credentials are not the right ones. Their solution to make the indexing blocked messages in Google Search Console was to add a notation in the robots.txt to block crawling of login page URLs.

Google’s John Mueller On GSC Error

John Mueller dropped into the discussion to offer his help diagnosing the issue. He said that he has seen this issue arise in relation to CDNs (Content Delivery Networks). An interesting thing he said was that he’s also seen this happen with very old URLs. He didn’t elaborate on that last one but it seems to imply some kind of indexing bug related to old indexed URLs.

Here’s what he said:

“Happy to take a look if you want to ping me some samples. I’ve seen it with CDNs, I’ve seen it with really-old crawls (when the issue was there long ago and a site just has a lot of ancient URLs indexed), maybe there’s something new here…”

Key Takeaways: Google Search Console Index Noindex Detected

Google Search Console (GSC) may report “noindex detected in X-Robots-Tag http header” even when that header is not present.
CDNs, such as Cloudflare, may interfere with indexing. Steps were shared to check if Cloudflare’s Transform Rules, Response Headers, or cache are affecting how Googlebot sees the page.
Outdated indexing data on Google’s side may also be a factor.
Google’s Rich Results Tester can verify what Googlebot sees because it uses Googlebot’s user agent and IP, revealing discrepancies that might not be visible from spoofing a user agent.
401 Unauthorized responses can prevent indexing. A user shared that their issue involved login pages that needed to be blocked via robots.txt.
John Mueller suggested CDNs and historically crawled URLs as possible causes.

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Feb 26 2025

Data Suggests Google Indexing Rates Are Improving via @sejournal, @martinibuster

New research of over 16 million webpages shows that Google indexing rates have improved but that many pages in the dataset were not indexed and over 20% of the pages were eventually deindexed. The findings may be representative of trends and challenges that are specific to sites that are concerned about SEO and indexing.

Research By IndexCheckr Tool

IndexCheckr is a Google indexing tracking tool that enables subscribers to be alerted to when content is indexed, monitor currently indexed pages and to monitor the indexing status of external pages that are hosting backlinks to subscriber web pages.

The research may not statistically correlate to Internet-wide Google indexing trends but it may have a close-enough correlation to sites whose owners are concerned with indexing and backlink monitoring, enough to subscribe to a tool to monitor those trends.

About Indexing

In web indexing, search engines crawl the internet, filter content (such as removing duplicates or low-quality pages), and store the remaining pages in a structured database called a Search Index. This search index is stored on a distributed file system. Google originally used the Google File System (GFS) but later upgraded to Colossus, which is optimized for handling massive amounts of search data across thousands of servers.

Indexing Success Rates

The research shows that most pages in their dataset were not indexed but that indexing rates have improved from 2022 to 2025. Most pages that Google indexed are indexed within six months.

Most pages in the dataset were not indexed (61.94%).
Indexing rates have improved from 2022 to 2025.
Google indexes most pages that do get indexed within six months (93.2%).

Deindexing Trends

The indexing trends are very interesting, especially about how fast Google is at deindexing pages. Of all the indexed pages in the entire dataset, 13.7% of them are deindexed within three months after indexing. The overall rate of deindexing is 21.29%. A sunnier way of interpreting that data is that 78.71% remained firmly indexed by Google.

Deindexing is generally related to Google quality factors but it could also reflect website publishers and SEOs who purposely request web page deindexing through noindex directives like the Meta Robots element.

Here is the time-based cumulative percentages of deindexing:

1.97% of the indexed pages are deindexed within 7 days.
7.97% are deindexed within 30 days.
13.70% deindexed within 90 days
21.29% deindexed after 90 days.

The research paper that I was provided offers this observation:

“This timeline highlights the importance of early monitoring and optimization to address potential issues that could lead to deindexing. Beyond three months, the risk of deindexing diminishes but persists, making periodic audits essential for long-term content visibility.”

Impact Of Indexing Services

The next part of the research highlights the effectiveness of tools designed to increase the web page indexing. They found that URLs submitted to indexing tools had a low 29.37% success rate. That means that 70.63% of submitted web pages remained unindexed, possibly highlighting limitations in manual submission strategies.

High Percentage Of Pages Not Indexed

Less than 1% of the tracked websites were entirely unindexed. The majority of unindexed URLs were from websites that were indexed by Google. 37.08% of all the tracked pages were fully indexed.

These numbers may not reflect the state of the Internet because the data is pulled from a set of sites that are subscribers to an indexing tool. That slants the data being measured and makes it different from what the state of the entire Internet may be.

Google Indexing Has Improved Since 2022

Although there are some grim statistics in the data a bright spot is that there’s been a steady increase in indexing rates from 2022 to 2025, suggesting that Google’s ability to process and include pages may have improved.

According to IndexCheckr:

“The data from 2022 to 2025 shows a steady increase in Google’s indexing rate, suggesting that the search engine may be catching up after previously reported indexing struggles.”

Summary Of Findings

Complete deindexing at a website-level are rare for this dataset. Google’s indexing speed varies and more than half of the web pages in this dataset struggles to get indexed, possibly related to site quality.

What kinds of site quality issues would impact indexing? In my opinion, some of what is causing this could include commercial product pages with content that’s bulked up for the purposes of feeding the bot. I’ve reviewed a few ecommerce sites doing that who either struggled to get indexed or to rank. Google’s organic search results (SERPs) for ecommerce are increasingly precise. Those kinds of SERPs don’t make sense when reviewed through the lens of SEO and that’s because strategies based on feeding the bot entities, keywords and topical maps tend to result in search engine first websites and that’s not going to affect the ranking factors that really count that are related to how users may react to content.

Read the indexing study at IndexCheckr.com:

Google Indexing Study: Insights from 16 Million Pages

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Shutterstock AI Generator

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Feb 25 2025

Data Shows Google AI Overviews Changing Faster Than Organic Search via @sejournal, @martinibuster

New research on AI Overviews and organic search results presents a fresh view on how AIO is evolving and suggests how to consider it for purposes of SEO.

Among the findings:

Their research showed that the AIO they were tracking showed more volatility than the organic search results, that they were changing at a faster rate.
AIO volatility doesn’t correlate with organic search volatility
They conclude that AIO is replacing featured snippets or “enhancing search results.”
It was also concluded that, for the purpose of SEO, AIO should be considered as something separate from the organic search.
Generative text changed for every query they looked at.

That last finding was really interesting and here is what they said about that:

“As far as I can tell, the generative text changed for every single query. However, our measure was looking for meaningful changes in the generative text which might reflect that Google had shifted the intent of the original query slightly to return different generative ranking pages.”

Another interesting insight was a caveat about search volatility is that it shouldn’t be taken as a sign of a Google update because it could be the influence of current events temporarily changing the meaning of a search query, which is related to Google’s freshness algorithm. I don’t know who the Authoritas people are but hats off to them, that’s a reasonable take on search volatility.

You can read the AIO research report here, it’s very long, so set aside at least 20 minutes to read it:

AIO Independence From Organic SERPs

That research published by Authoritas got me thinking about AIO, particularly the part about the AIO independence from the search results.

My thoughts on that finding is that there may be two reasons why AIO and organic SERPs are somewhat decoupled:

AIO is tuned to summarize answers to complex queries with data from multiple websites, stitching them together from disparate sources to create a precise long-form answer.
Organic search results offer answers that are topically relevant but not precise, not in the same way that AIO is precise.

Those are important distinctions. They explain why organic and AIO search results change independently. They are on independent parallel paths.

Those insights are helpful for making sense of how AIO fits into overall marketing and SEO strategies. Wrap your head around the insight that AIO and Organic Search do different and complementary things and AIO will seem less scary and become easier to focus on.

A complex query is something AIO can do better than the regular organic search results. An example of a complex question is asking “how” a general concept like men’s fashion is influenced by an unrelated factor like military clothing. Organic search falls short because Google’s organic ranking algorithm generally identifies a topically relevant answer and this kind of question demands a precise answer which may not necessarily exist on a single website.

What Is A Complex Query?

If complex queries trigger AI Overviews, where is the line? It’s hard to say because the line is moving. Google’s AIO are constantly changing. A short TL/DR answer could arguably be that adding a word like what or how can make a query trigger an AIO.

Example Of A Complex Query

Here’s the query:

“How is men’s fashion influenced by military style?”

Here’s the AIO answer that’s a summary based on information combined from from multiple websites:

“Men’s fashion is significantly influenced by military style through the adoption of practical and functional design elements like sharp lines, structured silhouettes, specific garments like trench coats, bomber jackets, cargo pants, and camouflage patterns, which originated in military uniforms and were later incorporated into civilian clothing, often with a more stylish aesthetic; this trend is largely attributed to returning veterans wearing their military attire in civilian life after wars, contributing to a more casual clothing culture.”

Here are the completely different websites and topics that AIO pulled that answer from:

Screenshot Of AIO Citations

The organic search results contain search results that are relevant to the topic (topically relevant), but don’t necessarily answer the question.

Information Gain Example

An interesting feature of AI Overviews is delivered through a feature that’s explained in a Google Patent on Information Gain. The patent is explicitly in the context of AI Assistants and AI Search. It’s about anticipating the need for additional information beyond the answer to a question. So in the example of “how is men’s fashion influenced by military style” there is a feature to show more information.

Screenshot Showing Information Gain Feature

The information gain section contains follow-up topics about:

Clean lines and structured fit
Functional design
Iconic examples of military clothing
Camouflage patterns
Post-war impact (how wars influenced what men after they returned home)

How To SEO For AIO?

I think it’s somewhat pointless to try to rank for information gain because what’s a main keyword and what’s a follow up question? They’re going to switch back and forth. Like, someone may query Google about the influence of camouflage patterns and one of the information gain follow-up questions may be about the influence of military clothing on camouflage.

The better way to think about AIO, which was suggested by the Authoritas study, is to just think about AIO as a search feature (which is what they literally are) and optimize for that in the same way one optimized for featured snippets, which in a nutshell is to create content that is concise and precise.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Sozina Kseniia

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Feb 25 2025

How to Optimize for GenAI Answers

ChatGPT is taking the world by storm. It reported in November 2024 100 million weekly users, despite being only one of the popular generative AI platforms.

No business should ignore those channels, as consumers increasingly turn to genAI for product and brand recommendations.

Yet showing up in AI answers is tricky, and the tactics vary among platforms.

In August 2024, Seer Interactive, a marketing agency, compared the leading “answer engines.”

“Answer Engines: AI vs. SEO” from Seer Interactive. Click image to enlarge.

Here’s my version.

Structure	Organic Search	ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot	Perplexity, Google AI Overviews	Claude, DeepSeek, Llama
Knowledge sources	Search index, knowledge graph	Training data + search data + memory	Search index	Training data
Output	Citations, ads, search features	Answers + citations	Answers + citations	Answers (few links)
Optimization tactics	Content, backlinks, branding	Content, backlinks, branding	Google & Bing indexes + top ranking	Branding

Foundational search optimization tactics apply to genAI. Sites should be indexed and visible in Google and Bing to appear in answers on the leading platforms — ChatGPT, Gemini, Google’s AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity.

However, some AI-optimizaiton tactics are more important than others in my experience.

Fast, Light, Simple

AI crawlers that access a site will learn about the business and its purpose but may not link to it. Generative AI platforms often repurpose content without referencing the source. Antropic’s Claude, Meta’s Llama, and now DeepSeek rarely include links.

Thus allowing those AI crawlers on a site is debatable. My advice to clients is this: Google has monetized our content for years, but we’ve all benefitted from the visibility. So I usually suggest optimizing for AI platforms rather than blocking them.

The best AI-optimized sites are fast, light, and usable with JavaScript disabled. AI crawlers are immature, more or less. Most cannot render JavaScript and abort crawling slow-loading sites.

No Fluff

For years, Google’s machine learning favored featured snippets from pages with clear, concise, factual answers — even when the page itself wasn’t ranking organically near the top.

Recent case studies prove the point. One comes from search optimizer Matt Diggity, who shared examples on X of the ranking benefits in Google from brevity and clarity.

Search optimizer Matt Diggity posted on X the results from his “natural language processing” text. Click image to enlarge.

Matt’s findings apply to all writing, including generative AI platforms.

In short, AI optimization aligns with commonsense organic search tactics. Optimizing for one will likely help the other.

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Feb 21 2025

Hostinger Horizons Enables Anyone To Build Web Apps With AI via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Hostinger announced a new service called Hostinger Horizons that allows anyone to build interactive online apps (like an AI-based website builder) without having to code or hire programmers. The new service allows users to turn their ideas into web applications by prompting an AI to create it.

AI Democratizes Entrepreneurship

In the early days of the Internet it seemed like people with backgrounds from Stanford University and Harvard Business School had access to the resources and connections necessary to turn ideas into functioning web apps. Over time, platforms like WordPress lowered the barrier to entry for starting and running online businesses, enabling virtually anyone to compete toe to toe with bigger brands. But there was still one last barrier and that was the ability to create web apps, the functionalities that power the biggest ideas on the Internet. Hostinger Horizons lowers that barrier, enabling anyone to turn their idea into a working app and putting entrepreneurial success within reach of anyone with a good idea. The significance of this cannot be overstated.

AI Powered Web App Builder

Hostinger Horizons is an AI-powered no-code platform created specifically for individuals and small businesses that enables them to create and publish interactive web applications without having to use third-party integrations or requiring programming knowledge.

The new platform works through an AI chat interface that creates what users are asking for while also showing a preview of the web app. A user basically prompts what they want, makes feature requests, tells it what to change and preview the results in real-time.

Hostinger Horizons speeds up the time it takes to create and deploy a functioning web app. Hosting and all other necessary services are integrated into the service, which simplifies creating web apps because there’s no need for third party services and APIs. Once an app is created an online a user can still return to it, edit and improve it in minutes. It promises to be a solution for fast prototyping without the technical and investment barriers that are typically associated with translating a good idea to deployment on the web.

The Hostinger announcement noted that simple web apps only takes minutes to create:

“Early access trials show that simple web apps, such as a personal calorie tracker, a language-learning card game, or a time management tool, can be built and published in minutes.”

How Hostinger Horizons Works

The new service combines AI-powered chat, with real-time previews and the ability to instantly publish the app to the web.

Hostinger provides all the necessary elements to get the work done:

Domain name registration
Email services
Multilingual support (80+ languages)
Supports image uploads
Supports user-provided sketches and screenshots
Voice prompting
Web hosting

Giedrius Zakaitis, Hostinger Chief Product and Technology Officer, offered these insights:

“Web apps have turned ideas into million-dollar startups, but building one always required coding or hiring a developer. We believe it is time to change the game. Just like Hostinger AI Website Builder introduced a new kind of site-building experience, Hostinger Horizons will democratize web apps so that anyone can bring their unique and exciting ideas online…”

Hostinger Horizons is an AI-powered no-code platform that is specifically designed to enable individuals and small businesses to build and publish fully functional web apps with no coding experience or external integrations needed. Users can just prompt what they want through an AI chat interface with real-time previews. It even allows uploading screenshots and sketches.

Hostinger Horizons promises to dramatically simplify the process of turning an idea into a working business by bundling hosting, domain registration, and email services into one solution.

Four reasons that make this a breakthrough service:

Rapid Prototyping: Create, modify, and deploy interactive apps in real-time, including rapid revisions after the app is published.
Integrated Services: Hosting and other essential tools are built in, eliminating reliance on third-party providers.
Democratized Development: Hostinger Horizons enables anyone to turn their ideas into an online business without technical barriers.
Supports 80+ languages

Creating Complex Websites With AI

What can you do with Hostinger Horizons? It seems like the right question to ask is what can’t you do with it. I asked Hostinger if the following applications of the technology was possible and they affirmed that the short answer is yes but that some of the ideas that I suggested may not be 100% straightforward to implement but that they were indeed possible to create.

Money makes the web run and I think applications that many would be interested in are ways to interactively engage users by enabling them to accomplish goals, capture leads, product comparison, improved shopping experiences and follow-up emails.

Since Hostinger Horizons handles hosting, domain registration, and email in a single platform, entrepreneurs and businesses can build these kinds of web pages by describing it to the AI chat interface, iteratively improving it and then publishing the finished project when it’s ready.

This could be useful to a restaurant, a law office, or a product review site, for example. Here are examples of the kinds of things I’d like to see it do.

Restaurant:

Reservation & Loyalty App
Allows users to sign up and reserve tables and receive follow up reminders and offers.
Interactive Menu Explorer
Can enable users to browse a menu according to dietary preferences and capture contact information for special offers.

Legal Office

Could be used to generate questionnaires and streamline the intake.

Product Reviews

Can encourage users to provide their requirements and preferences and then generate a summary of product reviews with quick links to where to purchase them.
Interactive Comparison Tools with links to where to purchase

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Feb 20 2025

Ask An SEO: Is There Any SEO Benefit To Image Geolocation Data? via @sejournal, @HelenPollitt1

Our question today follows well from the one I addressed previously, which is all about metadata for images.

This time, it focuses specifically on one aspect of metadata: “Is there any SEO benefit to image geolocation data?”

Before I answer this question, it’s important that we all get on the same page about what geolocation data is.

What Is Image Geolocation Data?

Essentially, it’s code embedded in an image that gives details about where that image was taken or created.

The most common way of expressing this information is through EXIF or exchangeable image file format.

EXIF is a data format that includes information about how an image was captured. It can include aspects such as the size of the image in pixels, the settings the camera was set to when it took the image, and when the photo was taken.

EXIF data can also provide information on where the image was taken.

How You Can Find The Image Location Data

Not every photo you take or download will have metadata. If, for example, you have set your phone’s camera to not share the location of the images you take, then that data will be missing.

However, if you go to the file information of a photo, usually through a right-click on the image or tapping the menu accessible via the image, you should be able to see if a location has been recorded.

This will often be in the form of coordinates and may have a rough town or city based on those coordinates.

A warning, though: the location data can not only be deleted but also edited. Therefore, even if you find the location data for the image, its accuracy cannot be guaranteed.

In Theory, What Benefit Could Geolocation Data Have?

If we think about this logically, understanding what we’ve deduced about how search engines work, there are several areas where we could expect geolocation data to help with SEO.

Understanding The Image

In a similar way to structured data markup, we could expect the geolocation to give the search engines more contextual clues about the nature of the image.

For example, if the photo is of a mountain and the geolocation data puts the photographer at the base of Mount Everest, the search engines might deduce that the photo is of Mount Everest.

Relevancy For Landscapes/Location Imagery

By giving the search engines more context about the image, it may help them to identify its relevance to searches.

For example, understanding that this photo of a mountain was taken near Mount Everest may make it more relevant to image searches like “Mount Everest photo” and “base camp at Mount Everest.”

This would make logical sense, especially given what we know of how the search bots often use an image’s title and alt text to determine relevancy.

Local Search And Location Profiles

Location information would, in theory, be most important for local searches and location-specific business profiles like Google Business Profile and Bing Places.

Images are often uploaded to these profiles, and as such, geolocation data could enhance the local relevancy of the profiles.

A photo of the outside of a shop in Seattle with the geolocation data suggesting the photo was taken in Seattle would theoretically help to reinforce that the shop was relevant to searchers in Seattle.

What Evidence Do We Have That Geolocation Data Makes An Impact On SEO?

When we are considering how optimizations might impact ranking, crawling, indexing and other aspects of SEO, we need to ask ourselves if we have any evidence of it being impactful.

In the case of geolocation data impacting SEO, I can say that, no, unfortunately, there is none – beyond anecdotal, that is.

In fact, there have been a lot of studies into whether geolocation data impacts local rankings and the performance of Google Business Profiles. One study to take a look at is by Sterling Sky.

It appears that Google actually strips out the EXIF data from images posted through Google Business Profile, at least from public display. Whether it still uses the EXIF data it removes from the image is to be determined.

Google Claims It Does Not Use Exif Data

As far back as 2014, Google representatives, including Matt Cutts, claimed they did not currently use EXIF data but that they may well in the future.

However, reports from the SMX Advanced conference in September 2024 suggest that Martin Splitt of Google reiterated this 10 years after Cutts.

Can We Trust Google?

A lot of SEO pros will claim that Google lies. I prefer to think of it as us SEO professionals, perhaps not understanding the nuances enough to see that what a Google representative has said is technically true, but not necessarily accurate to the context we perceive it in.

However, in line with Google’s assertions, we really don’t have anything beyond occasional, unverifiable anecdotes that geolocation data like EXIF impacts Google’s crawling, indexing, or ranking in any meaningful way.

What About The Other Search Engines?

Bing does not mention geolocation data at all in its photo guidelines. I can’t find any evidence that Baidu or Yandex use it either, although this is purely through armchair research.

Given that, though, we do know that there are waves of new search platforms coming online and, indeed, other ways of searching that could arguably fall under an SEO’s purview.

Large language models (LLMs) may well use additional data points than the traditional search engines.

What we don’t know yet is if they use geolocation data as part of their ways of selecting which pages and brands to display in their answers or search results.

So, Is Geolocation Data Something We Should Take Note Of?

I would suggest that adding geolocation data to your images is not something that should find its way into your task list. We don’t really have the data to back up claims that it is impactful.

In fact, we have more studies and communications from search engine representatives that suggest it isn’t useful in SEO.

Whereas I don’t think it is worth the time and energy to implement geolocation data, I don’t think it’s harmful to include it. Don’t go to the extent of altering it or deleting it. Just leave it if you have already included geolocation data in your images.

Perhaps, in time, it will become useful. As Google has said, it reserves the right to use it. We still don’t know if emerging search platforms will use it.

Essentially, if you are really keen to understand its impact, I would suggest testing it with your own images.

Add EXIF data to a set of images and measure their rankings against a control group that doesn’t use EXIF data.

Measure the change in rankings before and after adding the EXIF data and compare it to the control group.

If there are similar changes in the rankings, then it is possible the EXIF data had no impact.

If there are significant increases (or decreases!) in the rankings of the images with EXIF data, but not the control group, that would suggest they are impactful.

More Resources:

Featured Image: maxbelchenko/Shutterstock

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Feb 20 2025

WordPress Offers New 100-Year Domain Name Registrations via @sejournal, @martinibuster

WordPress.com updated their 100-year domain and hosting plan, unlocking the opportunity to secure a domain name for a one hundred year period for only $2,000. The new service is a breakout from the 100-year plan which is another offering that includes hosting and other benefits for $38,000.

100 Year Domain Name Registration

The new domain name registration is available for .com, .org, .net, or .blog domains and is managed in a trust account controlled by the person registering the domain. This service was previously available as part of a 100-year plan that came with hosting at a price of $38,000. The domain registration fee of $2,000 is more affordable and a good value for those who require the security of knowing the domain isn’t changing hands by mistake.

WordPress.com offers the following benefits:

No expiration surprises.
No lost domains due to admin mistakes.
No stress about renewals—ever (or 100 years, whichever comes first).
A full century of security for your domain.
One setup. 100 years of ownership.

They’ve also reimagined their 100-year plan so that it comes with numbered trust accounts controlled by the owner of the domain and hosting plus contingencies that guarantee the continued web presence should anything happen to WordPress.com or Automattic.

Read more about the new 100-year domain name registration:

Secure Your Domain For the Next Century

Featured Image by Shutterstock/gcafotografia

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Feb 19 2025

How To Create a Certified Fast Website To Compete In 2025

This post was sponsored by Bluehost. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Imagine clicking on a website only to wait several seconds for it to load.

Frustrating, right?

Your prospective customers think so, too.

In a world where attention spans are shrinking, even a one-second delay can lead to lost visitors, lower rankings, and missed revenue opportunities.

Research finds that B2C websites that load in one second or less have conversion rates three times higher than those that load in five seconds or more.

Conversion rates are 2.5 times higher for B2C websites that load in one second or less.

In other words, speed is no longer a luxury.

Speed is a necessity.

A fast-loading website enhances user experience, boosts SEO rankings, and drives higher conversions.

And with search engines and consumer expectations continuing to evolve, businesses must prioritize performance to stay ahead of the competition.

Implementing the right strategies ensures that websites remain fast, competitive, and ready for the demands of 2025.

A trusted partner like Bluehost provides the robust infrastructure, advanced caching mechanisms, and built-in performance enhancements needed to help websites reach peak efficiency.

GET STARTED

1. How To Select The Right Hosting Plan

A website’s performance starts with selecting the right hosting plan. The plan should align with the site’s current and future needs to effectively accommodate growth and traffic fluctuations.

Assess Your Website’s Needs

Before settling on a hosting plan, it’s crucial to evaluate key factors like traffic expectations, content types, and scalability.

For example, websites with heavy multimedia content require more resources than text-based sites, and anticipated visitor numbers influence server capacity needs.

Additionally, selecting a plan that supports future growth ensures smooth scaling without performance bottlenecks.

Match Your Website’s Needs To What The Host Provides

Different hosting solutions cater to different website requirements, ranging from budget-friendly shared hosting to more robust, performance-driven plans. Bluehost offers multiple hosting options tailored to various business needs.

Shared Hosting can work well for smaller websites with moderate traffic, offering a cost-effective way to get started.

Bluehost’s VPS hosting offers more power and flexibility by providing dedicated resources, making it an excellent choice for growing websites that need additional performance.

For large-scale websites demanding maximum speed and control, our dedicated hosting plans deliver exclusive server access with top-tier performance for optimal speed and scalability.

2. Implement Caching Mechanisms

Caching is an essential tool for optimizing website speed by reducing the need to load the same data repeatedly. By storing frequently accessed files, caching decreases server load, enhances response times, and ensures visitors experience faster page loads.

Websites that effectively utilize caching experience better performance, lower bounce rates, and improved search rankings.

Use Built-In Caching Features

For instance, Bluehost provides multiple caching mechanisms to enhance website performance, such as PHP APC (Alternative PHP Cache). A powerful opcode caching system, PHP APC improves database query speed and optimizes PHP script execution, ensuring that frequently accessed data is retrieved faster.

On the other hand, edge caching minimizes latency by delivering content from servers closest to the user, reducing server response times and improving load speeds.

Bluehost makes it easy to use caching to enhance website speed. Caching can be enabled directly through the Bluehost control panel, ensuring seamless implementation.

Additionally, Bluehost is powered by Dell rack-mount servers, which use AMD EPYC chips, DDR5 RAM, and ultrafast NVMe storage. With caching plugins like W3 Total Cache or WP Rocket, your web pages will load faster, improving the user experience, SEO, traffic, and conversion rates.

3. Absolutely Leverage Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)

Another way to speed up websites is to examine how content is delivered to users. A Content Delivery Network (CDN) enhances website performance by distributing content across multiple servers worldwide. This reduces latency and ensures visitors load pages faster, regardless of location.

CDNs minimize the physical distance between the server and the user by caching static assets like images, stylesheets, and scripts at various data centers worldwide. This results in load times and reduced bandwidth usage.

Beyond speed improvements, CDNs also enhance website security by protecting against DDoS attacks, traffic spikes, and malicious bots. Some CDNs offer additional features, such as image optimization, automated compression, and firewall rules, that further improve performance and security.

CDNs & Bluehost

Bluehost offers built-in CDN solutions, including Cloudflare integration, to help websites achieve optimal performance and security.

Activating a CDN through Bluehost’s dashboard is straightforward, and configuring settings that best suit a website’s needs significantly improves speed and reliability.

4. Optimize Images & Media

Impact of Media Files on Load Times

Large images and unoptimized videos can significantly slow down a website. Why? High-resolution media files require more bandwidth and processing power, leading to slower page loads and a poorer user experience.

This is particularly problematic for mobile users and those with slower internet connections since heavy media files can take significantly longer to load, frustrating visitors and increasing bounce rates.

Additionally, media files that are not optimized can consume excessive server resources, potentially affecting overall website performance. If too many large files are loaded simultaneously, the hosting environment can strain, causing slowdowns for all users.

Image- and media-based slowdowns are widespread on websites that rely heavily on visual content, such as e-commerce platforms, portfolios, and media-heavy blogs.

Reducing file sizes, choosing appropriate formats, and leveraging compression techniques can greatly enhance website speed while maintaining visual quality.

How To Size Images The Right Way

First, while it may be common and easy to do, avoid using the width and height attributes in HTML to resize images since this forces the browser to scale the image, increasing load times and decreasing performance.

Instead, resize images before uploading them using graphic editing tools such as Photoshop, GIMP, or online compression services. Scaling images improperly can lead to pixelation and a stretched appearance, negatively impacting user experience.

By resizing images to their intended display size before uploading, websites can significantly reduce the amount of data a browser needs to process, resulting in faster page loads and a more visually appealing layout.

Appropriately resized images will also have a higher visual quality because they are sized for the right display dimensions.

How To Compress Images For Better Website Performance

Compressing images using tools like Squoosh, TinyPNG, or plugins like Smush helps reduce file sizes without sacrificing quality.

Implementing lazy loading ensures that off-screen images and videos only load when needed, reducing initial load times and enhancing overall site performance.

5. Minimize Plugins & External Scripts

How To Discover Your Plugins’ Usage

Overloading a website with excessive plugins and external scripts can severely impact performance. Therefore, it’s essential to regularly assess installed plugins and remove outdated, redundant, or unnecessary ones.

Limiting the number of external scripts running on a page can also help reduce loading times and improve efficiency.

How To Choose Efficient Plugins

Selecting the right plugins is crucial for maintaining website performance. First, look for lightweight, well-coded plugins that prioritize speed and efficiency.

Then, regularly auditing your plugins and removing outdated or redundant ones can prevent conflicts and minimize resource usage.

Bluehost provides hosting environments tailored for WordPress users, ensuring compatibility with essential caching, security, and SEO plugins.

By hosting your website on a reliable platform like Bluehost, you can benefit from a stable infrastructure that complements the best WordPress plugins. This will help you enhance functionality without compromising speed.

6. Tips For Compression, Minification & Technical Tweaks

Additional technical optimizations, in addition to caching and CDNs, can further improve site speed and performance. Compression and minification techniques help reduce file sizes, while other backend optimizations ensure web pages load efficiently.

Implementing these strategies can significantly improve desktop and mobile user experiences.

Benefits Of Compression

Reducing the size of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files significantly improves page speed. Compressed files require less bandwidth and load faster, creating a smoother user experience.

Effortless Compression & Technical Optimization With Bluehost

Bluehost makes compression easy. GZIP compression can be enabled via Bluehost’s control panel or by modifying the .htaccess file.

Plugins like Autoptimize help minify code by removing unnecessary characters, ensuring that files remain lightweight and optimized for performance.

Utilizing ETags & Expires Headers

Another important aspect of page speed optimization involves using ETags and expired headers, which help streamline browser requests and improve overall efficiency.

These settings instruct a visitor’s browser on how to handle cached content, preventing unnecessary reloads and reducing the number of requests made to the server.

ETags (Entity Tags) are used by browsers to determine whether cached resources have been modified since the last visit. If the content remains unchanged, the browser loads the local copy instead of downloading it again, minimizing bandwidth usage and speeding up load times.

On the other hand, expired headers specify a timeframe for when specific resources should be refreshed.

By setting an appropriate expiration date for static files like images, CSS, and JavaScript, web developers can ensure that repeat visitors are not unnecessarily reloading content that has not changed.

For example, a website logo that remains consistent across pages can be cached efficiently so that users do not have to download it every time they navigate the site.

Properly configuring these settings enhances website performance, particularly for sites with recurring visitors. It prevents redundant data transfers and reduces the workload on the browser and server.

Many hosting providers, including Bluehost, offer tools and support to help website owners implement these optimizations effectively. This ensures a faster and more seamless user experience.

7. Regularly Monitor & Execute Maintenance

Practice Continuous Performance Assessment

Technology changes and slows down. Websites are no exception.

Therefore, websites should undergo regular performance assessments to ensure they’re continually optimized for the best user experience.

Routine speed testing helps identify areas where performance can be improved, whether by addressing slow-loading elements, optimizing server response times, or refining backend processes.

Various tools can assist in performance evaluation. Google PageSpeed Insights, for example, provides detailed reports on website speed and offers specific recommendations for improvements.

Lighthouse, a Google open-source tool, analyzes performance, accessibility, and SEO, helping site owners fine-tune their pages.

Beyond automated tools, ongoing monitoring through website analytics platforms, such as Google Analytics, can offer valuable insights into user behavior.

High bounce rates and low engagement metrics may indicate slow performance, guiding further refinements.

Businesses running ecommerce platforms or large applications should consider integrating application performance monitoring (APM) tools to track performance bottlenecks in real time.

Maintenance Tips

Regular updates to website software, regardless of the platform used, are essential for security and performance.

Content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal require frequent updates to core files, themes, and plugins to prevent compatibility issues and vulnerabilities. Similarly, frameworks and libraries for custom-built sites must be kept up to date to ensure efficiency and security.

Database optimization is another crucial maintenance task. Over time, databases accumulate redundant data, slowing down query execution.

Periodic optimizations, such as removing unused tables, cleaning up post revisions, and properly indexing databases, can enhance efficiency.

Server maintenance is equally important. Websites hosted on dedicated or VPS servers should have automated backups, uptime monitoring, and log analysis configured.

Cloud-based hosting solutions like Bluehost Cloud provide performance-tracking tools that can help identify and mitigate slowdowns at the infrastructure level, a 100% uptime SLA, and more to ensure websites run smoothly.

Lastly, implementing a proactive security strategy ensures ongoing performance stability. Regular malware scans, security patches, and SSL certificate renewals help prevent vulnerabilities that could slow down or compromise a website.

Security plugins and firewalls, such as Cloudflare, add an extra layer of protection while minimizing unwanted traffic that could strain server resources.

That’s what makes Bluehost the superior choice. We offer automated backups, performance monitoring tools, and dedicated 24/7 support professionals who can help keep your website running at peak efficiency.

And with a range of hosting plans tailored to different needs, Bluehost ensures that your website will remain fast, secure, and scalable as it grows.

Building a certified fast website in 2025 requires strategic hosting, caching, content delivery, and ongoing maintenance.

Leveraging Bluehost’s robust hosting plans, integrated CDN, and performance optimization tools ensures your website remains fast, competitive, and ready for the evolving digital landscape.

Bluehost’s hosting solutions provide an easy and reliable way to optimize performance.

GET STARTED WITH BLUEHOST TODAY

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Bluehost. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments

Feb 18 2025

Google’s New ‘Ask For Me’ Reviewed: Is This Bad For Local Businesses?

We have been testing Google’s newest “Ask For Me” Search Lab test.

It is quick, easy, and impressive technology to request local quotes, but it is not at all clear that it is good for small businesses.

At the end of January, Rose Yao, a product lead at Google, announced a new Search Lab test (“Ask for Me”) that uses Google Duplex to automate calls to local businesses “to find out what they charge for a service and when it’s available.”

It’s testing in two categories to start: automotive service/repair and nail salons. And we just got access.

When your search query falls within one of the two test categories (e.g., oil change), the Ask for Me module appears under the Local Pack with a large call to action that encourages users to “Get started.”

Ask for Me Module, CTA (Screenshot from search, Google, February 2025)

The Ask For Me Experience

It then asked what service I needed and gave me a list of 20, from factory-scheduled maintenance to vehicle leaks. I chose “oil change” and provided complete details about my car’s make, model, year, and mileage.

I indicated my desired scheduling and preferred communication method (email or SMS) – and we were off to the races.

It took me 96 seconds, but I wasn’t clear on all of the choices. In practice, it takes less than one minute once you are familiar with the process.

What Happened After Submitting A Form?

From the time I submitted the form, it took 17 minutes to receive a response.

I was given a summary of prices and availability from the three businesses that answered the phone. Additionally, I was notified that five businesses couldn’t be reached.

Screenshot from search, Google, February 2025

Google called eight of the top nine listings in the Local Finder. The one not called was Walmart.

The businesses that responded were ranked second, third, and seventh on the Finder list.

In a second test, requesting a tire purchase and installation, Google called 11 businesses.

Six of those answered and provided information. Five of the calls went unanswered. Exactly how many locations Google will call is still TBD.

If you call after hours, Google will send back an email indicating that it will call once the businesses are open.

Screenshot of author’s email, February 2025

How This Could Be A Problem For SMBs

Google Duplex was launched in 2018, using AI “for conducting natural conversations to carry out “real world” tasks over the phone.”

That year, Google implemented a similar solution for restaurant reservations, allowing users to click a reservation button and let Google handle the process. That system is beneficial for both the user and the restaurant.

However, “Ask for Me” is different. It functions more like a Request for Proposal (RFP), letting users quickly contact multiple repair shops with minimal effort.

Even worse, it effectively pits one shop against another, which, if it were to become widely adopted, could drive auto repair shop profits down.

The product also creates additional work for local businesses.

Until auto repair shops adopt automation and bots to handle these calls, staff will be burdened with calls that take just as long as regular ones – but with less direct customer interaction and a lower chance of closing a sale.

In a nutshell, here’s what’s wrong from a business point of view (POV):

Businesses learn nothing about the potential customer.
Callers learn nothing but price and availability about the business.
Local services become further commodified.

There are obvious spam implications: local black hats using Ask for Me calling to waste a competitor’s time.

In addition, this puts pressure on local merchants to “low ball” when Google calls and potentially do a “bait and switch” when the customer actually appears.

Only A Test

As I noted in our most recent podcast, the Ask for Me test is dramatically more limited than most Google tests.

Normally, Google releases its early work on some percentage of searchers (e.g., 1%). Then, if successful, it will show the test to 10%, and so on, until a full rollout.

In this case, the user has to opt in via Search Labs, which will significantly limit the test’s scope. Unless this is a PR ploy, it would appear that Ask for Me is not ready for even a 1% rollout.

How To Opt Out From Ask For Me Duplex Calls

Businesses can opt out of receiving these calls, but the process is somewhat complicated and requires a verified profile.

To opt out of Google Duplex calls for your business, you can:

Go to your Business Profile. Select the three-dot menu.
Select Business Profile settings.
Select Advanced settings.
Under “Google Assistant calls,” turn off “Bookings from customers” or “Automated calls.”

Screenshot from Google Business Profile, February 2025

Final Thoughts

We are just beginning to experience the reality of bots (AI agents) interacting with our businesses.

While those obsessed with efficiency may see the appeal, I’m not convinced this will actually be efficient in practice.

It looks more like a battle of attrition, with Google generating more calls and businesses wasting time quoting prices – only to lose sales to the lowest bidder.

In the process, a lot of time is wasted.

More Resources:

Featured Image: PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments

Feb 18 2025

Why Google’s Rich Results Tool Can Be Misleading via @sejournal, @martinibuster

A recent discussion in a Facebook SEO group highlighted how Google’s structured data testing tool can produce misleading results, making Schema.org structured data difficult to debug. This is why the tool falls short and why Schema.org provides a better solution.

This article doesn’t link to the private Facebook group discussion but it does provide screenshots from debugging the site that was discussed.

WordPress Plugin For Structured Data

The person who started the discussion said they were using a WordPress plugin to output their structured data. Someone pointed their finger at the SEO plugin, saying that the Schema.org structured data output by plugins isn’t good enough but that answer turned out to be incorrect. It may have been an issue with the structured data selected by the user, not the plugin itself.

Structured data plugins are useful for outputting structured data because:

1. It automates the tedious task of generating a Schema.org JSON-LD structured data script.

2. It automatically outputs structured data that is required by Google.

3. Plugins will automatically update all structured data when Google changes its requirements.

The only downside, as may have been the case in this situation, is if the user chooses a structured data that’s not appropriate for their content. This can happen, for example, if the correct version is LocalBusiness, but it requires a paid version of the plugin and the user selects another type of structured data, like AggregateRating.

Google Rich Results Tool Error

The person should have been using the LocalBusiness structured data but the code on the page was for AggregateRating. But when the person checked it on Google’s structured data testing tool it incorrectly showed that they were using the LocalBusiness structured data.

Screenshot Of Misleading Google Rich Results Test

The weird part is that Google’s tool enables users to view the structured data that’s in the HTML and it accurately shows that the web page was using AggregateRating, not LocalBusiness, Schema.org structured data.

Screenshot: Google’s Tool Detects Wrong Structured Data

The tool detects LocalBusiness structured data but that is actually something that’s nested within the AggregateRating structured data, which is not detected. What the tool is showing is related to rich results, but the label on the tool confusingly says it’s showing detected structured data.

Schema.org Structured Data Validator

The more accurate Schema.org structured data validation tool is the one provided by Schema.org, not Google.

Here’s the structured data that the official Schema.org tool detected:

Why Did Google’s Tool Fail?

What happened is that the website was using the AggregateRating structured data to review their local business. Google’s Rich Results Test tool mistakenly identified the LocalBusiness structured data and ignored that the script was really about AggregateRating.

The official Schema.org validator accurately identified the structured data.

This doesn’t mean that Google’s tool is broken though. I think what’s happening is that Google’s tool has a functionality that may be limited to testing for whether a website’s structured data qualifies the page for rich results, which is why it’s called the Rich Results Tester. It maybe doesn’t validate the structured data so if you want to accurately debug your code then it’s probably a good idea to give the official Schema.org tool a spin.

If you’re having trouble debugging structured data and reading HTML isn’t a part of your skill set you may want to give the official Schema.org structured data tool a try, it may help you better understand what’s wrong with your structured data.

Maybe it’s time SEOs and publishers add the official Schema.org Structured Data Validator to their list of tools to use.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Viorel Sima

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments