November SEO Update – Happy Thanksgiving

After last month’s insanity and, really, several months of rapid updates and changes from Google and Bing, we can be thankful that we get a bit of a break this month.  There were no major algorithmic updates and only a few minor changes to the webmaster controls, but they were helpful changes that you’ll want to look into.

We’ll discuss these updates in this month’s SEO update video.

Full Transcript:

Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s Kurt Steinbrueck with OurChurch.com, and I’m here with this month’s SEO update, keeping you informed on what’s going on in the search engines. If you need something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, here’s something: Google didn’t change their algorithm. Yeah! Actually, after last month’s craziness and all the changes that were going on in Google and Bing and Yahoo! and with Siri and everything else, this month we can relax a little bit. Not a lot going on. Just a few small things to mention, but nothing too exciting.

Bing Smart Search:
The first thing is that Bing, they have a new search feature, relatively new search feature that came out with Windows 8.1 called Smart Search. One of the features to Smart Search is that they show the search results with previews. So you’re not just seeing the little text in a list; you’re actually seeing previews of the pages listed out in front of you. You’re supposed to be able to decide a little easier if a page is the right page before clicking through to it.

Well, this month Bing has rolled out a new feature in Bing Webmaster Tools so that you have at least a little bit of control over what’s being shown in that preview. Basically, you can decide to tell them not to show a preview. So if you’re going to be working on your site and you don’t want people to see a preview or for whatever reason you don’t want it shown, you can go into Bing Webmaster Tools and tell them not to do it, and they won’t show it. I believe it’s a 60 day time period, so if you continually don’t want it to be shown, I think you have to keep going back and resetting that.

You can also tell them to refresh the preview. So if you’ve recently changed something on your site and you’re not seeing that in the preview, you can go into Bing Webmaster Tools and tell them to refresh it. I think it’s about a 24 hour turnaround, and they should refresh that preview. So that’s a new feature that they’ve rolled out, something that’s a little bit helpful for webmasters.

Music Video Search:
Another thing that Bing has rolled out this month is a music video search. It’s part of the video, but its own search, so you can actually search specifically for music videos and artists and lyrics and things like that. Just a neat little feature that they’ve rolled out, and I hear that Google is probably going to do the same thing pretty soon as well. So that’s just a nice thing; if you like music videos, you have a few more search options and you don’t have to do the search right there with all the other videos that are there.

Google+ Local Update:
The last thing is Google, because you can’t leave Google out. Google has made some changes to the Google+ Local pages. It’s nothing too huge. They moved some things around; all the information, for the most part, is still there. A few things were dropped, like “Sites like this around the web,” they’ve removed that. But they still have reviews around the web. That’s been moved up to the top. So just a few minor changes, things that have been moved around.

The biggest impact that this is going to have is that they’ve made it to be more adaptive towards different types of screens. If you remember in the Google+ page, there’s three columns of information is how they present it, and now with this update, there’s still those three columns, but only if your screen size can support that. As your screen gets narrower, they’ll show you fewer and fewer columns. So that should make it easier for people who are using handheld devices and even tablets to be able to view people’s Google+ Local pages on those smaller screens.

But that’s about it. So not too much to report, which is nice to have, after last month’s craziness, have a little bit less to do this month. But remember, we live in this internet age where the search engines are so important for people to be able to have success with their websites and to achieve their mission online. So keep focused and keep working on it, and you’ll do well.

God bless!