Archive for the ‘seo news’ Category
Friday, April 7th, 2023
Google will soon retire four rules-based attribution models in Google Ads and Google Analytics:
- First-click.
- Linear.
- Time decay.
- Position-based.
Why we care. This will impact anyone who still uses these models in Google Ads. Anything that isn’t last-click will be much harder to track because the data-driven attribution formula is different for each advertiser – and not visible.
- “In the past, you could use linear and give each touch the same credit. You will no longer be able to do so. There will be no impact on last touch, as that is still available. But finding some of the first-touch information will be much muddier because there will no longer be a way to see the formulas that compute the attribution scores,” said Greg Finn, director of marketing for Cypress North.
Why the change. These attribution models will be sunset due to “increasingly low adoption rates, with fewer than 3% of conversions in Google Ads using these models” according to a Google spokesperson.
- Switching to the data-driven attribution model typically results in a 6% increase in conversions for advertisers, Google said.
Sunset timeline. The first-click, linear, time decay and position-based models will all sunset in Google Ads and Google Analytics beginning in September. Before that, for newly created conversion actions, these attribution models will no longer be available in:
- GA4 starting in May.
- Google Ads starting in June.
Data-driven attribution as the default attribution model. Google announced its shift to data-driven attribution in September 2021. For advertisers who didn’t want to use data-driven attribution, Google had continued to support open attribution models:
- First click (100% of conversions go to first click).
- Linear (all conversions split across all clicks).
- Time decay (conversions based on a half-life formula).
- Position based (40% to first and last click and 20% to others).
Data-driven attribution does not share any percentages or formulas on how the clicks are counted for conversions, but is rather custom-built based on account history.
Now the only way that advertisers will be able to credit all clicks will be with data-driven attribution. This model will vary by the advertiser, as it leverages conversion data from the account to determine which touches have the most impact.
Dig deeper. Data-driven attribution: How to think about Google’s default attribution model
The post Google to sunset 4 attribution models in Ads and Analytics appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Wednesday, April 5th, 2023
Are you a brand looking to take advantage of the explosive growth of TikTok and its wide audience? DISQO has just released a report that provides answers to your most pressing questions about the platform.
With data from 28,139 adult consumers, DISQO’s TikTok Ad Effectiveness report provides an in-depth look on how U.S. consumers engage with brands on TikTok and how ads impact buying behavior.
Learn who uses TikTok, what they’re looking for, and how to measure your ad effectiveness. Get the insights you need to create effective campaigns and measure their impact on perceptions and buying behaviors. Learn:
- How TikTok usage vary across demographic cohorts
- What TikTok users think about efforts to market to them on the platform
- How brands can effectively engage the TikTok audience, from creating content that fits with what users love about the platform and leveraging the platform’s native formats.
Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download the TikTok ad effectiveness report now!
The post New report: Get insights into who uses TikTok and what they’re looking for appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Wednesday, April 5th, 2023
Quality score. Two words that strike fear in the hearts of paid search professionals everywhere.
OK, not really.
But quality score can be a confusing metric that sparks debate.
A vanity metric?
Some practitioners contend that quality score is a vanity metric.
Others view quality score as a KPI to be optimized and reported regularly.
The discussion rages on.
There’s also the question of whether quality score is a factor in ad rank.
(Spoiler alert, it is indeed a factor.)
Quality score might be the most confusing PPC metric ever.
Defining quality score
Let’s take a step back and talk about what quality score actually is.
In this article by Navah Hopkins, she defines quality score as “a score calculated by Google and Microsoft alongside your bid to determine your ad rank.” To understand the basics of quality score, read this excellent article if you haven’t already.
Bottom line: quality score determines where your ad appears on the page and how much you pay for each click.
Is quality score important?
Should you focus on improving quality score? Or is it really just a vanity metric?
Google’s official help files say this:
“Quality Score is calculated based on the combined performance of 3 components:
- Expected clickthrough rate (CTR): The likelihood that your ad will be clicked when shown.
- Ad relevance: How closely your ad matches the intent behind a user’s search.
- Landing page experience: How relevant and useful your landing page is to people who click your ad.
Each component is evaluated with a status of “Above average,” “Average,” or “Below average.” This evaluation is based on a comparison with other advertisers whose ads showed for the exact same keyword, over the last 90 days.
If one of these components has a status of “Average” or “Below average,” this may indicate an opportunity to make improvements.”
– About Quality Score, Google Ads Help
From reading the above, Google thinks it’s important for advertisers to improve their quality score.
However, we all know that Google often tells advertisers to focus on things that make Google money but don’t help the advertiser’s bottom line.
Some paid search pros posit that quality score is significant as a metric. In this 2013 article, Larry Kim claims that quality score is “king of the KPIs.”
However, Kim is making a circular argument. He rightly states that quality score can impact CPA.
Yes, it does.
Quality score impacts CPC, so it also impacts CPA. If you’re paying a high CPC, then by definition, you will pay more for each conversion than an advertiser paying a low CPC.
It’s basic math. You could just as easily argue that an advertiser should reduce their max CPCs to reduce CPA.
It’s not really that simple, but is the time spent focusing on quality score worth it?
What the experts say
Many experts in the field believe it is.
Brad Geddes, founder of PPC tool Adalysis, has written several posts about improving quality scores. The tool also features modules to help advertisers improve their quality score, showing quality score data at various levels.
In one article, Geddes illustrates how to improve quality score by moving low quality score keywords to a new ad group.
Optmyzr, another PPC tool created by former Googler Fred Vallaeys, also features modules to improve quality score.
In this article from late 2022, Ashwin Balakrishnan of Optmyzr states that quality score is still important.
I have a great deal of respect for both Geddes and Vallaeys. They’ve been mentors of mine in the search industry.
If these tool founders feel that quality score is so important that they’ve invested time and resources building modules to improve it, it must be important. Right?
Then why do advertisers say quality score is a vanity metric?
There are several reasons. First off, there’s the fact that Google doesn’t even show a quality score for every keyword.
Robert Brady showed an example of a keyword spending over $13,000 in 30 days with no quality score showing.
I’ve seen similar things in my accounts – keywords with large spend yet no quality score showing.
Google Ads liaison Ginny Marvin said quality scores will only show for keywords with “enough” exact match impressions. Keywords also need “recent” exact match impressions.
If quality score is so important, why doesn’t it appear for every keyword? And how does one optimize for data we don’t have?
Next, there’s B2B, the world I live in.
B2B keywords are notorious for having low quality scores. While we’ll never know all the reasons for this, it likely has to do with a few factors:
- Low search volume compared to B2C searches.
- Niche, industry-specific search terms that Google doesn’t understand.
- Ambiguity with B2C searches (e.g., “security solutions,” “renewable energy,” etc.).
- Competition – many deep-pocketed advertisers vying for relatively few ambiguous searches.
- Search engine algorithms don’t understand intent, especially in B2B.
The last bullet is especially important (and frustrating). Because:
- As Geddes puts it, “algorithms don’t think – they just examine numbers.”
- B2B volume is lower than B2C.
- There’s overlap with B2C.
Ultimately, engine algorithms don’t understand intent, and B2B advertisers are often punished with low quality scores – sometimes even on brand terms.
Hopkins’ quality score article states that:
“[T]hese scores are determined based on how your campaign did against comparable advertisers. However, depending on the advertisers Google chooses [to] compare you with, it is possible for a good CTR sometimes to get downgraded to average (or even below average).”
Here’s an example from one of our clients:
We have three brand keywords with middling quality scores.
Two of the three keywords have double-digit CTR, yet one of the keywords – for a “free account,” no less – shows that the expected CTR is below average!
It’s enough to make an advertiser throw up their hands in frustration.
As a result, we often do not strongly focus on optimizing quality score for our B2B clients.
Dealing with engines that don’t understand ambiguity or B2B is just banging your head against the wall. It takes time away from other, more leveraged optimizations like landing page and ad copy testing.
Settling the (quality) score
We’re back to the original question: Is quality score truly important?
It is, but maybe not in the way you think.
Quality score shouldn’t be a KPI on its own. You should not report to clients or obsess over it daily.
But you shouldn’t ignore it either. Instead, use quality score directionally. Let low quality scores point you to other optimizations.
Use tightly themed ad groups
For example, small, tightly-themed ad groups are still important.
We’ve improved quality score (and performance) by splitting up large ad groups into smaller ad groups around a theme and using ad copy that mirrors the theme.
Even in today’s RSA world, tightly themed ad groups still matter.
Improve your landing pages
Another way to use quality score directionally is to improve landing pages.
This is an often-overlooked optimization that can pay huge dividends in quality score and in increasing conversion rates.
Here’s an example from the same client I featured above, the one with lower-than-expected quality scores for brand:
This screenshot from Adalysis shows several landing pages with below-average landing page experiences.
Adalysis links to the PageSpeed Insights tool, a free and useful tool to diagnose issues with page load speeds. Here’s how one of the client’s pages scored:
33 out of 100. Not so great.
It’s easy to see why this landing page is pulling down quality score – and user experience along with it.
The PageSpeed Insights tool offers diagnostics for “opportunities” to improve pages:
In this case, unused elements or blocking issues slow down page load time.
Clicking the down arrow next to the “estimated savings” for each element gives step-by-step instructions on how to fix the issue.
Many PPC marketers might view the PageSpeed Insights tool as an “SEO thing.” It’s unfamiliar to us.
But, as Hopkins points out in her article, “SEO is integral to a healthy PPC performance – and a holistic search marketing strategy.”
See if you can work with your client’s SEO team (or web dev team if they don’t have an SEO team) to improve their landing pages.
Even just speeding up page load can positively impact quality score and performance.
So is quality score a vanity metric? In a way, it is – especially for B2B advertisers. But it’s also a useful tool for improving PPC performance.
The post Quality score in paid search: Vanity or valuable? appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Wednesday, April 5th, 2023
In ecommerce SEO, ranking category, product or brand pages should be the main focus of most efforts.
Sitewide conversion rates for ecommerce hover around 2-3%, but product pages can reach over 30% (average of 7%) in the right scenario.
But getting links directly to these pages can be time-consuming for many in-house SEOs.
This article covers six effective link building tactics for ecommerce brands today.
Image by author using Bing Image Creator
Ecommerce link building: Challenges and solutions
For ecommerce sites, driving traffic to category, brand and product pages can lead to greater returns.
But earning links to these pages is complicated as many of the highest quality publishers prefer to link to informational content.
Many ecommerce sites also don’t build long-form, helpful content because blogs and content hubs tend not to yield direct sales and often take months to rank.
In addition, affiliate sites with robust link profiles to long-form content frequently outrank established brands.
But SEOs have found ways to overcome common ecommerce link building hurdles.
- Content-led link building coupled with internal linking for ecommerce provides links to your target pages indirectly. This is important because long-form content generates up to 70% more links than short-form content.
- Building homepage links or profile image links through guest posting, podcast guest appearances, PR, and webinars. Typically, you can get the site or podcaster to link to the homepage of your site and even a link to your headshot hosted on your website.
- Paying for links is just as common now as it has ever been, but it’s important to note that it’s against Google’s link spam guidelines
- Build and maintain a list of relationships with publishers. Cold email campaigns typically have a reply rate of under 10%, so having a contact that knows you will save a lot of time with a higher response rate.
- Find content that already mentions your brand or the brands you sell with unlinked brand mentions.
Let’s explore these ecommerce link building techniques in depth.
1. Unlinked brand mentions
An unlinked brand mention is an existing article or webpage that mentions your brand name, the brands you sell or team members’ names but doesn’t have an active link pointing to your site. These options work to secure links to the homepage or brand pages.
You can find unlinked brand mentions using Google Alerts or Ahrefs.
Set up Google Alerts
Start by setting up Google Alerts for your brand name and variations of it. This will send you an email notification whenever your brand is mentioned online.
You can then check if the mention includes a link to your website and, if not, reach out to the site owner to request a link.
Use Ahrefs Content Explorer and Batch Analysis tool
Ahrefs’ Content Explorer can help you find unlinked mentions of your brand or the brands you sell.
Just follow these steps:
- Log in to your Ahrefs account and click on “Content Explorer” in the top menu.
- Type in your brand name in the search bar and press Enter.
- Apply the “One article per domain” filter to avoid multiple results from the same website.
- Export the list of articles mentioning your brand.
- Go through the exported list and manually check if each mention has a link to your website. You can use the “Find” function in your browser (Ctrl + F or Command + F) to search for your brand name and check if it’s linked.
Once you have a list of URLs with unlinked brand mentions, you can use Ahrefs’ Batch Analysis tool to gather more information about each website.
This will help you prioritize which websites to contact for link building opportunities.
- Go to “More” in the top menu of Ahrefs and click “Batch Analysis.”
- Paste the list of URLs with unlinked brand mentions and click “Start Analysis.”
- Once the analysis is complete, you can see metrics like Domain Rating (DR), Ahrefs Rank (AR), and the number of referring domains for each website. Use these metrics to prioritize which sites to contact for link building opportunities.
2. Reverse product image link building
Reverse image link building involves finding websites using your images without proper attribution or a link.
Finding images that are not properly attributed is relatively simple but still time-consuming.
Identify your original images
Choose the images on your website that are original and unique, such as infographics, custom illustrations, or high-quality and custom photographs.
Perform a reverse image search
Use a reverse image search engine like Google Images or TinEye to find websites that have used your images.
Analyze the results
Manually review the list of websites and check if they have provided proper attribution and a link to your site.
Gather contact information
Find the contact details of the website owners or content creators on each site, such as email addresses or contact forms from the site.
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3. Resource page link building
A resource page is a webpage specifically designed to list and link to valuable resources, tools, or content related to a particular topic or industry.
The process of resource page link building typically involves the following steps:
Identify your link-worthy content
Start by identifying or creating high-quality, valuable, and informative content on your website that would fit resource pages well.
This could include blog posts, articles, tutorials, guides, infographics, tools, or other content types that provide users value.
Find relevant resource pages
Search for resource pages in your niche or industry that might be interested in linking to your content. You can search Google for queries like these (replace “keyword” with your target keyword or niche topic):
- “keyword” + “resources”
- “keyword” + “useful links”
- “keyword” + “helpful resources”
- “keyword” + “links”
Evaluate the resource pages
Analyze the quality and relevance of the resource pages you find. Look for pages with high domain authority, good user engagement, and relevant content.
Craft a personalized outreach email
Write a polite, personalized email to the website owner or editor explaining who you are and why you believe your content would be a valuable addition to their resource page.
Be sure to mention the specific benefits your content provides and how it would be helpful to their audience.
4. Build a database of publishers
Plenty of tools can help you prospect lists of sites, but not all allow you to upload your own list and then manage outreach to the contacts.
I’ve found that Pitchbox works well for this, but you can also use tools like Buzzstream, which is much cheaper.
Pitchbox is an outreach and link building tool that simplifies finding potential websites to connect with, automating outreach, and managing relationships.
Here’s how you can build a database of sites using Pitchbox:
Set up a new campaign
In the Pitchbox dashboard, click on the “Campaigns” tab and select “Create New Campaign.”
Enter a name for your campaign and choose your desired campaign type (such as “Blogger Outreach” or “Link Building”).
Configure your campaign settings
Customize your campaign settings, such as the email account you’ll use for outreach and the domains you want to exclude (e.g., competitors or sites you’ve already connected with).
Conduct a prospect search
In your campaign’s “Prospects” tab, click “Add Prospects” and select a method for finding potential websites to include in your database.
You can use Pitchbox’s built-in search, import a list from another tool like Ahrefs or Semrush, or manually add websites.
- If you choose Pitchbox’s built-in search, enter your target keywords and select your desired search method (such as “Blogger,” “Resource Page,” or “Guest Post”). Pitchbox will then generate a list of relevant websites for your campaign.
- If you prefer to import a list of websites, export the list from your preferred SEO tool in CSV format and then upload the file to Pitchbox.
Review and filter your prospects
Once you have a list of potential websites, review the list and filter out any irrelevant or low-quality sites.
You can use Pitchbox’s built-in metrics, such as domain authority (DA), to help evaluate the quality of each website.
Click the checkbox next to each website you want to include in your database and click “Add Selected Prospects.”
5. Podcast interviews
You can use simple podcast directories to pitch your own or find a podcast booking service. Preparing for a podcast can consume a lot of time, so you’ll want to find a few targeted podcasts that are hyper-relevant to your niche.
Try searching through Stitcher, Podbean, or TuneIn and building custom outreach.
Identify your niche
Determine the niche you want to reach and the goals you want to achieve by appearing on a podcast.
Research podcast directories
Look for podcast directories that are relevant to your niche or industry, and make a list of potential podcasts that you want to pitch.
You can use the examples provided earlier or do a Google search to find additional directories.
Listen to episodes
Before pitching, listen to a few episodes of the podcasts to better understand the show’s format, style, and tone.
Develop your pitch
Craft a compelling pitch highlighting why you would be a valuable guest on the podcast.
Be sure to include a brief introduction of yourself, your area of expertise, and why you would be a good fit for the show. Also, mention any relevant topics you could discuss or offer a unique perspective.
Send your pitch
Contact the podcast host or producer via email or Twitter. Keep your pitch concise, personalized, and professional.
6. Rank curated statistical pages
This is one of my favorite approaches to securing links for ecommerce sites.
Ecommerce sites don’t always have a ton of resources to do unique studies, so a simple way to execute this is by curating statistical pages.
Curate a list of statistics from government data websites or primary data studies and spend time aggregating them for the reader so they don’t have to.
As you can see in the screenshot below, this list of 50 crazy stats and facts ranks for “promotional product statistics,” and as a result, will secure links naturally as journalists and bloggers search for statistics to reference.
Conclusion
Ranking category, product, or brand pages in Google search results is essential for ecommerce businesses to drive high conversion rates. However, securing high-quality backlinks to these pages can be challenging due to the nature of ecommerce.
To overcome these challenges, you can combine content-led link building, strategic internal linking and creative outreach techniques.
By employing these strategies, ecommerce businesses can overcome the challenges associated with ecommerce linking and improve their search engine visibility.
The post 6 link building techniques for ecommerce appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Wednesday, April 5th, 2023
It’s one of the most popular marketing and sales channels, but email isn’t as easy to leverage as it seems. For your emails to convert, it takes more than writing a few lines and hitting send. Everything plays a role in your email success, from the health of your email database to your copywriting skills.
If your email marketing feels stale, these tactics are sure to help you:
- Understand how email deliverability works – and how email verification helps
- Craft emails that feel tailor-made for your ideal prospects
- Improve your metrics and increase email revenue.
How to make more sales with email: assess your current performance
Before you drastically change your email marketing strategy, it pays to take a step back and assess how your emails have been performing. That will allow you to identify what resonates most with your audience so you can create more similar emails.
Take a close look at your metrics and notice what stands out. Your past three to six months’ performance will be a good indicator. Plan to double down on those approaches to boost engagement and conversions. Then, consider these tactics below to ensure your email marketing has the highest chance to succeed.
Are your emails reaching the inbox? Check your email list
You might be spending significant resources on email marketing. Writing and designing great emails isn’t easy. But are those emails landing in your prospects’ inboxes? Low engagement can often be caused by an outdated email list and a poor sender reputation.
Your sender reputation is a score that internet service providers assign to you as a sender, much like a credit score. Everything you do determines your score, but your email list health dramatically impacts it. For instance, whenever your bounce rate exceeds 2%, your score takes a hit. Spam complaints and fake emails also affect your reputation. When that happens, your newsletters and campaigns will go to the spam folder.
If you’ve never scrubbed your database, consider using a free email validation service first. With ZeroBounce, you can check 100 email addresses for free every month to ensure you’re adding only genuine contacts to your list.
Segment your database for higher engagement
Your email subscribers are in different stages of their buyer journey with your company. While some may be long-term customers, others are still on the fence about purchasing. Each segment has different needs and expectations, and creating emails that speak directly to these groups should be high on your list.
Segmentation can be challenging for many marketers, but you can start with basic filters. Use criteria such as gender, location, and purchase history, then think of ways to engage these prospects with the most relevant offers. Personalize every email campaign using available data, and remember that one email is usually not enough to make a sale. Drip campaigns are more effective as they periodically nudge your prospects and build familiarity with your brand.
Make your emails highly educational
When email conversions drop, many marketers tend to try a more aggressive approach – more emails, more direct offers and higher discounts. But could you benefit more from inbound tactics instead?
Instead of pushing for sales, inbound marketing focuses on attracting prospects with relevant, helpful resources and experiences. Creating content that answers questions, solves problems, and makes people’s lives better is a great way to strengthen your brand.
Even if you’re running a direct marketing campaign, you can still present your offers in an educational way. Instead of leading with a “buy now” approach, focus on the benefits of your products and services. Build loyalty with your audience by establishing your brand as a reliable, relevant source of information and education.
Bonus tip: send your emails consistently
One final tip to increase sales with your emails is to providea steady sending schedule. Whether you set up automated drip campaigns or send a newsletter, be consistent in your efforts. Sending emails regularly helps your reputation, boosts email deliverability, and keeps your business relevant to your prospects.
So, if you have an email newsletter, remember to send it on time, ideally on the same day every week or month. Your nurturing campaigns should also be timely – check and update your automations to confirm each trigger works correctly. Staying on top of these details and sending useful emails to a healthy email list will boost your email marketing results quickly.
Explore ZeroBounce’s email validation and deliverability tools.
The post 3 ways to drive sales with email appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Tuesday, April 4th, 2023
The staggering amount of global change in the past years has presented search marketers with an unrivaled amount of challenges… and opportunities. Customer expectations are sky-high, user experience is more important than ever before… and the critical rise of generative AI is changing the face of search marketing as we know it.
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The agenda will be posted in early May… stay tuned for some program sneak peeks!
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Tuesday, April 4th, 2023
People who rushed to download the Microsoft Edge browser to try out the New Bing Chat experience – ironically – ended up using Google Search on Edge, according to new data from enterprise SEO platform BrightEdge.
Why we care. We’re watching closely for any data indicating whether the New Bing is starting to chip away at Google’s massive lead in search. What we see here is more evidence that Microsoft is driving more traffic to sites – in a twist, they’re doing it via Edge instead of Bing.
What the data shows. Google fairly consistently sent more than 3 million visits to websites since the start of 2023. Starting around Feb. 19, however, there is a noticeable uptick in Google traffic coming from the Edge browser. That number grew to roughly 3.7 million visits by the week of March 12.
Meanwhile, traffic from Bing in Edge also showed some growth since the start of the year (from just over 5 million to about 5.5 million as of the week of March 12), but the data seems to show that as more traffic started coming from Google in Edge, less came from Bing in Edge.
For its analysis, BrightEdge examined more than 600,000 million visits to websites across all major industries, comparing U.S. traffic from Google and Bing, by browser (Chrome vs. Edge).
Google gains an Edge. More than 1 million people signed up within the first 48 hours to try out the new Bing in February, but ended up stuck on a waitlist, in some cases for weeks.
So all those people who downloaded Edge stuck with it. But when it came to searching, rather than using Bing, many started using Google Search on Edge.
One big question we will be better able to answer months from now is whether limiting the integration of GPT-4 into Bing Chat solely on the Edge browser was a missed opportunity. We just don’t have that data yet.
“It is still early to predict how Google and Bing will evolve and if there is a significant market dominance shift,” said Lemuel Park, BrightEdge co-founder and CTO. “However, Bing will undoubtedly increase in popularity as more and more people experiment with its new capabilities.”
More data. The new Bing making (small) gains on Google Search has some additional data, including page visits on Bing rising 15.8% and Bing becoming a more significant referral source for some publishers.
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Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Tuesday, April 4th, 2023
Measuring campaign success is critical now more than ever.
Calculating the incremental lift and the resulting value that campaigns provide is a great way to assess the impact of your marketing tactics and improve the performance of channels and ROI.
So, what is incrementally, and how do you measure campaign effectiveness using incrementality testing and optimize them for success?
Register today for “Demystifying ‘Incrementality’ for Marketing Success,” presented by iQuanti.
Click here to view more Search Engine Land webinars.
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Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Tuesday, April 4th, 2023
Implementing hreflang can be a challenging task for many SEOs. The countless syntax variations across several languages can be difficult for those with little understanding of more than one language.
There’s also the added complexity of understanding specific language nuances and regional targeting which would only typically be understood by a native speaker or someone who had thoroughly studied the language.
Incorrect hreflang implementation can cause many complications (i.e., duplicate content, erroneous indexing and poor SERP visibility) detrimental to SEO performance.
It’s imperative to implement hreflang with care. Thankfully, hreflang is well-documented and related issues can be identified through various SEO tools.
Hreflang errors study
To determine how widespread hreflang issues are and which ones are more common, I partnered with NerdyData, which gave me access to their database of websites that contain hreflang code.
NerdyData provided a list of 18,786 websites that contain at least one instance of hreflang declaring an alternate within the source code. Thus, this study only accounts for hreflang implemented in the <head>, not through XML sitemaps or the HTTP header.
I carried out the study by:
- Running crawls in Screaming Frog to validate the presence of hreflang on the homepages.
- Removing GEO-IP redirects so the complete list of URLs resolves in 200s.
- Utilizing HreflangChecker.com and Visual SEO Studio to process the URLs in batches to identify common issues identified by the tools.
31.02% of websites contain conflicting hreflang directives
My findings show 31.02% of websites serving multiple languages have conflicting hreflang directives. Conflicting hreflang can happen when a webpage has various hreflang tags for different languages and geographical targeting.
Put simply, more than one URL has been assigned to an individual language or region, sending confusing signals to search engines. For example:
- <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://example.com/” hreflang=”en” />
- <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://example.com/en-uk/” hreflang=”en-gb” />
- <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://example.com/en-us/” hreflang=”en-gb” />
- <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://example.com/en-au/” hreflang=”en-au” />
Such confusion potentially leads to complications around duplicate content and incorrect ranking and indexing, making it difficult to place well in the SERP.
Even if users find your webpage among those performing well, they will suffer poor user experience if they are served the incorrect version of the page.
16.04% of hreflang clusters are missing self-referencing tags
Self-referencing hreflang happens when a page includes a hreflang tag pointing to its URL.
In essence, the page indicates it is available in various languages, including the original language of the page.
Despite initially appearing as a redundant tactic, it’s good practice for international SEO. Unfortunately, 16.04% of sites with multiple languages have no self-referencing hreflang tags.
Search engines can better understand the relationship between different versions of the same page when self-referencing hreflang tags are used, including pages available in different languages.
Given that hreflang contributes as one of approximately 20 canonicalization signals, it’s an important signal to include.
47.95% of websites don’t utilize x-default
The x-default attribute signals to search engines that a page doesn’t target a specific language or location, defining it as a default language version of the page.
It’s especially useful when a page is available in multiple languages but doesn’t deliver content in the user’s preferred language.
The x-default attribute isn’t necessarily needed in hreflang. Up to 47.95% of multilanguage sites are currently not using it.
However, it can be beneficial to use in cases where a user searches for a page in a specific language that isn’t available, as it helps search engines find the most appropriate version of the page to display.
It’s important to note that the x-default attribute should only be used if another language isn’t available. Where other available languages exist, each should be specified with a hreflang tag.
Additionally, x-default should not be used on pages specific to a particular language or location.
8.91% of hreflang clusters contain at least one instance of invalid language codes
It is essential to use the two-letter ISO-639-1 format within hreflang attributes.
Unfortunately, it’s common for language codes to go wrong, causing multiple issues that can affect the international targeting of a website.
My research found that 8.91% of sites targeting more than one language currently contain unknown language codes.
It could simply be a confused approach to combining language and location codes, but many common issues might be the cause.
Some language codes don’t quite match the spelling of a country.
For example, you might expect the language code for Croatian to be “cr,” but it’s actually “hr.” Because the code isn’t obvious, it’s easy to make mistakes when implementing language codes.
1.6% of hreflang clusters contain at least one instance of invalid region codes
Contrary to the previous statistic, relatively few hreflang clusters contain invalid region codes.
While using the two-letter ISO-3166-1 region codes isn’t required, it does help when targeting the same language between two or more countries with different spelling rules. Doing so provides more context to search engines, looking into user location and language.
To return to my previous example, you must use the code “en-US” to target users in the United States. If it is set to “en-GB,” you will only target British-based users, missing your intended audience entirely.
Common errors here include:
- <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://example.com/en-gb/” hreflang=”en-uk” />
- <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://example.com/en-eu/” hreflang=”en-eu” />
Here, the entries all target English but also intend to target the UK and Europe. Both UK and EU are invalid codes as it’s GB (Great Britain), and you can’t target Europe as a continent.
Spanish targeting can also be problematic in Latin America, with cluster trying to target es-la, es-lx and es-419 in an attempt to target the region as a whole when you should be targeting individual countries – or leaving Spanish as a general language.
22.46% of hreflang clusters contain irregular/unusual language-region combinations
There is a range of benefits to targeting countries without native languages with hreflang, with a major one being to improve the user experience for non-native speakers.
For example, Dutch is the native language of the Netherlands, but an estimated 95% of the population also speaks English. There are also around 97,8000 British nationals who live in the Netherlands.
With such high numbers of English speakers, targeting users in the Netherlands with your English website pages makes sense.
However, not all combinations make sense. For example:
- <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://example.com/en-vn/” hreflang=”en-vn” />
- <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://example.com/es-ie/” hreflang=”es-ie” />
- <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://example.com/zh-zm/” hreflang=”zh-zm” />
While the three examples above will pass a hreflang test and are technically accurate, Zambia’s number of Chinese speakers will likely yield little to no results in having this alternate version.
Creating alternate versions that make little sense creates additional and unnecessary crawl demand and versions that Google may likely deem to be duplicated, overriding the canonicals.
The post Study: 31% of international websites contain hreflang errors appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Monday, April 3rd, 2023
A new lawsuit alleges that Google abused its dominance in display advertising since 2014 and seeks £3.4 billion ($4.2 billion) in damages for all UK publishers.
The bigger picture. Google is facing similar scrutiny in the U.S. The Department of Justice and eight states sued Google in an effort to dismantle its ads division. Google had hoped to avoid that by offering to restructure its ad tech business. And due to EU scrutiny, Google offered to show ad rivals on YouTube.
Why we care. The outcomes of ongoing lawsuits and antitrust investigations could eventually result in meaningful changes for online advertisers, impacting publishers (ad revenue) and advertisers (reach). So we will continue to watch as these developments unfold.
The lawsuit. It was filed by journalist Charles Arthur, a former technology editor for UK news publisher The Guardian on behalf of all UK publishers of websites and apps in the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT). At issue:
Charles claims that Google has breached competition law by abusing its dominant position in online advertising through Google, for example, giving preferential treatment to its own ad tech products (e.g. Google Ad Manager). As a result, market-wide prices for all ad tech services were increased and businesses and individuals who sold ad impressions on websites and apps using these services received less compensation than they would have absent Google’s breaches of competition law.
– FAQ, Google Ad Claim.
Google’s response. The company called the lawsuit “speculative and opportunistic,” adding that “those of our many adtech competitors, help millions of websites and apps fund their content, and enable businesses of all sizes to effectively reach new customers,” the BBC reported.
The second such lawsuit. Ofcom director Claudio Pollack filed a similar lawsuit, seeking up to £13.6bn in damages, in November 2022.
Opt-out. Because both of these lawsuits are collective claims (the equivalent of a U.S. class action lawsuit), “both legal claims ask the court – the Competition Appeal Tribunal – to certify their claims as “opt-out”, meaning every relevant publisher would be automatically included in the case unless they choose otherwise,” according to the BBC.
The post UK publishers sue Google for $4.2 billion in lost ad revenue appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
