SEO News Weekly Recap (Nov 4 – Nov 10): Google’s “3 Pillars of Ranking” Leaked
There’s nothing new at Google’s – another week, another update. On November 8th, Google released the November 2023 Reviews Update.
For all of you writing product reviews, here is Google’s official documentation on how to write quality reviews.
What’s important to note is that this is the last Reviews update Google will release. From now on, Google’s reviews system will act in “real-time”:
Going forward, as the reviews system is now being improved at a regular and ongoing pace, we will no longer be posting about future updates on the status dashboard.
Source
On top of the release of a new update, there were a few more news from Google worth mentioning.
Google’s “3 pillars of search ranking” leaked
There has been a lot of buzz over the last couple of weeks about Google’s DoJ hearings. This week, a few slides from the hearing were “leaked.” And they allegedly point out what Google uses for rankings.
This slide does make some sense:
- Body – Google obviously first tries to understand what the page is about; there is no denying it.
- Anchors – this is just a fancy word for “backlinks.” Although Google is saying they don’t matter, everyone knows that authority is the #1 ranking factor (which doesn’t mean you can’t rank without backlinks, on the contrary).
- User interactions – for years, the SEO community has speculated if Google uses users’ signals for ranking purposes. This is still pretty vague, but let’s just hope Google actually uses user behavior for rankings (it should be like that: better content -> better user behavior -> better ranking).
Cyrus Shepard was the first to point this on X:
On top of this slide, there were a few more really interesting slides from Google’s DoJ hearing:
If there is any truth to these and how Google actually ranks things, it’s hard to say. But even seeing that user experience might matter in rankings gives us hope.
After all, good content (thus happy users) should matter and be rewarded!
Want more stuff like this?
Subscribe to our newsletter, where we share case studies, guides, discounts, and the latest SEO news! You don’t want to miss out!
Google actually listens to SEO feedback
Last week, the Google SearchLiaison X account shared how they listen to SEO’s feedback:
Pretty transparent move on their part. If they actually listen, we will have to see. Considering how HCU went, it would be great for site owners if Google responds and adjusts its algorithm based on that.
New Seach Console Page Experience design
If you checked your Page Experience report on Search Console lately, you probably saw the interface is a bit different:
No new features are added to the report, just a little redesign.
And that’s it. Another turbulent week for SEOs. Do you see any changes with the latest updates? What are your thoughts about these slides from DoJ? Let us know in the comments below! 👇
