Bots, JavaScript, and Google hiding website links in 59% of local packs

Send us a text

Today we’ll be talking about the most blocked crawler bot, some takeaways from SEOs & Devs: Harmony in Tech, and a new notification system on Google Search Console that wasn’t supposed to be public yet.

Ahrefs is the most blocked bot from robots.txt files as tweeted by Malte Landwehr from data via builtwith. Something to note - Ahrefs is blocked by default on Shopify sites as well as by default on any plesk servers. Majestic and SEMRush were the only other SEO tools in the top 10. Some more data: https://trends.builtwith.com/robots 

https://twitter.com/MalteLandwehr/status/1473392514833043465 

A great article by Mirriam Ellis at Moz that sums up a lot of SEO with a bit of emphasis on local business.A few big takeaways from this are: 

• 69% of people say at least half of their searches have a local intent
• “Available near me” searches increased by 100% globally in 2020.
• 33% of searches result in a Google local pack being returned
• Google hiding website links in 59% of local packs.
• 87% of consumers read reviews. 
• 78% of consumers want to text with your business
• 60% of shoppers say they would change their purchasing habits to protect the Earth and 
• 83% of young people want to patronize brands which align with their values

https://moz.com/blog/local-seo-industry-story

Worth a listen talking about separating the content and the technical and making sure that’s not the same person. In fact, it can be two completely different agencies that you work with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMIKtfVD21g&t=625s 

SEO and JavaScript - a hot topic for many as Google recommends server side rendering instead of client side rendering, but how can you work with you dev team. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMIKtfVD21g&t=273s 

You might have seen this happen to your advertisements on Google. You may have had an ad that was originally disapproved because of a past violation, but now it's not!

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-past-violations-32652.html

Google is testing a new feature that will show products at the top of their search results pages. The option to mark as special has just been added, so we'll see how this improves your online retail experience!

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-business-profile-products-mark-as-special-option-32660.html

Google's April 2021 and December 2021 product reviews update only targeted English language content. Has it already rolled out to other languages though?

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-product-reviews-update-other-languages-32658.html

We were excited to see a new announcement bar on the Google Search Console interface! The most recent update had three levels of urgency depending upon how important it is for you know about this issue. 

https://searchengineland.com/google-search-console-testing-announcement-bar-378064