It always attracts a lot of attention when Googlers are up on stage and open for questioning.The Ask Me Anything (AMA) with Google Search at the recent SMX West conference was no exception. The panel was moderated by Danny Sullivan and featured two prominent Googlers: Gary Illyes (Webmaster Trends Analyst) and Mariya Moeva (Webmaster Outreach Specialist).
Here are the Top Takeaways from the Ask Me Anything with Google Search at the SMX West conference.
- The Mobile-First index will be launched after a month or two. Make sure to have your
website mobile friendly by the time is launched. - Google has confirmed that Mobile page speed will be a ranking factor when the
mobile first index will be launched. The desktop signals will get replaced by it. - Google does have an individual Page/URL authority.
- Google has ended “Authorship” feature for once and for all. It is no more a ranking
factor. - Quality content is the key to getting your website featured into the featured snippets. Also, it should be well structured & relevant.
- For the knowledge graph, Google still prefers Wikidata entities and the CIA World
Factbook. There is no way to get in the knowledge graph. It’s algorithmic. Anything that
gets in requires multiple sources of data to support the need for it to be in there. - There is no specific percent of 404s that can hurt your rankings. But we still prefer
resolving these issues for a better user experience. - The quality of content matters the most. There’s no need to unnecessary expand the
length of the content. Just provide answers to user questions and that’s it! - Google tries it’s level best to eliminate bad links, but it is not enough, so we encourage
you to keep disavowing bad links. - It was clear that the “Fred” update was a quality update, however, you will have to refer
to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines to know the specific details. It is not disclosed as an
update, so you have to notice the changes.
