Did Google roll out any major algorithm updates during the month of April? That’s a good question that doesn’t really offer a good answer.
While it seems safe to say that Google did something last month – they do something every month, right?- the only search engine that matter is definitely following through on their promise to stop publicizing algo updates entirely.
Though there were rumblings of an update near the end of the month, most SEO forums were relatively quiet on this front. Of course that doesn’t mean there wasn’t plenty of other SEO news to report.
Here are a few of the top SEO headlines from April, 2014.
Why Google Ignores Your Page and Title Tags -Have you ever wondered why Google sometimes ignores your title tags and comes up with new ones all on its own? According to a recent Matt Cutts video posting, it’s because Google is looking for the shortest title possible. If your title is too long, Google might pull a title from content on your page to use instead. (See, Google really does know your site better than you do!)
Google Content Recommendation – A new content recommendation system from Google is currently being beta-tested by a number of web publishers. The system is basically a recommended posts tool that’s powered by a Google algorithm.
Daily Motion ‘Google Plays Favorites’ – Is Google looking at more European anti-trust actions? The president of the Daily Motion, which is based in France, says Google is favoring videos on YouTube over those on competitors, such as Daily Motion. This story is still developing…
Google’s War on Blog Networks Continues -Matt Cutts was not kidding when he said that guest blogging was no longer a viable strategy. Last month Google hit the blog network PostJoint with a major penalty. PostJoint is attempting to fight back, but the odds against success in that battle are pretty steep.
Panda Patented -The US Patent Office has officially granted Google a patent on the infamous Panda algorithm. The patent itself isn’t exactly light reading, but it does shine some light into the inner workings of Google’s
Google Helps Out Hacked Sites – Google can come across as a heartless cyborg sometimes but the company that famously, “does no evil,” spread the love a little bit. Last month they published some tips for figuring out whether your site has been hacked or not. It’s a must-read for all web publishers.