Digital Musings

Remember that handy little search box that sometimes appeared below Google search results? The one that let you search a specific website directly from the results page? Well, Google removed it from search results pages earlier this year, and now they're tidying up by removing all the related documentation.

Backlinks are like votes of confidence from other websites. Search engines like Google use them to size up your site's authority and relevance. But if you're getting votes from the wrong crowd (think spammy or irrelevant sites), it can raise red flags.

Visibility is everything, but with millions of websites vying for attention, how can you ensure Google finds and prioritises yours? The answer lies in understanding and optimising your crawl budget. Think of it as Google's allotted time to browse your site. A healthy crawl budget means Google finds and indexes your new content faster, improving your search rankings and driving more traffic your way.

One powerful tool that often gets overlooked is Google Trends. But with the release of Google's new guide on using Google Trends for search marketing, there's no excuse for missing out! Published by Google Search Central, this comprehensive documentation explains how to use Google Trends for search marketing. It's a fantastic resource for newcomers and a helpful refresher for seasoned marketers.

URL parameters are essential for many websites, especially e-commerce sites with filters and sorting options. They help users find exactly what they need, but they can also create headaches for SEOs. Why? Because they can lead to duplicate content and wasted crawl budget, essentially confusing Googlebot (the search engine spider that crawls your site).

Reddit has finally expanded its keyword targeting capabilities, and it's a big deal. Now, instead of just relying on community interests, you can target users based on the actual words they use in their conversations. This means your ads appear alongside relevant discussions, putting your message in front of a highly engaged audience.

Meta's recent announcements at Advertising Week place video and AI firmly in the spotlight. With 60% of user time on Facebook and Instagram now spent watching videos, Meta is equipping advertisers with new tools to leverage this trend.

Ever feel like the internet is a sprawling maze? For search engines like Google, it is! That's where your robots.txt file comes in. It acts like a helpful signpost, guiding Google's crawlers through your website. But with Google's recent update to its robots.txt policy, you might need to give those signposts a refresh.

Starting October 15th, you can wave goodbye to the 60-second limit. YouTube is tripling the maximum length of Shorts, allowing creators to upload videos up to 3 minutes long. This applies to both square and vertical videos, giving you more flexibility in how you present your content.

Before you start panicking and envisioning your website banished to the depths of the internet, let's take a breath. This isn't a total revamp, more like a bit of a spring clean. Think of it as Google giving their spam documentation a good tidy-up – a bit of dusting, rearranging the furniture, and adding a few new bits and bobs.

Remember when you could easily peek into the past versions of a website using Google Cache? It was a handy tool, wasn't it? Whether you were an SEO specialist tracking competitor changes or a curious user wanting to see how a site looked back in the day, Google Cache was your time machine.

Google's been busy tidying up behind the scenes, and their recent overhaul of the crawler documentation is causing a bit of a stir in SEO. You might be wondering, "Does this even matter to me and my website?". In short, yes, it absolutely does.