admin

Top 10 JavaScript SEO Tricks Every Developer Should Know  The New Stack
source

Join us in analyzing 3 case studies that show the importance of driving brand search behavior and engagement, and how to do it in months, instead of years.
Maximize your SEO efforts in 2024 with insights on Google’s SGE, algorithm updates, and expert tips to keep your site ahead.
Download this guide and learn how to optimize and manage Google Performance Max campaigns, with expert insights and actionable strategies to ensure your campaigns are effective.
Join us in analyzing 3 case studies that show the importance of driving brand search behavior and engagement, and how to do it in months, instead of years.
Join us in analyzing 3 case studies that show the importance of driving brand search behavior and engagement, and how to do it in months, instead of years.
Join us as we dive into exclusive survey data from industry-leading SEOs, digital marketers, content marketers, and more to highlight the top priorities and challenges that will shape the future of search in 2025.
Google’s Gary Illyes gave an unexpected answer to a question about fixing broken backlinks
Google’s Gary Illyes recently answered the question of whether one should spend time fixing backlinks with wrong URLs that are pointing to a website, known as broken backlinks. The answer is interesting because it suggests a way of considering this issue in a completely unorthodox manner.
During a recent Google SEO Office Hours podcast, a question was asked about fixing broken backlinks:
“Should I fix all broken backlinks to my site to improve overall SEO?”
Google’s Gary Ilyes answered:
“You should fix the broken backlinks that you think would be helpful for your users. You can’t possibly fix all the links, especially once your site grew to the size of a mammoth. Or brontosaurus.”
Assessing broken backlinks for those that are the the most helpful for “users” is an unconventional way to decide whether to fix them or not. The conventional SEO practice is to fix a broken backlink to assure that a site is receiving the maximum available link equity. So his advice runs counter to standard SEO practice but it shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand because there may be something useful there.
Keep an open mind, be open to different ways of considering solutions. Something I like about his approach is that it’s a shortcut for determining whether or not a backlink is useful. For example, if the link is to a product that is no longer sold or supported in any way, a 404 response is the best thing to show to search crawlers and to users. So there is some validity to his way of looking at it.
It’s not really a big deal to fix these kinds of backlinks, it’s one of the easier SEO chores to be done and it’s a quick win.
While any benefit is hard to measure, it’s nonetheless worth doing it for site visitors who might follow the wrong URL to the webpage that they’re looking for.
Checking backlinks is also important to do after a backlink campaign, even months after asking for a link, because site owners will sometimes add their links weeks or months later but it could be that they added the wrong URL. It happens, I know from experience.
The kinds of broken backlinks that usually (but not always) matter are the ones that show up as 404 errors on your server logs or in the Google Search Console.
There are two kinds of broken backlinks that matter:
Then there are backlinks that matter less and the reasons for that are:
Identifying any kind of broken backlink is (arguably) best done by reviewing 404 errors generated from visits to pages that no longer exist or to URLs that are misspelled. If the link matters then there’s going to be web traffic from a broken backlink to a 404 page.
You might not be able to see where that link is coming from, although it may be possible to search for the broken URL and possibly find it.
The server log may show the IP address and user agent of the site visitor that created the broken link and from there a site owner can make the judgment call of whether it’s a spam or hacker bot, a search engine bot or an actual user. The Redirection WordPress plugin and the Wordfence plugin can be helpful for site owners that don’t have access to server logs.
A site owner may find that using a SaaS backlink tool might be useful for finding broken links but many sites, particularly sites that have been around awhile, have a lot of backlinks and using a tool might not be the right solution because it’s a lot of work for finding a link that doesn’t even send traffic. If the broken link sends traffic then you’ll know it because it’ll show up as a 404 error response.
Fixing links that no longer exist can be done by recreating the resource or by redirecting requests for the missing web page to a web page that is substantially similar.
Fixing a link to a misspelled URL is easily done by redirecting the misspelled URL to the correct URL.
Another way to fix it is to contact the site that’s linking to the wrong URL but there are three things to consider before doing that.
1. The site owner may decide that they don’t want to link to the site and remove the link altogether.
2. The site owner may decide to add a no-follow link attribute to the corrected URL.
3. There are other sites that may have copied the web page and/or the link and are thus also linking to the wrong URL.
Simply adding a redirect from the misspelled URL to the correct URL fixes the problem without any risk that the backlink is going to be removed or nofollowed.
Identifying broken backlinks is something that many site owners might stumble on when investigating 404 errors. Some call it link reclamation but any discussion of “link reclamation” is basically about fixing broken backlinks, it’s just another name for it.
Regardless, fixing these kinds of inbound links are one of the few SEO quick wins that could actually benefit a site owner and it could be a part of a site audit especially when it’s limited to finding opportunities in 404 error responses because these are links that are either getting crawled or are being used by potential site visitors.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Roman Samborskyi
I have 25 years hands-on experience in SEO, evolving along with the search engines by keeping up with the latest …
Conquer your day with daily search marketing news.
Join Our Newsletter.
Get your daily dose of search know-how.
In a world ruled by algorithms, SEJ brings timely, relevant information for SEOs, marketers, and entrepreneurs to optimize and grow their businesses — and careers.
Copyright © 2024 Search Engine Journal. All rights reserved. Published by Alpha Brand Media.

source

Start selling with Shopify today
Start your free trial with Shopify today—then use these resources to guide you through every step of the process.
Looking for a balance between web design and SEO? This article explores 10 key elements of SEO website design that will help you rank well.
Start your online business today.
For free.
When you build a website, there are two major aspects to consider: consumers and search engines. 
Finding a balance between these two aspects is tricky: You need an SEO-friendly website so you show up on Google when consumers are searching for your products. But you also need a creative, user-friendly website so consumers can easily find what they want to buy and come away from your site with a memorable brand impression. 
To further complicate things, many businesses have two separate teams for SEO and web development. Even if both teams are in-house, having them work together to build a beautiful and successful website can be challenging. The development team will fight to keep the visual and user aspect of the site very simplistic, while the SEO team will want to ensure the site has enough content so Google can rank it effectively for user search queries.
So how do you find the balance between being user friendly and SEO friendly when you have conflicting recommendations coming from each side?
In this article, we’ll take a deeper look at what SEO web design is, why it’s important, and which 10 things you should optimize to find some common ground between these two goals.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing a website with a variety of tactics, including strategic keyword research. The ultimate goal of SEO is to get your pages to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). 
Website design describes the elements that go into composing the structure, functionality, and appearance of a website and all of its pages. The ultimate goal of quality web design is to create a visually appealing website with friction-free user experience (UX) design.
When put together, SEO web design is the design and creation of a website that is optimized for both search engines and humans. 
If your website has a stunning design but you can’t get any of its web pages to rank in search engine results, how are people going to find your website? 
While social media and PPC ads are great for increasing traffic, it’s important to find organic (read: free) ways to ramp up your website traffic and get to page one of the SERPs.
Let’s go over a few of the top benefits of SEO web design.
Organic traffic to your website is any kind of traffic coming from search engines that hasn’t been paid for. These are website viewers who found your site after searching for something on Google and browsing through the top options. 
To be specific, the first search result gets over a quarter of all clicks, the second search result gets 15%, and it drops off quickly from there.Since the 10th result gets 2.5% of the clicks, it’s safe to assume that anything past page one has abysmal organic traffic results. This is why you want to design and optimize your website as well as possible to increase the chances that you rank higher on SERPs.
When someone searches Google, it’s because they have a specific query they’re hoping to find information about. And when your page shows up at the top of the search results with that exact answer, they’re going to click over to your page.
While they may not convert right after discovering your website, they’re now aware that they can come back to you if they have any other related questions. This top-of-mind brand awareness is ideal for increasing conversions—and you can get those results all because they were searching for information about something in your industry. 
Having that high-intent traffic is even more valuable than other traffic, which is why it’s important to optimize your new website to increase search engine rankings.
Every dollar invested in UX brings $100 in return, an ROI of 9,900%—but that’s not the only benefit. If you want to get on the good side of Google’s algorithm, your website needs to be SEO-optimized, and also user-friendly. While Google doesn’t reveal specific metrics for its algorithm, user experience-related metrics often correlate with better SERP position.
Based on studies done by Backlinko, some of these criteria include:
Improving your website SEO is an essential part of any marketing strategy. It ensures your website works well and is easy for a visitor to navigate, so they can find the information they’re looking for.
Google only wants to rank the best sites to prevent its own user experience from being impacted by poor websites. So having a high-ranking site builds trust with the user while helping them find exactly what they’re looking for.
An SEO strategy can take some time to implement, but making the changes tends to be a low-to-no cost endeavor. Many business owners can put SEO parameters in place themselves with a little bit of website knowledge, or they can defer it to someone on their team. There are plenty of free SEO tools out there to help you out. 
The point is that SEO is a low-cost strategy for helping your website to reach your marketing goals and increase your overall ROI.
Now that you know why SEO web design is so important, let’s talk about how you can optimize your website. Keep search engine optimization top of mind throughout the entire web design process to make implementing these 10 items as seamless as possible.
After all, you don’t want your web development team to create the entire website only to have your SEO team tear it apart and make the process take even longer. Instead, having the two teams work in tandem on each of these items during the design process helps streamline the entire project.
Google’s search algorithm uses more than 200 factors to rank a website. It’s hard for any one designer to account for them all. 
Start by optimizing the following 10 elements to get your pages ranking:
As of 2023, there were 6.47 billion active mobile internet users. More people are browsing the web on their phones and tablets than on their desktop computers or laptops. 
Having a responsive website not only helps improve your SEO. It also ensures your target audience has a seamless UX, whether they’re accessing your site from their computer or mobile device.
Let’s take a look at this website example from The Sill. It’s ranking on SERP one for keywords like plants, house plants, and where to buy house plants.
Its desktop website looks like this:
And its mobile website looks like this:
The mobile version uses the same copy and imagery, just rearranged in a way that makes more sense for smaller screens. It’s easy to navigate and keeps the same flow of searching for products and heading to checkout, which is intuitive for an ecommerce site.
As you design your website, make sure you or your development team test that it works on both desktop and mobile. This is an essential ranking factor, because Google released a mobile-friendly update to its algorithm back in 2015 that boosts responsive sites in search results.
Your website speed is yet another item that factors into Google’s algorithm. It makes sense—no one wants to deal with a website that takes ages to load. So Google won’t show slow-loading sites to users.
Factors that can affect your page speed include:
You can monitor your page speed manually with a tool like Google’s PageSpeed Insights or at automated, regular intervals with Boostify. For a more detailed option that looks at actual interactions from real users, you can use Shopify’s Web Performance dashboard. 
Is your site speed costing you sales?
Conversion increases with every millisecond of improved site speed. Measure your storefront’s performance to see how it impacts your sales and compares to the competition.
While the Google algorithm is very sophisticated, it’s never a bad idea to give it a helping hand—which is exactly what a sitemap is for.
A sitemap is a file that houses all of your web pages, files, videos, and other content on your website. It’s handy for websites with many different pages, especially if they are not all linked to other pages on your website.
This helps Google to find and crawl all of your web pages so they’re all eligible for ranking. After all, if Google can’t find a web page, it’s not going to generate any organic traffic.
Another major ranking factor is readability. If your website visitors can’t read the copy on your site, they’re not getting anything valuable from your business.
Legibility is also a key web accessibility principle. Best practices recommend using big, bold serif or sans serif fonts throughout your website, its headers, and its copy blocks to ensure easy reading.
Look at this bold, clean website home page and how easy it is to read its headline and website copy:
Users can immediately grasp what Ruggable is promoting. In addition, having your copy structured with heading tags supports Google in identifying the most important parts of each page, further improving your SEO.
Image file names are so small you might not even think about it, but they can actually be a big asset to your website optimization. So think twice before you name something home-page-header-final-2.jpg. Instead, include keywords and descriptors that give Google an idea of what is featured in the image.
In a similar vein, your images also need to have alt tags. Alt tags let Google’s algorithm know exactly what is happening in your images. If your image matches a user’s search, it could show up in their results. 
Your alt tag should be a complete sentence describing exactly what is in your image, complete with a capital letter at the beginning and a period at the end.
It also improves your overall accessibility. Someone using a screen reader to access your website can understand what is depicted in your images, helping the visually impaired still have a stellar user experience.
Web developers focus on the site’s overall look, feel, and user experience. Designers and developers will care about a page’s visual elements and how consumers interact. They often like to keep things as simple as possible.
But crucially, your website navigation also provides internal links to your most important product or feature pages.
Fashion Nova’s website is a great example of SEO-friendly site navigation—they have a very large navigation for each product category on the site. For example, when you click on the “Halloween” category, you get a massive list of subcategory pages in a mega menu.
Nearly all of the organic search results are subcategory pages, so having a dedicated page for this keyword is highly useful from a search and user perspective. 
Using the same process as above, when you Google “boy’s corduroy pants,” most of the pages ranking are product pages rather than subcategory pages. This means you could likely optimize a product for that keyword, and not need to build out a dedicated subcategory page.
Additional points to consider when trying to optimize for people and search engines include:
Your URL structure should also be structured around your SEO strategy. Each URL slug (the string of characters after your top-level domain) should include only your web page or blog post’s focus keyword.
Do keyword research for each page you plan to include in your website at launch. Make a plan to do the same for every new page that you create post-launch.
This helps Google understand what keywords to rank your pages for, while also keeping your pages accessible. Because most focus keywords are only a few words, this ensures your URL slugs are easy to remember and type into a URL field if someone is looking for a specific page.
Also known as meta tags, your metadata includes information such as your title tags and meta description. This information appears in Google search results. Considering 36% of SEO experts think the title tag is the most important SEO element, ensure your metadata is optimized. 
The title tag and meta description should include your page or post’s focus keyword. Your title tag can have a maximum of 60 characters while your meta description can have a maximum of 160 characters.
Creating an SEO-friendly website means ensuring search engines can easily crawl and understand your content.
For optimal crawlability, use HTML text for main content, as it’s easiest for Google to understand. While JavaScript enhances site functionality, it can cause crawling issues. Excessive JS can impact site speed and Google’s crawl budget, so use it judiciously.
To check if Google can crawl your content:
The goal is to strike a balance between JavaScript functionality and SEO needs. Work with your development team to create an effective, search-friendly site that satisfies both requirements. This approach ensures your content is accessible to search engines while maintaining your desired features.
Visit the Shopify Partners Marketplace
Find experienced commerce professionals who will help you grow your business. Browse the different services Shopify partners offer, post a job, and hire a professional to work with.
Website analytics provide insights into user behavior and site performance. It can help you identify areas for improvement in your website’s structure, content, and user experience. 
A powerful tool to use is Shopify’s Web Performance dashboard. It helps you understand your online store’s performance across key website performance metrics like:
Each metric is assigned a ranking of “good,” “moderate,” or “poor,” reflecting the top 75% of user experiences. This helps you quickly identify areas that need improvement. You can view data for different devices (mobile, desktop, or all) and optimize for various user contexts.
By regularly reviewing these analytics, you can:
When creating a website, it’s easy to make mistakes that can hurt your search engine rankings. Here are some common errors to avoid.
Data shows that over half our time online is spent on mobile devices. If your website doesn’t work well on phones and tablets, visitors might leave quickly. Search engines will think your site isn’t helpful, which can lower your rankings.
A study from Unbounce found that nearly 70% of consumers admit that page speed impacts their willingness to buy from an online retailer. If your website takes too long to load, people will get frustrated and leave. 
Search engines notice this and might rank your site lower. To help your pages load faster, make sure your site’s image sizes aren’t too big and your code is clean.
On-page SEO elements are things like titles, headings, and meta descriptions. These help search engines understand what your pages are about. If you don’t use these properly, search engines might not know how to rank your site for the right keywords.
A confusing website layout makes it hard for visitors to find what they’re looking for. It also makes it difficult for search engines to crawl your site. Keep your site structure simple and logical.
Search engines want to show users the best information. If your website doesn’t have good, useful content, it probably won’t rank well. Focus on creating helpful, original content that answers people’s questions.
Refer to Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trust) as a gut check in ensuring you’re creating quality content that speaks to both search engines and humans.
Internal links are links that connect different pages on your website. They help visitors and search engines explore your site. Without good internal linking, important pages on your site might not get noticed.
Technical SEO involves the behind-the-scenes stuff that makes your website work well. This includes things like having a secure website (HTTPS), using the right tags, and making sure search engines can read your site correctly. Ignoring these technical details can hurt your rankings.
The key to a well-designed, SEO-friendly website is to bridge the gap between web development and SEO. Encourage your teams to work together from the beginning so your website is fully optimized for both SEO and usability.
Remember, providing value to your customer is the best way to rank in search engines. So optimize the elements above, write quality content, and design top-tier user experiences to improve your search results. 
Design shapes your website’s visual appeal and user experience. It focuses on layout, colors, and how visitors interact with your site. SEO fine-tunes your site’s content and structure to improve its visibility in search results.
To rank a website means to assign a numerical value to it based on its relevance to search queries. This value is determined by search engine algorithms and is used to determine where a website appears in the search engine results pages (SERPs). The higher the rank, the higher the website appears on the SERP.
The cost of ranking a website varies greatly depending on the size of the website, the competition in the industry, and the strategy used to rank the website. Generally speaking, a basic SEO campaign can start at around $500/month, while a more comprehensive campaign can range from $2,000 to $10,000 or more per month.
Begin by listing terms relevant to your business, then use keyword research tools to uncover popular search phrases with reasonable competition. Analyze your competitors’ keyword strategies and consider long-tail keywords to target specific audiences to find easier ranking opportunities in the process.
The newsletter for entrepreneurs
Join millions of self-starters in getting business resources, tips, and inspiring stories in your inbox.
Unsubscribe anytime. By entering your email, you agree to receive marketing emails from Shopify. By proceeding, you agree to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.
The point of sale for every sale.

Join millions of self-starters in getting business resources, tips, and inspiring stories in your inbox.
Unsubscribe anytime. By entering your email, you agree to receive marketing emails from Shopify. By proceeding, you agree to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.
Learn on the go. Try Shopify for free, and explore all the tools you need to start, run, and grow your business.
Try Shopify for free, no credit card required.

source

Playlist Studio will be releasing a new webtoon-based BL drama!
On November 8, OSEN reported that Playlist Studio will be working together with Kakao Entertainment and Fuji Television to produce their first BL drama “Secret Relationship” (literal title).
“Secret Relationship” is based on a popular Kakao Webtoon that depicts the complicated romance between co-workers.
According to the report, WEi’s Kim Jun Seo will play Da On, Cha Sun Hyung will play Sung Hyun, Cha Jung Woo will play Soo Hyun, and Kim Ho Young will take on the role of Jae Min. The news was confirmed by WEi’s official social media account and Cha Sun Hyung’s agency Respect Entertainment.
The drama’s production team shared, “We will focus on translating the original project’s detailed emotions and the complex feelings of the characters to the screen.”
“Secret Relationship” will begin filming in September and is slated to air in the first quarter of 2025. Stay tuned for more updates!
While waiting, watch Cha Sun Hyung in “Mental Coach Jegal” on Viki:
Watch Now
Also watch Kim Ho Young in “Branding in Seongsu” below:
Watch Now
Source (1) (2) (3)

What are Cookies?
When you visit any web site, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalised web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.
Site Functionality Cookies
We use cookies to provide you with the features and intended user experience of the Sites (e.g. these cookies can help Us with keeping track of user preferences). We use cookies to enable our security features and to help Us detect activities that violate our policies (e.g. these cookies can help Us prevent spam). We use cookies to verify your account and personalize your experience (e.g. these cookies can help Us keep you logged in as you navigate between Site pages).
Performance, Analytics and Research
We use cookies to collect information on how the Sites are used and to report on the Sites usage statistics for the improvement of Our services (e.g. these cookies can help Us count visits, page views, traffic sources, and better understand how you and other users use Our Sites, and identify features that could be improved).
Social Media
We use cookies that are set by a range of social media services that We have added to Our Sites to enable you to share Our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit (e.g. these cookies can help the social media services up a profile of your interests).
Advertising and Remarketing
We and our advertising partners may collect information using cookies to help make the advertising you see on the Sites and elsewhere on the internet more relevant to you, and to measure the effectiveness of the advertising on the Sites (e.g. these cookies can help Us and our advertising partners show you useful and relevant ads more effectively).

source

Welcome to your go-to source for all things space-related. Our editorial team is dedicated to bringing you the latest news and insights from the space industry. We cover international trade shows, events, and more, providing you with up-to-date information on technical and political highlights in the field.
SpaceWatch.global TV is our video channel focused on space news, specialists and events. It offers current reports, expert analysis, and live broadcasts news relating space industries. 
The Space Café Podcast’s and Radios brings our signature brand of engaging and relevant content from across the global space economy to you via an exciting format.
We want to share the most important daily content with you and are sure that it will add value to your day.
The Spacewatch.global newsletters are your gateway to the latest developments and in-depth analysis of the space industry.
Membership at Spacewatch.Global offers access to exclusive content, events, and a network of experts in the space industry. It is the valuable platform for space enthusiasts and industry professionals.
We believe that space technologies make a significant contribution to our economic and social development. We believe that international exchange and collaboration are crucial for the sector and that we need strong communication platforms to tell the stories of the industry and prove its relevance to opinion leaders and decision-makers.
The team behind SpaceWatch.Global comprises a dynamic mix of space geeks, tech junkies, space policy experts, regional space specialists and passionate writers. We fully believe that space should be used for humanity; that it enables knowledge and enriches societies.
Airbus built SEOSAT/Ingenio, the first Earth observation satellite for the European Space Agency (ESA) and Spanish government has left Madrid and is ready for final testing.
The spacecraft will now start a three month environmental test campaign which includes the Thermal Balance and Vacuum test, followed by Mechanical Vibration, Acoustic and Electromagnetic Compatibility testing. Fifty engineers and technicians from Airbus Spain will carry out all the different tests at Airbus in Toulouse.

SEOSAT/Ingenio will be transported back to the Madrid-Barajas site in mid-September where the last functional tests will be carried out. The compatibility with the ground segment and the launcher will also be verified. Once these are complete, the Qualification Acceptance Review will take place, which is the final ESA milestone and the satellite will be ready to be launched.
The launch is scheduled for the first half of 2020 onboard a Vega launcher from Kourou, French Guiana.
Once in orbit, SEOSAT/Ingenio will complete Spain’s Earth observation system, complemented by the PAZ satellite already in orbit since February 2018. Together, they will provide combined radar and optical images.
Yes, I would like to receive the selected newsletters for free.
You can unsubscribe anytime via the link in our emails or by contacting us. We respect your information. For details, check our Privacy Policy.
By clicking below, you agree to our terms, in particular the transfer of data to Mailchimp..
Credits to our wonderful worldwide creative team  – Powered by ProjectWorkers.

source

Join us in analyzing 3 case studies that show the importance of driving brand search behavior and engagement, and how to do it in months, instead of years.
Maximize your SEO efforts in 2024 with insights on Google’s SGE, algorithm updates, and expert tips to keep your site ahead.
Download this guide and learn how to optimize and manage Google Performance Max campaigns, with expert insights and actionable strategies to ensure your campaigns are effective.
Join us in analyzing 3 case studies that show the importance of driving brand search behavior and engagement, and how to do it in months, instead of years.
Join us in analyzing 3 case studies that show the importance of driving brand search behavior and engagement, and how to do it in months, instead of years.
Join us as we dive into exclusive survey data from industry-leading SEOs, digital marketers, content marketers, and more to highlight the top priorities and challenges that will shape the future of search in 2025.
United States antitrust lawsuit uncovers scheme by Google Search, Chrome and Ads execs to increase ad revenues
United States antitrust lawsuit against Google uncovers emails of executives from Google Search, Chrome and Ads discussing schemes for increasing ad revenue.
There are two documents, one from 2019 that features top Google executives from Search, Chrome and Ads hatching plans for pumping up ad revenues before the end of the quarter. At one point they even discuss the impact on Google’s stock price and their own personal fortunes.
Another document, dating from 2017, acknowledges reluctance of the Search team to do anything that could negatively affect users.
The executives who were a part of the email discussion consisted of top executives, including Ben Gomes, whose career spanned Senior Vice President of Search, News, Google Assistant and Education. He has worked on how Google ranked websites and was responsible for instant search, spelling corrections, among other projects.
The PDF documenting the email discussion appears to contradict Google’s longtime insistence that that the Search Team is firewalled from the Advertising side of the company.
But again, these are top executives having a discussion, not the search team itself, apart from Ben Gomes.
Googlers have made many statements over the years, at search conferences and in Google Hangouts and on Twitter that the search side of Google does not coordinate with the advertising side.
For example, in a May 8, 2015 Google Hangout, Google’s John Mueller explained how the search team is blocked off from the Ads team.
The question he answered was about a rumor that Google makes SEO more difficult in order to make more money from the ads.
Mueller responded:
“This is definitely not true.
So, this is something where we have a very, very strong firewall essentially between the paid side of Google and the organic search side.
And that’s not something that we would kind of connect, where we would say we would make algorithms that make the search results worse so that people go and click on ads more.
…So, it’s something where we’re not artificially trying to make it more complicated or harder or the search results worse so that people click on ads.
…So, that’s something where on the one hand, we really have the strong separation between the two sides.
On the other hand, we really need to keep that upright, so that we can make sure our search results are really as neutral as possible, as high quality as possible and really provide what users want.”
The 2019 email is from a Google Ads executive Jerry Dischler. It was sent to a ChromeOS executive named John Maletis.
Also in on the email discussion is Ben Gomes who worked on the Google search algorithm since the earliest days, and Prabhakar Raghavan, an executive vice president who has been involved in the Search side as well as with Google Ads.
Google Ads executive Dischler wrote:
“The Search team is working together with us to accelerate a launch of a new mobile layout by the end of May that will be very revenue positive (exact numbers still moving), but that still won’t be enough.
Our best shot at making the quarter is if we get an injection of at least [redacted]% , queries ASAP from Chrome.”
He followed those remarks by lamenting how disappointed all the different team members will be should Google’s stock price drop because the advertising side didn’t perform well enough.
Frankly, it’s shocking that anyone involved with Google’s algorithm is in a discussion with the ChromeOS and Advertising teams about ways to artificially increase search queries in order to help meet the advertising side’s performance goals for the quarter.
And as disappointing as that is, it gets even worse.
The executives go on to discuss how not meeting their revenue goals will impact their personal wealth.
Dischler continued:
“I care more about revenue that the average person but think we can all agree that for all of our teams trying to live in high cost areas another $[redacted] in stock price loss will not be great for morale, not to mention the huge impact on our sales team.
In the next paragraph he expresses pride in Google’s “pure approach” and claims he doesn’t want to “poison the culture of any team.”
And with his next breath this is where he starts handing out the poison, saying:
“I don’t want the message to be ‘we’re doing this thing because the Ads team needs revenue.’ That’s a very negative message.
But my question to you is – based on above – what do we think is the best decision for Google overall?
…Are there other ranking tweaks we can push out quickly?”
A high ranking Chrome executive, Anil Sabharwal, responds by affirming they should go ahead with changes to search ranking (ostensibly to benefit Google Ads, which is the context of the entire email).
Tellingly, he worries about “bad press” at the upcoming Google IO event.
Sabharwal responded:
“…we don’t want bad press around IO, let’s roll out #1 and #2 now and get the benefits.
Let’s also start the search ranking experiments asap and roll those out once we get the data.”
Later on in the email chain, Anil Sabharwal questions how far the executives are willing to go in terms of the negative impact to the user experience, long term retention and team motivation.
He then talks about changes to search ranking:
“We are making progress here, and I’m hopeful the search ranking improvements in Omnibox will also be a material increase in SQV, but I understand we need to do more.”
The “improvements” being discussed are a way to increase search queries and presumably ad revenues.
In another part of the email chain Jerry Dischler remarks on the short term gains from reversing “query-driven revenue loss” and references experiments on the Chrome and Search side.
He then remarks on how they need to be more aggressive about raising the advertising revenues.
Dischler writes:
“It’s a decent start but collectively we need to figure out how to do more and this work is urgent because we continue to face these strong headwinds in Q2.”
Anil Sabharwal, the Chrome executive,  later discusses the changes to Chrome, specifically the Omnibox changes, that are designed to increase search queries, describing the work of the Chrome team for increasing search queries as “heroic.”
He wrote:
“1…we were able to get launch approval to rollout two changes (entity suggest and tail suggest) that increase queries by [redacted]% and [redacted]% respectively.
2. We are going to immediately start experiments to improve search ranking in the omnibox (more search results and nudging search to the top).”
The changes Google made to Chrome were so bad that the experiments were noticed by commenters on Reddit.
The executive found it humorous that the Redditors thought that the experiment was a “bug.”
Another government exhibit contains a discussion given in 2017 where the Ads side expresses frustration with the wall separating the Ads team from the search team.
The discussion calls attention to talk that the Search side should consider “query quotas.”
The document reveals:
“Ads/Revenues
…the old model of things getting thrown over the wall to them has outlived its usefulness…
There’s talk of suggesting that the Search team consider new goals around query quotas, focusing on monetizable queries, returning towards focusing Search experience on high revenue countries…”
The document outlines the fears of the Search team about metrics that could lead to “unnatural search experiences” from the quest for ad revenue.
So it’s not that the Search team itself was complicit in rigging search in service of more ad revenues.
The second document acknowledges that the Search team itself didn’t want to engage in activities that would negatively impact the users.
Read the entire email document in PDF format.
Read the second exhibit in PDF format that kicks around the idea about “query quotas”
Watch John Mueller discuss the firewall between the search and ads at the 41 minute mark:

I have 25 years hands-on experience in SEO, evolving along with the search engines by keeping up with the latest …
Conquer your day with daily search marketing news.
Join Our Newsletter.
Get your daily dose of search know-how.
In a world ruled by algorithms, SEJ brings timely, relevant information for SEOs, marketers, and entrepreneurs to optimize and grow their businesses — and careers.
Copyright © 2024 Search Engine Journal. All rights reserved. Published by Alpha Brand Media.

source