SEO Wash-up Monday 28th February 22

Google Update

Google Search Console products rich result report has been updated – Back in December, last year, Google updated the rich results report for product structured data in Google Search Console. The reporting update may result in a change in the number of issues, errors and warnings that you get on and after December in that report.

The search giant mentioned that search console has changed its way on how it evaluates and reports errors in product structured data. As a result, you may see changes in the number of product entities and issues reported for your property, as well as a change in severity of some issues from errors to warnings. So if you use product structured data, go check that rich results report. There may be new issues and errors that you probably want to address in your next sprint or two.

Google People Also Ask With has added ‘read full answer’ button – It seems that Google is testing a new option on some people also ask results, an option to click a button that says “read full answer.” Users have seen this and posted on the social media, although I am not able to replicate it on my end, but others have been able to see and confirm this.

Google Search tests a blue header – Users have seen Google testing a blue coloured header for the mobile search results. Some users have seen Google testing various coloured search buttons in the header area of the Google Search bar but not this. There has been screenshots shared on social media where you can see this though we cannot see it but others have.

Google has been testing new visual stories designs – Google seems to be testing new layouts and formats for the visual stories, formerly AMP stories. There has been chatter and screenshots on social media where people can see the new designs.

 Bing Update

IndexNow WordPress plugin has now been released by Microsoft Bing – Microsoft Bing has released the IndexNow WordPress plugin. So if you run your site on WordPress, well now you can easily click a few buttons to add IndexNow support to your site and get instant indexing from Bing and Yandex.

Although IndexNow was released back in October last year, it was a method for any search engine to be fed new and updated URLs for indexing. Currently, only Microsoft Bing and Yandex participate but Google may do this in the future.

In order to do enable IndexNow on your WordPress sitem you can simply so the following to install the IndexNow plugin:

• Log in to WordPress admin panel for your WordPress site. Click on “Plugins > Add New”.
• Search for “IndexNow Plugin” and install.
• Once installed, click on “Activate” to enable plugin.
• Go to IndexNow admin page and click “Let’s Get Started”