google webmaster guidelines update Archives

Google has an in depth list of webmaster guidelines which are intended to help webmasters optimize their website(s) to be correctly crawled and indexed by Google’s webcrawlers. Google recently made an update to their guidelines and of course with Google representing approximately 65% of the search engine market share, it’s important to pay close attention to their changes.

How do Google Webmaster Guidelines help my business?

By adhering to the Google Webmaster Guidelines you will be making it easier for Google to locate pages on your site, index them, and properly rank your site.

In the most recent update there were a few significant additions to the existing guidelines which we will outline below.

HTTPS:

If possible, secure your site’s connections with HTTPS. Encrypting interactions between the user and your website is a good practice for communication on the web.

Making Your Site Mobile-Friendly:

Design your site for all device types and sizes, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Use the mobile friendly testing tool to test how well your pages work on mobile devices, and get feedback on what needs to be fixed.

Accessibility:

Make your site’s important content visible by default. Google is able to crawl HTML content hidden inside navigational elements such as tabs or expanding sections, however we consider this content less accessible to users, and believe that you should make your most important information visible in the default page view.

Site Structure / Links:

There was a minor but significant change to this section, the guidelines previously stated.

Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.

Now it’s been changed to.

Ensure that all pages on the site can be reached by a link from another findable page. The referring link should include either text or, for images, an alt attribute, that is relevant to the target page.

This change is significant because it places more emphasis on the importance of anchor text (actual link text or alt attribute) which is what Google uses to determine what the page you’re linking to is about.

Summary

Although the Google Webmaster Guidelines are continually being updated and adjusted, the overall direction Google is going does not appear to be changing anytime soon. Google’s primary focus is on the overall user experience which these recent changes are intended to improve.

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