The SEOs Diners Club - Issue #39 - Weekly SEO Tips & News

November 20, 2022

Here are the weekly SEO insights for the SEOs Diners Club members. You may also join our free SEO Diners Club network to ask questions and share your thoughts on these topics.

Is Domain Authority a Google Ranking Factor?

Can domain authority, which SEO tools calculate differently, be a Google ranking factor?

Many companies and SEO experts believe that Domain Authority is critical. Many sites and blogs have guides on increasing your website's Domain Authority to get better rankings in search results. But does a higher Domain Authority result in better rankings? Let's take a look together.

It is worth noting that Moz, which first introduced this metric, is not the only SEO platform that has developed a metric to measure website authority.

Ahrefs has an Ahrefs Rank and Domain Rating. AR ranks websites in the Ahrefs database based on the size and quality of their backlinks, while Domain Rating indicates the strength of a website's backlink profile compared to others in the Ahrefs database on a 100-point scale.

Semrush has an Authority Score that measures a domain or web page's overall quality and SEO performance.

Majestic has Flow Metric Scores that measure the number of links a website has and the quality of the website's content.

Moz's Domain Authority (DA) is similar to Ahrefs' Domain Rank (DR), Semrush Authority Score and Majestic's Streaming Metric Scores.

These are all authority metrics calculated by third-party tools that have no real impact on search engine rankings.

While John Mueller once suggested that Google has metrics that match something similar to Domain Authority, he repeatedly reiterated on Twitter and Reddit that the Domain Authority calculated by Moz is not used.

He also noted that they don't call anything they calculate internally within Google a "domain authority".

Therefore, we can say that such metrics calculated by SEO tools do not make sense for Google, and it is not realistic to build a strategy based on them and to have a positive expectation in rankings.

Is Domain Authority a factor that moves the needle in the search rankings game? Learn more about Domain Authority as the experts weigh in.

SEO Tests: 8 Experiments to Improve Organic Traffic

Is your search engine optimization strategy stuck in a rut? Here are some practices you can try to improve your rankings and drive traffic.

Imagine the results you could achieve if you knew the Google search algorithm inside out.

Imagine the organic traffic you could drive to your site if you knew precisely what Google takes into account when generating search engine results, how much each factor affects rankings, and exactly what it takes to get to the top.

But of course, Google will never let you see behind the curtain. As a result, a malicious actor could use this information for nefarious purposes, taking all the fun out of search engine optimization.

Instead, when there's a new algorithm update, it's up to us to figure out what exactly has changed and how we can best use it to our advantage.

Since we are a community in the search engine optimization world, we tend to figure these out collectively.

Since there are no (or very few) absolute answers, much of optimization is based on best practices, theories and outright guesswork.

Fortunately, there is a great way to determine whether these theories are based on fact or just conjecture. We're talking, of course, about experimentation.

This article published in the Search Engine Journal shares a roadmap for eight SEO experiments.

Is your search engine optimization strategy stuck in a rut? Here are some things you can experiment with to improve your ranks and drive traffic.

How to Create a Modern E-commerce SEO Strategy?

Learn how to prioritize your e-commerce SEO process to maximize visibility and reach your online store's organic search traffic and revenue goals.

It's easy for SEOs to get bogged down in technical checklists. We can even say that technical SEO fetishism has reached severe dimensions.

What drives growth for eCommerce is determining how SERPs are changing. Because Google is constantly changing its search engine results. It would be best to learn what you can do about user intent, strategize, and move quickly to implementation.

Learn how to prioritize your ecommerce SEO process to maximize your visibility and achieve your online store organic search traffic and revenue goals.

Google Makes it Easier to Put Products in the Shopping Tab

Google is updating the Search Console with a new feature that simplifies product listing in the Google Search shopping tab.

Google is making it easier for e-commerce stores to show their products in the shopping tab of search results.

An update to Google Search Console makes it possible to list products in the shopping tab without submitting a product feed or revalidating your website.

You can now use Search Console to list products in a few clicks.

Listing Products in the Shopping Tab via Google Search Console

Google is rolling out a new feature in Search Console for websites that use product-structured data.

A new navigation item in Search Console titled Shopping tab listings will take you to the feature where you can connect a Merchant Center account.

If you don't have a Merchant Center account, you will be prompted to create one using a simplified registration process.

According to Chris Long of Go Fish Digital, this is a new move by Google against Amazon.

Search Console update: For retailers, Search Console is releasing a new feature called "Shopping tab listings". I think it's another play against Amazon…

While Amazon is winning the digital commerce war, its inventories are limited to products that generate listings manually, according to Long. Google is trying to leverage its massive crawling scale to feed Google Shopping. Even if you haven't taken manual actions like creating a feed or GMC account, your products are still eligible for Shopping. If Google can include all the products it scans, it could build a much more robust commerce engine than Amazon.

Google is updating Search Console with a feature that simplifies listing products in the Google Search shopping tab.

How to Make a Successful SEO Reporting?

Aleyda Solis shared an excellent presentation on how to do successful SEO reporting.

SEO reporting is an activity that SEO experts are not very fond of. But at the end of the day, top management needs to see the benefits of SEO efforts to pay the bills. For this reason, at least monthly SEO reporting is essential for a sustainable consultancy.

The following presentation by Aleyda Solis will guide you on how to do successful SEO reporting.

Learn how to develop effective and impactful SEO reports to inform about your SEO process.

5 Ways to Use Google Data Studio to Improve Your SEO Performance

Google Data Studio has long been the go-to tool for visualizing your data and mining insights.

Since Google Data Studio has recently been integrated with Looker (now called Looker Studio), it has become a powerhouse for analytics and business intelligence.

Looker Studio can connect to any authorized third-party data source (Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Tableau, etc.). But especially for SEOs, relating to Google Analytics and other SEO tools gives you endless opportunities to improve your visibility, traffic, rankings and site experience.

This post on the WordStream blog shares five ways you can use Google Looker Studio to improve your SEO.

Analyze and improve your traffic, conversion rates, backlinks, and more.

Google's New Local Search Features Finally Arrive

Google is rolling out several local search features announced months ago at the company's annual Search On conference.

Google is finally rolling out the local search features it previewed earlier this year, including the ability to search your neighbourhood with your phone's camera.

At Google's Search On virtual conference in September, the company excited people with innovative updates to local search.

Google previewed the option to search for restaurants by food and a new search feature built into Google Maps' Live View.

These updates and more are now available. Here's an overview of the local search updates rolling out this week.

Google is launching several local search features announced months ago at the company's annual Search On conference.

Google: Don't Randomly Change Author Name, Use Author Annotations

Google's John Mueller was asked about the possible impact of changing the author's name in an article.

This question was asked in a forum thread on the Mastodon social media platform as follows:

"If I change the author profile of my current article, can it affect my SEO? I want to change the author's name and everything else."

Mueller gave three pieces of advice in response to the question:

  • Use author annotations,

  • Use the new author's name in the rewritten content,

  • Do not randomly change author names.

Mueller elaborated, without saying whether it has a positive or negative impact:

"I would use author annotations to indicate the primary author of the content on a page. Then, if someone rewrites the content, use that name. Don't just randomly change names; that doesn't help anyone... use the name of the author who wrote that content. Why are you trying to trick Google? Why are you replacing the author's name with someone else if that person didn't write that piece of content? Only change it if that new person has updated the piece of content in a significant way."

Bottom line: don't be afraid to update the author for fear of losing Google search rankings. Just don't try to fool Google.

Google's John Mueller was asked about the impact of changing the author's name on an article. John gave three pieces of advice in response to the question, (1) use author annotations, (2) rewritten content should use the new author's name and (3) do not randomly change author names.

Google Tests "Picture-in-Picture" for Videos in Search Results

Google continues its tests on videos without a break.

I've been saying it for years; make YouTube videos. YouTube is more than just YouTube. It will significantly increase your visibility in Google search results. Here's another example.

According to a blog post on Seroundtable, Google is testing a picture-in-picture mode for videos shown in search results. You can click on the video preview image in the bottom right corner of the search results page and play the video.

Google is testing a picture-in-picture mode for videos that are shown in the search results. You can click on the video preview image and play the video at the bottom right corner of the search results page.

Book Of The Week: The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward - Daniel Pink

Everybody has regrets, Daniel H. Pink explains in The Power of Regret.

Everybody has regrets, Daniel H. Pink explains in The Power of Regret. They’re a universal and healthy part of being human. And understanding how regret works can help us make smarter decisions, perform better at work and school, and bring greater meaning to our lives.

Drawing on social psychology, neuroscience, and biology research, Pink debunks the myth of the “no regrets” philosophy of life. And using the largest sampling of American attitudes about regret ever conducted as well as his own World Regret Survey—which has collected regrets from more than 15,000 people in 105 countries—he lays out the four core regrets each of us has. These deep regrets offer compelling insights into how we live and how we can find a better path forward.

As he did in his bestsellers Drive, When, and A Whole New Mind, Pink lays out a dynamic new way of thinking about regret and frames his ideas in clear, accessible, and pragmatic ways. Packed with true stories of people's regrets and practical takeaways for reimagining regret as a positive force, The Power of Regret shows how we can live richer, more engaged lives.

The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward [Pink, Daniel H.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward

I hope you enjoyed my weekly SEO insights. Hope to see you the following Sunday in the new episode. I wish you all a great week.

Best,

Mert Erkal