#Nosnippet Directive
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manmishra · 2 months ago
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🚀 Exciting news for publishers! Google has updated the Robots Meta Tag documentation to include AI Mode adjustments. Learn how to protect your content and amplify visibility in search results. Check out our latest article for all the details! #SEO #GoogleUpdates #AIMode #DigitalMarketing
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dostudio · 1 year ago
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What is the purpose of the 'meta' tag in HTML, and how is it used for SEO?
The <meta> tag in HTML is used to provide metadata about a web page. Metadata is information about the data on a webpage and is not displayed directly on the page itself but is used by browsers, search engines, and other web services to understand and process the content of the page.
Here are some common uses of the <meta> tag and how it is relevant to SEO:
Meta Description: The <meta> tag with the name="description" attribute is used to specify a brief summary or description of the content of the web page. While it doesn't directly impact search engine rankings, a well-crafted meta description can influence the click-through rate (CTR) from search engine results pages (SERPs). Search engines often display the meta description below the title tag in search results, so it's important to write compelling descriptions that encourage users to click on the link.htmlCopy code<meta name="description" content="Brief summary of the content of the page">
Meta Keywords (Deprecated): The <meta> tag with the name="keywords" attribute was historically used to specify keywords relevant to the content of the page. However, due to abuse and spamming, most search engines no longer consider meta keywords for ranking purposes. In fact, some search engines ignore them entirely. Therefore, meta keywords are generally not considered important for SEO today.htmlCopy code<meta name="keywords" content="keyword1, keyword2, keyword3">
Meta Robots: The <meta> tag with the name="robots" attribute is used to control how search engine crawlers index and display a page. This meta tag can specify directives such as indexing instructions (index, noindex), following links (follow, nofollow), and serving a cached copy of the page (archive, nosnippet). Properly configuring meta robots tags can help optimize a site's crawl efficiency and ensure that search engines are indexing the desired content.htmlCopy code<meta name="robots" content="index, follow">
Other Metadata: There are various other <meta> tags that can be used for SEO purposes, such as specifying the character encoding (charset), viewport settings for responsive design (viewport), authorship information (author), and social media sharing metadata (e.g., Open Graph tags, Twitter cards). These meta tags can indirectly impact SEO by improving user experience, social sharing, and overall website performance.
In summary, while the <meta> tag itself doesn't directly influence search engine rankings, its various attributes and uses can have a significant impact on how search engines interpret, index, and display the content of a web page, ultimately affecting its visibility and click-through rate in search results.DO Studio : Best Marketing Agency In CalicutDo Studio is the Best Marketing agency in Calicut. We do Digital Marketing, Branding, Web Design, Web Development, Package Design & Print Designhttps://dostudio.co.in/
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lindarifenews · 6 years ago
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In response to Google change, Yoast SEO will opt users into all snippet features by default
Yoast SEO users will be opted into all of its snippet features by default, the WordPress plugin developer announced Thursday. The update containing this change, version 12.2, will be released on October 1.
Why we should care
On September 24, Google announced new snippet settings to provide site owners with options to limit the content included in their search listings. These new settings are part of Google’s response to the first implementation of the European Copyright Directive by France, which was in part aimed at getting Google and other internet giants to pay for use of publishers’ content in its results. Google says it won’t pay publishers in France (or other EU countries that follow France’s lead), and they must opt-in to have their snippets presented in Google results.
“Because this potentially affects so many countries, we’ve decided to make a change for all Yoast SEO users,” the Yoast announcement reads. “We realize that this means that we’re opting you in to all of these snippet features in Yoast SEO. I think it’s fair to say that if you use Yoast SEO to optimize your search results, we can assume that that’s what you want.”
More on the announcement
If you do not want to use all of Yoast SEO’s snippet features or would like more discretion over how your snippets display, you may not want to update to version 12.2.
The announcement also states: “you might want somewhat more granular control over these values, if that’s true, please let us know in the comments.” It is a possibility that Yoast will provide site owners with more options in a future update.
Meta robots can be used to opt into having all of your snippet text, videos and images being displayed on Google Search.
Unless a page is set to noindex or nosnippet, every page will have max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1 added to its robots meta string.
If you want to change the robots meta value, you can do so by using the wpseo_robots filter.
The post In response to Google change, Yoast SEO will opt users into all snippet features by default appeared first on Search Engine Land.
In response to Google change, Yoast SEO will opt users into all snippet features by default published first on https://likesfollowersclub.tumblr.com/
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andreacaskey · 6 years ago
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In response to Google change, Yoast SEO will opt users into all snippet features by default
Yoast SEO users will be opted into all of its snippet features by default, the WordPress plugin developer announced Thursday. The update containing this change, version 12.2, will be released on October 1.
Why we should care
On September 24, Google announced new snippet settings to provide site owners with options to limit the content included in their search listings. These new settings are part of Google’s response to the first implementation of the European Copyright Directive by France, which was in part aimed at getting Google and other internet giants to pay for use of publishers’ content in its results. Google says it won’t pay publishers in France (or other EU countries that follow France’s lead), and they must opt-in to have their snippets presented in Google results.
“Because this potentially affects so many countries, we’ve decided to make a change for all Yoast SEO users,” the Yoast announcement reads. “We realize that this means that we’re opting you in to all of these snippet features in Yoast SEO. I think it’s fair to say that if you use Yoast SEO to optimize your search results, we can assume that that’s what you want.”
More on the announcement
If you do not want to use all of Yoast SEO’s snippet features or would like more discretion over how your snippets display, you may not want to update to version 12.2.
The announcement also states: “you might want somewhat more granular control over these values, if that’s true, please let us know in the comments.” It is a possibility that Yoast will provide site owners with more options in a future update.
Meta robots can be used to opt into having all of your snippet text, videos and images being displayed on Google Search.
Unless a page is set to noindex or nosnippet, every page will have max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1 added to its robots meta string.
If you want to change the robots meta value, you can do so by using the wpseo_robots filter.
The post In response to Google change, Yoast SEO will opt users into all snippet features by default appeared first on Search Engine Land.
In response to Google change, Yoast SEO will opt users into all snippet features by default published first on https://likesandfollowersclub.weebly.com/
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seoteknik · 5 years ago
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What is Featured Snippet and how?
Featured snippet
[TOC]
What is Featured snippet
Featured snippet is also known as featured snippet or zero positions. This is also the zero line. In the simplest definition, the results appear above the search results for users searching on Google. The summary of the special software content is displayed in the search results in the field above. With featured snippets, search engines can quickly find the answer and information they're looking for. When a user searches on Google, the most common snippet in search results includes a summary of the information on the search page, page link, title and URL.
Featured snippet
Featured snippets Why is it important? Take your position at position "0": your content will appear above all organic search results. Increasing Potential Organic Traffic: Increase your organic traffic because your view in the "0" position also contributes to your other words. Trust mark for your brand: Since Google selects the selected particles, it provides a trust signal for your brand. Both traffic and conversion increase on websites that are considered reliable. Visibility: Being on SERPs provides more visibility. What do Featured snippets do?
Selected snippets created by specifying content that can fully respond to the Google search engine user query in a separate area at the top of the results page.
Greater SEO visibility, Increased traffic, Increased clickthrough rate, Make the website more accessible, It helps the brand to be recognized by large masses.
This system can be viewed as awarded by Google. It can be defined to keep the content in the foreground and to be compatible due to the success of the website.
Featured Snippet Working Logic
The content of the website is programmed. Snippet is an application designed to draw users' attention to the results page. If the user is determined to pose questions after the search engine, the pages that answer these questions are determined by the program developed for the snippet and the section specified on the website is displayed in the "Selected snippets" field.
Google Bot scans the pages of websites. The system automatically selects pages with descriptive and effective content. In this process, response areas are measured based on user experience. Search results and sections that overlap with the content are determined and displayed to the user in the search results at the top of the field.
There is no intervention to the system during content evaluation, but it is not currently authorized to make changes to the content. In this process, all authority belongs to Google.
Featured Snippets (featured content) How To ...
Most website owners do not have extensive knowledge of creating snippets and do not know the technical details. Website owners should work specifically to get snippets that stand out from certain keywords. Based on these special studies, Google decides what content should be bookmarked.
To get a featured snippet, your website must first meet the criteria below.
Original content and SEO should be written. An HTML tag like the one below should be removed from your site's code page. <meta name = "googlebot" content = "nosnippet"> Users should be given the best and clearest information in their articles. It would be right to take videos and photos. content should be partitioned. The content should be simple and informative and not crowded. Simple, short and meaningful sentences should be created instead of long and hard-to-understand sentences.
Content that meets the above criteria must be available to include the snippet provided for the search. If these criteria are met, it should be ensured that all information requested by the user can be obtained. Google's Artificial Intelligence algorithm will soon notice you and add your website to the "Recommended Snippet" section soon. Therefore, the site moves to position 0. In fact, creating parts is very easy, but requires patience. However, you should know that Google is very sensitive and meticulous about passage. With the least amount of missing information or error, it definitely won't put you on the 0th place.
How to Meet Featured Snippet Creation Criteria?
It is important to set aside mixed sentences and infinite paragraphs and start with simple writing. If you write only, descriptive text is required, so the text should be clear and simple. This gives the visitor who read your article the information they want and saturated information. A website and content that makes visitors feel more confident and appreciated. Rich content always attracts more visitors than other regular content.
If Google knows this, it will think it provides the most accurate information. Remember that Google will definitely notice. In addition, rich content extends the time visitors spend on your website. Google, which should not be forgotten, even takes this time into account.
I should avoid writing long paragraphs because rich content is My cage. Your articles should be legible. In addition to simple, brief and descriptive writing, paragraphs should also be short.The maximum number of words that can be read is 150 words per paragraph. Paragraphs of more than 150 words adjust and tire the visitors who read your articles. It is very difficult to predict how much content Google will add to the recommended snippets. It is important to write briefly.Google doesn't add all of its content to snippets. Google's artificial intelligence robots take the most appropriate section and direct it to the particles. Finally, the <meta name = ”googlebot” content = ”nosnippet”> HTML tag should never be used on the site. This HTML tag disables the Google snippet feature.What is the Benefit of Featured Snippet?The impact of prominent snippets on organic site traffic is highly controversial. In this way, information from direct organic search is displayed to users. So the biggest danger is the increase in site traffic. It may not be necessary to search or click on other pages of the website as the user receives the information they are looking for or trying to access via Snippet.Others claim that more users click on the site associated with the featured snippet because the search results are frequent and mostly visual.Featured snippet Types 1- Paragraph Snippets The best response to the user's request is a copy of the page. Contains a direct link to the site URL. Can be with or without images in the results area Paragraph Snippets2- List Type Snippets HTML is marked directly from a page with <ol> or <ul> tags; Show numbered or bulleted lists Contains a direct link to the site URL. It can be displayed with or without images. List Type Snippets3- Table Type Snippets <table> Shows the contents of HTML tags Provides a direct link to the site URL. Table Type SnippetsFeatured Snippet Working Logic Featured Snippet Working LogicThe content on the web page is programmed. Snippet is actually an application developed to attract the attention of users on the results page. When it is determined that the user asks questions after the search engine, the pages that answer these questions are determined with the program developed for the snippet and the section quoted from the web page is displayed in the featured snippets field.Pages on websites are scanned by Google bot. Pages with descriptive and effective content are automatically selected by the system. In this process, answer boxes are measured based on user experiences. The search results and the parts that overlap with the content are determined and presented to the user in the search results in the upper part of the box.While there is no intervention in the system during the evaluation of the contents, there is no authority to make changes in the contents at this stage. In this process, all authority belongs to Google.Click here to access my other articles
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kadobeclothing · 5 years ago
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The Plain-English Guide to Meta Tags & SEO
In 2018, HubSpot found 64% of marketers said they actively invest in search engine optimization (SEO). 
Good SEO can get you in front of the potential customers who are searching for your products or services, and great SEO can help those users become long-term customers, and even brand loyalists.
SEO is a landscape that involves many on-page and off-page factors, and it’s critical to understand how to incorporate meta tags into each one of your web pages. Meta tags can help search engines correctly identify and categorize your pages, which may result in higher rankings and more exposure to the audience you’re trying to reach. If you’re anything like me, though, you might be thinking, “Wait … what’s a meta tag again?” What Are Meta Tags? Here, we’re going to define meta tags, identify some of the most important meta tags you need to worry about, and provide instructions so that you can begin incorporating meta tags into your HTML today.
SEO & Meta Tags A meta tag is a snippet of descriptive text you’ll include in the code of a web page but it doesn’t appear on the page itself. Meta tags help search engine crawlers understand what your site is about and index your page, which is critical when you want to rank on SERPs for the right keywords.
Meta tags are useful from an SEO perspective since they allow search engines to more easily categorize your web page’s content. There are several types of meta tags and their attributes, and how you use them will depend on your strategy.
Meta Tags Example Examples of meta tags include canonical tags, meta content type, robot meta tags, meta descriptions, and title tags. You might use a canonical tag to tell search engines which page is the ‘master’ one. Alternatively, you might use robot meta tags to ensure search engines don’t index a page you don’t want on the SERP’s, like a search results page on your site.
Let’s dive into some of these now. 1. Canonical Tags If you have a single page with multiple URLs, or different pages with similar content (such as a page with a mobile and desktop version), search engines see these pages as duplicate versions of the same page. For instance, as a human, you know “www.google.com” and “https://google.com” point to the same page — if you search for either, you’ll land on Google’s homepage. But Google sees “www” and “https://” as duplicate versions of the same page. If you don’t specify which page you want to be the “real,” or original, source, Google will choose which source it dubs original and crawl the other pages less often. This could mean that Google consistently crawls your mobile version of your homepage and rarely checks your desktop version. For this reason, it’s often important to include a canonical tag, which simply tells Google, “Hey, if you find this same content elsewhere — please disregard. This is the source I want you to see, and this is the version I want to appear in the SERPs.” This is especially important for pages like your homepage. To insert a canonical tag, simply put this code in your HTML: <link rel=”canonical” href=”http://example.com/hubspot/meta-tags” /> 2. Meta Content Type The meta content type enables you to specify the media type (e.g. “text/html”) and character set for each web page — you’ll want to include this on all of your web pages. Different browsers render information differently, and different languages have different character sets. Using meta content type tags ensures your pages are displayed correctly on all browsers. Here’s an example of the code you’d use for meta content type: <meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=utf-8″ /> 3. Robots Meta Tags By default, search engine crawlers move through your entire site and follow internal and external links. However, this may not align with your strategy if you are looking to control how some pages appear in SERPs. In addition, a high number of outbound links may negatively affect the value passed through your links (also known in the SEO community as “link juice”). If you don’t specify a robot meta tag, search engines will obey the default index,follow command. Robots meta tags can influence the behavior of the search engine crawling and indexing, resulting in more strategic control of how your site shows up in SERPs and what “link juice” it retains. Here are a few common robot meta tags: noindex — Prevents the page from being indexed. nofollow — Prevents Googlebot from following links from this page. nosnippet — Prevents a text snippet or video preview from being shown in the search results. For video, a static image could be shown instead. noarchive — Prevents Google from showing the Cached link for a page. unavailable_after:2020-03-18T08:00:00Z — Allows you to specify the exact time and date you want to stop crawling and indexing of this page. There are various reasons you might use a robots meta tag. You might input the “nofollow” command, for instance, if your web page has a comments section. Since you can’t control which links are posted by readers in the comments section (which could be off-topic to your page’s content), it might be smart to tell search engines not to follow those links. Alternatively, “noindex” is a popular tag for a few reasons. Let’s say you’re planning to launch a website redesign, but you want to test the redesign on a development server that lives in a subdomain on your website. You’ll want to use the “noindex” tag to ensure Google won’t release the site in search before it’s ready. You might also use “noindex” if you have a gated content offer you don’t want users to be able to find on search engines — since you want them to fill out a form to access it. Lastly, you might use “noindex” if your website creates unique web pages whenever someone does a site search. Search engines might think those pages are part of your website, which will hurt your SEO. It’s best if you incorporate “noindex” to ensure site search results aren’t displayed on the SERPs. To incorporate a robots meta directive, input this code into your HTML: <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, nofollow”> 4. Title Tags Title tags help readers initially understand what your content is about, and they are also a major factor in helping search engines understand your content’s subject matter. Additionally, a title tag can ensure consistency, since the title tag will show up on your web page, on the web browser, and in social networks. If you don’t include a <title> tag, Google will create one for the SERPs for you — which can hurt your ranking. Ultimately, you want to create a compelling, click-worthy title that will intrigue readers while accurately portraying what your page is about. Include a title tag on each of your web page’s by pasting this code into your HTML: <head> <title>Example Title</title> </head> It’s important to note, alt text is technically not a tag — it’s an attribute. However, you’ve likely heard the term “alt tag”, which is why you might think alt text is part of the meta tag family (I know I did …). Regardless of its categorization, alt text is incredibly important for your overall SEO strategy, particularly since Google places more value on visual search nowadays. When a search engine crawls your page, it’s going to look for the alt text of an image as an identifier for what your web page is about — so it’s critical you correctly title your alt text. Here’s a code example for alt text to incorporate in your HTML: <img src=”metatag.jpg” alt=”Meta tag picture”>. 5. Meta Keywords Meta keywords are an attribute of the “meta name” tag that get added if you want to use keywords to describe what a page is about. These keywords would not appear on the page but rather in the page’s code, and search engines used to use them as a ranking factor. Note: While it doesn’t hurt to use them, meta keywords are no longer relevant for most SEO strategies. In 2009, Google announced that it no longer factored meta keywords into their search algorithm for ranking. 6. Meta Descriptions Meta descriptions are one example of a meta tag — simply put, a meta description is a 160 character-limit snippet of text a user can read on a search engine. A meta description tells the user what they’ll find if they click on your content — which, if done correctly, can greatly increase click-through rates. The tag doesn’t influence ranking directly, but it’s nonetheless an important element of SEO — a good meta description can compel readers to click on your article, and if the meta description accurately describes your content, the user is more likely to stay on the page. Click-through rates do influence search engine ranking, so meta descriptions are important for SEO. Here’s an example of the code you’d use to manually input a meta description into your web page’s HTML: <head> <meta name=”description” content=”This is an example of my meta description.”> </head> Meta Tags vs. Meta Descriptions These two often get conflated since they both contain the word “meta.” One thing to understand is that meta descriptions are just one example of meta tags, which encompass all of the items in the above list.  While meta descriptions are a subcategory of meta tags, there is a fundamental difference between the two — purpose. Meta tags are used to help search engines figure out the content of your site, but meta descriptions are used to help a user sort your content. For instance, consider what happens when I search “what are meta tags”:
The meta descriptions for the following two articles are more than likely the primary reason I’ll choose one article over the other.
How to Write Meta Tags Understand that not all meta tags need to be written. Some are just codes. Create a swipe file to use for copy/pasting those codes. Paste the canonical tag into the HTML header if the page has duplicate content. Use the robots noindex tag if you don’t want the page to show up in SERPs. Use the robots nofollow tag if you don’t want Google to follow links on this page. Create a short headline to use in your title tag. This should compel readers to click. Write a concise meta description. Add alt text tags that are keyword-optimized and descriptive to any embedded images on the page.
1. Understand that not all meta tags need to be written. Some are just codes.  After reading this article, you’ve learned that there’s not one single “meta tag” but rather several categories that fall under this umbrella. Some meta tags require creativity while others are snippets of code that you can simply copy and paste.  2. Create a swipe file to use for copy/pasting those codes.  For the instances in which you don’t need to write anything, it’s helpful to have this coding handy anytime you’re creating pages.  3. Paste the canonical tag into the HTML header if the page has duplicate content.  As a reminder, if there are multiple versions of a page on your site, you’ll want to use canonical tags to specify the original source for that content. For any duplicate content, you can pull your canonical code from your swipe file to specify it as such.  4. Use the robots noindex tag if you don’t want the page to show up in SERPs.  There are many reasons you might not want a particular page to be indexed. Perhaps it’s a thank you page that should only be viewed once a user takes a certain action, or maybe it’s a piece of content that you don’t want showing up in the SERPs. Whatever your reason, the noindex tag will signal to Google not to index that particular page.  Add this specification to your robots meta tag code in your swipe file. Then, paste it into your HTML header for the page in question. 5. Use the robots nofollow tag if you don’t want Google to follow links on this page.  If you have a comments section where you want to prevent Google from associating random links with your website, you can do this with the nofollow tag. The nofollow tag is also helpful for controlling your site’s “link juice” in a strategic way. If you don’t want Google to follow any links on a page, pull this code from your swipe file. It also goes in the HTML header.  6. Create a short headline to use in your title tag. This should compel readers to click.  Your title tag should be unique for each page you create because it essentially names the page. The title tag shows in the SERPs, in the browser, and on social media. For that reason, it should be written for your target audience. Some things to keep in mind as you write:  What value are you providing to them? What will they get if they visit the page?  What benefits or advantages do you offer? How can you present that information while enticing them to click? Another best practice is to include your page’s target keyword as close to the beginning of the headline as possible.  7. Write a concise meta description that supports your title tag and further entices readers.  Since the meta description also shows up in SERPs, this is an additional meta tag that essentially advertises your content. The goal here is to expand on the title/headline with enough elaboration while also enticing them to click. The challenge is doing it in under 160 words. Here are some strategies to consider:  Use your primary keyword in the meta description to make it more relevant to their query, catching the reader’s eye. Set the stage for the content, giving the reader expectations about what you’ll be delivering.  Open a loop or create intrigue to make them want to read more. 8. Add alt text tags that are keyword-optimized and descriptive to any embedded images on the page. Alt text describes images for search engine crawlers and screen readers. With that in mind, you should:  Describe what’s happening in the image as concisely as possible. Include a keyword to make the image more relevant from an SEO standpoint.
How to Use Meta Tags with HubSpot In your HubSpot account, click the Marketing tab in the navigation. Hover over Website, then choose either Website Pages or Landing Pages (depending on where the page in question is located). Click the name of the page to open up the editor. Click the “Settings” tab at the top of the page editor. Click “Advanced Options” at the bottom of the page. Locate the Head HTML field under “Additional code snippets.” Paste in the code for the most applicable meta tag(s). Ensure that the code is correct for what you want to achieve. Publish or Update the page. You can verify that the code is now live by visiting the page, right clicking somewhere on the page, choosing “View Source,” and searching for your code in the new window.
Now that you know what meta tags are and how to implement them on your site, you can check this task off your SEO to-do list. Your pages will now be much more easily crawled and indexed by search engines like Google. Keep in mind, however, that meta tags are only one part of optimizing pages for organic search. There are many other SEO factors that could affect your traffic and ranking performance. Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Mar 8, 2019 but was updated on Mar 10, 2020 for comprehensiveness.
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source https://www.kadobeclothing.store/the-plain-english-guide-to-meta-tags-seo/
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tiagobarbosaposts · 5 years ago
Text
The Plain-English Guide to Meta Tags & SEO
In 2018, HubSpot found 64% of marketers said they actively invest in search engine optimization (SEO). 
Good SEO can get you in front of the potential customers who are searching for your products or services, and great SEO can help those users become long-term customers, and even brand loyalists.
SEO is a landscape that involves many on-page and off-page factors, and it’s critical to understand how to incorporate meta tags into each one of your web pages. Meta tags can help search engines correctly identify and categorize your pages, which may result in higher rankings and more exposure to the audience you’re trying to reach.
If you’re anything like me, though, you might be thinking, “Wait … what’s a meta tag again?”
What Are Meta Tags?
Here, we’re going to define meta tags, identify some of the most important meta tags you need to worry about, and provide instructions so that you can begin incorporating meta tags into your HTML today.
SEO & Meta Tags
A meta tag is a snippet of descriptive text you’ll include in the code of a web page but it doesn’t appear on the page itself. Meta tags help search engine crawlers understand what your site is about and index your page, which is critical when you want to rank on SERPs for the right keywords.
Meta tags are useful from an SEO perspective since they allow search engines to more easily categorize your web page’s content. There are several types of meta tags and their attributes, and how you use them will depend on your strategy.
Meta Tags Example
Examples of meta tags include canonical tags, meta content type, robot meta tags, meta descriptions, and title tags. You might use a canonical tag to tell search engines which page is the ‘master’ one. Alternatively, you might use robot meta tags to ensure search engines don’t index a page you don’t want on the SERP’s, like a search results page on your site.
Let’s dive into some of these now.
1. Canonical Tags
If you have a single page with multiple URLs, or different pages with similar content (such as a page with a mobile and desktop version), search engines see these pages as duplicate versions of the same page.
For instance, as a human, you know “www.google.com” and “https://google.com&#8221; point to the same page — if you search for either, you’ll land on Google’s homepage.
But Google sees “www” and “https://&#8221; as duplicate versions of the same page. If you don’t specify which page you want to be the “real,” or original, source, Google will choose which source it dubs original and crawl the other pages less often.
This could mean that Google consistently crawls your mobile version of your homepage and rarely checks your desktop version.
For this reason, it’s often important to include a canonical tag, which simply tells Google, “Hey, if you find this same content elsewhere — please disregard. This is the source I want you to see, and this is the version I want to appear in the SERPs.”
This is especially important for pages like your homepage. To insert a canonical tag, simply put this code in your HTML:
<link rel=”canonical” href=”https://ift.tt/2TD2Z5p&#8221; />
2. Meta Content Type
The meta content type enables you to specify the media type (e.g. “text/html”) and character set for each web page — you’ll want to include this on all of your web pages. Different browsers render information differently, and different languages have different character sets. Using meta content type tags ensures your pages are displayed correctly on all browsers.
Here’s an example of the code you’d use for meta content type:
<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=utf-8″ />
3. Robots Meta Tags
By default, search engine crawlers move through your entire site and follow internal and external links. However, this may not align with your strategy if you are looking to control how some pages appear in SERPs. In addition, a high number of outbound links may negatively affect the value passed through your links (also known in the SEO community as “link juice”).
If you don’t specify a robot meta tag, search engines will obey the default index,follow command. Robots meta tags can influence the behavior of the search engine crawling and indexing, resulting in more strategic control of how your site shows up in SERPs and what “link juice” it retains.
Here are a few common robot meta tags:
noindex — Prevents the page from being indexed.
nofollow — Prevents Googlebot from following links from this page.
nosnippet — Prevents a text snippet or video preview from being shown in the search results. For video, a static image could be shown instead.
noarchive — Prevents Google from showing the Cached link for a page.
unavailable_after:[date] — Allows you to specify the exact time and date you want to stop crawling and indexing of this page.
There are various reasons you might use a robots meta tag. You might input the “nofollow” command, for instance, if your web page has a comments section. Since you can’t control which links are posted by readers in the comments section (which could be off-topic to your page’s content), it might be smart to tell search engines not to follow those links.
Alternatively, “noindex” is a popular tag for a few reasons. Let’s say you’re planning to launch a website redesign, but you want to test the redesign on a development server that lives in a subdomain on your website. You’ll want to use the “noindex” tag to ensure Google won’t release the site in search before it’s ready.
You might also use “noindex” if you have a gated content offer you don’t want users to be able to find on search engines — since you want them to fill out a form to access it.
Lastly, you might use “noindex” if your website creates unique web pages whenever someone does a site search. Search engines might think those pages are part of your website, which will hurt your SEO. It’s best if you incorporate “noindex” to ensure site search results aren’t displayed on the SERPs.
To incorporate a robots meta directive, input this code into your HTML:
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, nofollow”>
4. Title Tags
Title tags help readers initially understand what your content is about, and they are also a major factor in helping search engines understand your content’s subject matter. Additionally, a title tag can ensure consistency, since the title tag will show up on your web page, on the web browser, and in social networks.
If you don’t include a <title> tag, Google will create one for the SERPs for you — which can hurt your ranking. Ultimately, you want to create a compelling, click-worthy title that will intrigue readers while accurately portraying what your page is about.
Include a title tag on each of your web page’s by pasting this code into your HTML:
<head>
<title>Example Title</title>
</head>
It’s important to note, alt text is technically not a tag — it’s an attribute. However, you’ve likely heard the term “alt tag”, which is why you might think alt text is part of the meta tag family (I know I did …).
Regardless of its categorization, alt text is incredibly important for your overall SEO strategy, particularly since Google places more value on visual search nowadays. When a search engine crawls your page, it’s going to look for the alt text of an image as an identifier for what your web page is about — so it’s critical you correctly title your alt text.
Here’s a code example for alt text to incorporate in your HTML: <img src=”metatag.jpg” alt=”Meta tag picture”>.
5. Meta Keywords
Meta keywords are an attribute of the “meta name” tag that get added if you want to use keywords to describe what a page is about. These keywords would not appear on the page but rather in the page’s code, and search engines used to use them as a ranking factor.
Note: While it doesn’t hurt to use them, meta keywords are no longer relevant for most SEO strategies. In 2009, Google announced that it no longer factored meta keywords into their search algorithm for ranking.
6. Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions are one example of a meta tag — simply put, a meta description is a 160 character-limit snippet of text a user can read on a search engine. A meta description tells the user what they’ll find if they click on your content — which, if done correctly, can greatly increase click-through rates.
The tag doesn’t influence ranking directly, but it’s nonetheless an important element of SEO — a good meta description can compel readers to click on your article, and if the meta description accurately describes your content, the user is more likely to stay on the page. Click-through rates do influence search engine ranking, so meta descriptions are important for SEO.
Here’s an example of the code you’d use to manually input a meta description into your web page’s HTML:
<head>
<meta name=”description” content=”This is an example of my meta description.”>
</head>
Meta Tags vs. Meta Descriptions
These two often get conflated since they both contain the word “meta.” One thing to understand is that meta descriptions are just one example of meta tags, which encompass all of the items in the above list. 
While meta descriptions are a subcategory of meta tags, there is a fundamental difference between the two — purpose. Meta tags are used to help search engines figure out the content of your site, but meta descriptions are used to help a user sort your content.
For instance, consider what happens when I search “what are meta tags”:
The meta descriptions for the following two articles are more than likely the primary reason I’ll choose one article over the other.
How to Write Meta Tags
Understand that not all meta tags need to be written. Some are just codes.
Create a swipe file to use for copy/pasting those codes.
Paste the canonical tag into the HTML header if the page has duplicate content.
Use the robots noindex tag if you don’t want the page to show up in SERPs.
Use the robots nofollow tag if you don’t want Google to follow links on this page.
Create a short headline to use in your title tag. This should compel readers to click.
Write a concise meta description.
Add alt text tags that are keyword-optimized and descriptive to any embedded images on the page.
1. Understand that not all meta tags need to be written. Some are just codes. 
After reading this article, you’ve learned that there’s not one single “meta tag” but rather several categories that fall under this umbrella. Some meta tags require creativity while others are snippets of code that you can simply copy and paste. 
2. Create a swipe file to use for copy/pasting those codes. 
For the instances in which you don’t need to write anything, it’s helpful to have this coding handy anytime you’re creating pages. 
3. Paste the canonical tag into the HTML header if the page has duplicate content. 
As a reminder, if there are multiple versions of a page on your site, you’ll want to use canonical tags to specify the original source for that content. For any duplicate content, you can pull your canonical code from your swipe file to specify it as such. 
4. Use the robots noindex tag if you don’t want the page to show up in SERPs. 
There are many reasons you might not want a particular page to be indexed. Perhaps it’s a thank you page that should only be viewed once a user takes a certain action, or maybe it’s a piece of content that you don’t want showing up in the SERPs. Whatever your reason, the noindex tag will signal to Google not to index that particular page. 
Add this specification to your robots meta tag code in your swipe file. Then, paste it into your HTML header for the page in question.
5. Use the robots nofollow tag if you don’t want Google to follow links on this page. 
If you have a comments section where you want to prevent Google from associating random links with your website, you can do this with the nofollow tag. The nofollow tag is also helpful for controlling your site’s “link juice” in a strategic way. If you don’t want Google to follow any links on a page, pull this code from your swipe file. It also goes in the HTML header. 
6. Create a short headline to use in your title tag. This should compel readers to click. 
Your title tag should be unique for each page you create because it essentially names the page. The title tag shows in the SERPs, in the browser, and on social media. For that reason, it should be written for your target audience. Some things to keep in mind as you write: 
What value are you providing to them?
What will they get if they visit the page? 
What benefits or advantages do you offer?
How can you present that information while enticing them to click?
Another best practice is to include your page’s target keyword as close to the beginning of the headline as possible. 
7. Write a concise meta description that supports your title tag and further entices readers. 
Since the meta description also shows up in SERPs, this is an additional meta tag that essentially advertises your content. The goal here is to expand on the title/headline with enough elaboration while also enticing them to click. The challenge is doing it in under 160 words. Here are some strategies to consider: 
Use your primary keyword in the meta description to make it more relevant to their query, catching the reader’s eye.
Set the stage for the content, giving the reader expectations about what you’ll be delivering. 
Open a loop or create intrigue to make them want to read more.
8. Add alt text tags that are keyword-optimized and descriptive to any embedded images on the page.
Alt text describes images for search engine crawlers and screen readers. With that in mind, you should: 
Describe what’s happening in the image as concisely as possible.
Include a keyword to make the image more relevant from an SEO standpoint.
How to Use Meta Tags with HubSpot
In your HubSpot account, click the Marketing tab in the navigation.
Hover over Website, then choose either Website Pages or Landing Pages (depending on where the page in question is located).
Click the name of the page to open up the editor.
Click the “Settings” tab at the top of the page editor.
Click “Advanced Options” at the bottom of the page.
Locate the Head HTML field under “Additional code snippets.”
Paste in the code for the most applicable meta tag(s).
Ensure that the code is correct for what you want to achieve.
Publish or Update the page.
You can verify that the code is now live by visiting the page, right clicking somewhere on the page, choosing “View Source,” and searching for your code in the new window.
Now that you know what meta tags are and how to implement them on your site, you can check this task off your SEO to-do list. Your pages will now be much more easily crawled and indexed by search engines like Google. Keep in mind, however, that meta tags are only one part of optimizing pages for organic search. There are many other SEO factors that could affect your traffic and ranking performance.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Mar 8, 2019 but was updated on Mar 10, 2020 for comprehensiveness.
The Plain-English Guide to Meta Tags & SEO publicado primeiro em https://blog.hubspot.com/
Essa publicação Marketing 4.0 por Tiago Barbosa apareceu primeiro em https://ift.tt/2xQXPJN
0 notes
isearchgoood · 5 years ago
Text
Position Zero Is Dead; Long Live Position Zero
Posted by Dr-Pete
In 2014, Google introduced the featured snippet, a promoted organic ranking that we affectionately (some days were more affectionate than others) referred to as "position zero" or "ranking #0." One of the benefits to being in position zero was that you got to double-dip, with your organic listing appearing in both the featured snippet and page-1 results (usually in the top 3–4). On January 23, Google announced a significant change (which rolled out globally on January 22) ...
"Declutters" sounds innocuous, but the impact to how we think about featured snippets and organic rankings is significant. So, let's dig deep into some examples and the implications for SEO.
What does this mean for Moz?
First, a product announcement. In the past, we treated Featured Snippets as stand-alone SERP features — they were identified in our "SERP Features" report but were not treated as organic due to the second listing. As of Saturday, January 25 (shout-out to many of our team for putting in a long weekend), we began rolling out data that treats the featured snippet as position #1. SERPs with featured snippets will continue to be tagged in SERP Features reporting, and we're working on ways to surface more data.
Here's a partial screenshot of our "SERP Features" report from one of my own experiments ...
At a glance, you can see which keywords displayed a featured snippet (the scissor icon), owned that featured snippet (highlighted in blue), as well as your organic ranking for those keywords. We're working on bringing more of this data into the Rankings report in the near future.
If you're a Moz Pro customer and would like to see this in action, you can jump directly to your SERP Features report using the button below (please let us know what you think about the update):
Check Your SERP Features
This change brings our data in line with Google's view that a featured snippet is a promoted organic result and also better aligns us with Google Search Console data. Hopefully, it also helps provide customers with more context about their featured snippets as organic entities.
How does Google count to 10?
Let's take a deeper look at the before and after of this change. Here are the desktop organic results (left-column only) from a search for "LCD vs LED" on January 21st ...
Pardon some big images, but I promise there's method to my madness. In the "before" screenshot above, we can clearly see that the featured snippet URL is duplicated as the #1 organic result (note: I've added the green box and removed a People Also Ask box). Ranking #1 wasn't always the case prior to January 22nd, but most featured snippet URLs appeared in the #1–#3 organic positions, and all of them came from page-one results.
Here's the same SERP from January 23rd ...
You can see that not only is the featured snippet URL missing from the #1 position, but it doesn't appear on page one at all. There's more to this puzzle, though. Look at the January 21st SERP again, but numbered ...
Notice that, even with the featured snippet, page one displays 10 full organic results. This was part of our rationale for treating the featured snippet as the #0 position and a special case, even though it came from organic results. We also debated whether duplicating data in rankings reports added value for customers or just created confusion.
Now, look at the numbered SERP from January 23rd ...
The duplicate URL hasn't been replaced — it's been removed entirely. So, we're only left with 10 total results, including the featured snippet itself. If we started with #0, we'd be left with a page-one SERP that goes from #0–#9.
What about double snippets?
In rare cases, Google may show two featured snippets in a row. If you haven't seen one of these in action, here's an example for the search "Irish names" from January 21st ...
I've highlighted the organic URLs to show that, prior to the update, both featured snippet URLs appeared on page one. A quick count will also show you that there are 10 traditional organic listings and 12 total listings (counting the two featured snippets).
Here's that same SERP from January 23rd, which I've numbered ...
In this case, both featured snippet URLs have been removed from the traditional organic listings, and we're left once again with 10 total page-one results. We see the same pattern with SERP features (such as Top Stories or Video carousels) that occupy an organic position. Whatever the combination in play, the featured snippet appears to count as one of the 10 results on page one after January 22nd.
What about right-hand side panels?
More recently, Google introduced a hybrid desktop result that looks like a Knowledge Panel but pulls information from organic results, like a Featured Snippet. Here's an example from January 21st (just the panel) ...
In the left-hand column, the same Wordstream URL ranked #3 in organic results (I've truncated the image below to save your scrolling finger) ...
After January 22nd, this URL was also treated as a duplicate, which was met with considerable public outcry. Unlike the prominent Featured Snippet placement, many people felt (including myself) that the panel-style UI was confusing and very likely to reduce click-through rate (CTR). In a fairly rare occurrence, Google backtracked on this decision ...
Our data set showed reversal kicking in on January 29th (a week after the initial change). Currently, while some featured snippets are still displayed in right-hand panels (about 30% of all featured snippets across MozCast's 10,000 keywords), those URLs once again appear in the organic listings.
Note that Google has said this is a multi-part project, and they're likely going to be moving these featured snippets back to the left-hand column in the near future. We don't currently know if that means they'll become traditional featured snippets or if they'll evolve into a new entity.
How do I block featured snippets?
Cool your jets, Starscream. Almost the moment Google announced this change, SEOs started talking about how to block featured snippets, including some folks asking publicly about de-optimizing content. "De-optimizing" sounds harmless, but it's really a euphemism for making your own content worse so that it ranks lower. In other words, you're going to take a CTR hit (the organic CTR curve drops off quickly as a power function) to avoid possibly taking a CTR hit. As Ford Prefect wisely said: "There's no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later."
More importantly, there are better options. The oldest currently available option is the meta-nosnippet directive. I'd generally consider this a last resort — as a recent experiment by Claire Carlile re-affirms, meta-nosnippet blocks all snippets/descriptions, including your organic snippet.
As of 2019, we have two more options to work with. The meta-max-snippet directive limits the character-length of search snippets (both featured snippets and organic snippets). It looks something like this ...
<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:50">
Setting the max-snippet value to zero should function essentially the same as a nosnippet directive. However, by playing with intermediate values, you might be able to maintain your organic snippet while controlling or removing the featured snippet.
Another relatively new option is the data-nosnippet HTML attribute. This is a tag attribute that you can wrap around content you wish to block from snippets. It looks something like this ...
<span data-nosnippet>I will take this content to the grave!</span>
Ok, that was probably melodramatic, but the data-nosnippet attribute can be wrapped around specific content that you'd like to keep out of snippets (again, this impacts all snippets). This could be very useful if you've got information appearing from the wrong part of a page or even a snippet that just doesn't answer the question very well. Of course, keep in mind that Google could simply select another part of your page for the featured snippet.
One thing to keep in mind: in some cases, Featured snippet content drives voice answers. Danny Sullivan at Google confirmed that, if you block your snippets using one of the methods above, you also block your eligibility for voice answers ...
A featured snippet isn't guaranteed to drive voice answers (there are a few more layers to the Google Assistant algorithms), but if you're interested in ranking for voice, then you may want to proceed with caution. Also keep in mind that there's no position #2 in voice search.
How much should I freak out?
We expect these changes are here to stay, at least for a while, but we know very little about the impact of featured snippets on CTR after January 22nd. In early 2018, Moz did a major, internal CTR study and found the impact of featured snippets almost impossible to interpret, because the available data (whether click-stream or Google Search Console) provided no way to tell if clicks were going to the featured snippet or the duplicated organic URL.
My hunch, informed by that project, is that there are two realities. In one case, featured snippets definitively answer a question and negatively impact CTR. If a concise, self-contained answer is possible, expect some people not to click on the URL. You've given them what they need.
In the other case, though, a featured snippet acts as an incomplete teaser, naturally encouraging clicks (if the information is worthwhile). Consider this featured snippet for "science fair ideas" ...
The "More items..." indicator clearly suggests that this is just part of a much longer list, and I can tell you from my as a parent that I wouldn't stop at the featured snippet. Lists and instructional content are especially well-suited to this kind of teaser experience, as are questions that can't be answered easily in a paragraph.
All of this is to say that I wouldn't take a hatchet to your featured snippets. Answering the questions your visitors ask is a good thing, generally, and drives search visibility. As we learn more about the impact on CTR, it makes sense to be more strategic, but featured snippets are organic opportunities that are here to stay.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
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0 notes
nutrifami · 5 years ago
Text
Position Zero Is Dead; Long Live Position Zero
Posted by Dr-Pete
In 2014, Google introduced the featured snippet, a promoted organic ranking that we affectionately (some days were more affectionate than others) referred to as "position zero" or "ranking #0." One of the benefits to being in position zero was that you got to double-dip, with your organic listing appearing in both the featured snippet and page-1 results (usually in the top 3–4). On January 23, Google announced a significant change (which rolled out globally on January 22) ...
"Declutters" sounds innocuous, but the impact to how we think about featured snippets and organic rankings is significant. So, let's dig deep into some examples and the implications for SEO.
What does this mean for Moz?
First, a product announcement. In the past, we treated Featured Snippets as stand-alone SERP features — they were identified in our "SERP Features" report but were not treated as organic due to the second listing. As of Saturday, January 25 (shout-out to many of our team for putting in a long weekend), we began rolling out data that treats the featured snippet as position #1. SERPs with featured snippets will continue to be tagged in SERP Features reporting, and we're working on ways to surface more data.
Here's a partial screenshot of our "SERP Features" report from one of my own experiments ...
At a glance, you can see which keywords displayed a featured snippet (the scissor icon), owned that featured snippet (highlighted in blue), as well as your organic ranking for those keywords. We're working on bringing more of this data into the Rankings report in the near future.
If you're a Moz Pro customer and would like to see this in action, you can jump directly to your SERP Features report using the button below (please let us know what you think about the update):
Check Your SERP Features
This change brings our data in line with Google's view that a featured snippet is a promoted organic result and also better aligns us with Google Search Console data. Hopefully, it also helps provide customers with more context about their featured snippets as organic entities.
How does Google count to 10?
Let's take a deeper look at the before and after of this change. Here are the desktop organic results (left-column only) from a search for "LCD vs LED" on January 21st ...
Pardon some big images, but I promise there's method to my madness. In the "before" screenshot above, we can clearly see that the featured snippet URL is duplicated as the #1 organic result (note: I've added the green box and removed a People Also Ask box). Ranking #1 wasn't always the case prior to January 22nd, but most featured snippet URLs appeared in the #1–#3 organic positions, and all of them came from page-one results.
Here's the same SERP from January 23rd ...
You can see that not only is the featured snippet URL missing from the #1 position, but it doesn't appear on page one at all. There's more to this puzzle, though. Look at the January 21st SERP again, but numbered ...
Notice that, even with the featured snippet, page one displays 10 full organic results. This was part of our rationale for treating the featured snippet as the #0 position and a special case, even though it came from organic results. We also debated whether duplicating data in rankings reports added value for customers or just created confusion.
Now, look at the numbered SERP from January 23rd ...
The duplicate URL hasn't been replaced — it's been removed entirely. So, we're only left with 10 total results, including the featured snippet itself. If we started with #0, we'd be left with a page-one SERP that goes from #0–#9.
What about double snippets?
In rare cases, Google may show two featured snippets in a row. If you haven't seen one of these in action, here's an example for the search "Irish names" from January 21st ...
I've highlighted the organic URLs to show that, prior to the update, both featured snippet URLs appeared on page one. A quick count will also show you that there are 10 traditional organic listings and 12 total listings (counting the two featured snippets).
Here's that same SERP from January 23rd, which I've numbered ...
In this case, both featured snippet URLs have been removed from the traditional organic listings, and we're left once again with 10 total page-one results. We see the same pattern with SERP features (such as Top Stories or Video carousels) that occupy an organic position. Whatever the combination in play, the featured snippet appears to count as one of the 10 results on page one after January 22nd.
What about right-hand side panels?
More recently, Google introduced a hybrid desktop result that looks like a Knowledge Panel but pulls information from organic results, like a Featured Snippet. Here's an example from January 21st (just the panel) ...
In the left-hand column, the same Wordstream URL ranked #3 in organic results (I've truncated the image below to save your scrolling finger) ...
After January 22nd, this URL was also treated as a duplicate, which was met with considerable public outcry. Unlike the prominent Featured Snippet placement, many people felt (including myself) that the panel-style UI was confusing and very likely to reduce click-through rate (CTR). In a fairly rare occurrence, Google backtracked on this decision ...
Our data set showed reversal kicking in on January 29th (a week after the initial change). Currently, while some featured snippets are still displayed in right-hand panels (about 30% of all featured snippets across MozCast's 10,000 keywords), those URLs once again appear in the organic listings.
Note that Google has said this is a multi-part project, and they're likely going to be moving these featured snippets back to the left-hand column in the near future. We don't currently know if that means they'll become traditional featured snippets or if they'll evolve into a new entity.
How do I block featured snippets?
Cool your jets, Starscream. Almost the moment Google announced this change, SEOs started talking about how to block featured snippets, including some folks asking publicly about de-optimizing content. "De-optimizing" sounds harmless, but it's really a euphemism for making your own content worse so that it ranks lower. In other words, you're going to take a CTR hit (the organic CTR curve drops off quickly as a power function) to avoid possibly taking a CTR hit. As Ford Prefect wisely said: "There's no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later."
More importantly, there are better options. The oldest currently available option is the meta-nosnippet directive. I'd generally consider this a last resort — as a recent experiment by Claire Carlile re-affirms, meta-nosnippet blocks all snippets/descriptions, including your organic snippet.
As of 2019, we have two more options to work with. The meta-max-snippet directive limits the character-length of search snippets (both featured snippets and organic snippets). It looks something like this ...
<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:50">
Setting the max-snippet value to zero should function essentially the same as a nosnippet directive. However, by playing with intermediate values, you might be able to maintain your organic snippet while controlling or removing the featured snippet.
Another relatively new option is the data-nosnippet HTML attribute. This is a tag attribute that you can wrap around content you wish to block from snippets. It looks something like this ...
<span data-nosnippet>I will take this content to the grave!</span>
Ok, that was probably melodramatic, but the data-nosnippet attribute can be wrapped around specific content that you'd like to keep out of snippets (again, this impacts all snippets). This could be very useful if you've got information appearing from the wrong part of a page or even a snippet that just doesn't answer the question very well. Of course, keep in mind that Google could simply select another part of your page for the featured snippet.
One thing to keep in mind: in some cases, Featured snippet content drives voice answers. Danny Sullivan at Google confirmed that, if you block your snippets using one of the methods above, you also block your eligibility for voice answers ...
A featured snippet isn't guaranteed to drive voice answers (there are a few more layers to the Google Assistant algorithms), but if you're interested in ranking for voice, then you may want to proceed with caution. Also keep in mind that there's no position #2 in voice search.
How much should I freak out?
We expect these changes are here to stay, at least for a while, but we know very little about the impact of featured snippets on CTR after January 22nd. In early 2018, Moz did a major, internal CTR study and found the impact of featured snippets almost impossible to interpret, because the available data (whether click-stream or Google Search Console) provided no way to tell if clicks were going to the featured snippet or the duplicated organic URL.
My hunch, informed by that project, is that there are two realities. In one case, featured snippets definitively answer a question and negatively impact CTR. If a concise, self-contained answer is possible, expect some people not to click on the URL. You've given them what they need.
In the other case, though, a featured snippet acts as an incomplete teaser, naturally encouraging clicks (if the information is worthwhile). Consider this featured snippet for "science fair ideas" ...
The "More items..." indicator clearly suggests that this is just part of a much longer list, and I can tell you from my as a parent that I wouldn't stop at the featured snippet. Lists and instructional content are especially well-suited to this kind of teaser experience, as are questions that can't be answered easily in a paragraph.
All of this is to say that I wouldn't take a hatchet to your featured snippets. Answering the questions your visitors ask is a good thing, generally, and drives search visibility. As we learn more about the impact on CTR, it makes sense to be more strategic, but featured snippets are organic opportunities that are here to stay.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
0 notes
theinjectlikes2 · 5 years ago
Text
Position Zero Is Dead; Long Live Position Zero
Posted by Dr-Pete
In 2014, Google introduced the featured snippet, a promoted organic ranking that we affectionately (some days were more affectionate than others) referred to as "position zero" or "ranking #0." One of the benefits to being in position zero was that you got to double-dip, with your organic listing appearing in both the featured snippet and page-1 results (usually in the top 3–4). On January 23, Google announced a significant change (which rolled out globally on January 22) ...
"Declutters" sounds innocuous, but the impact to how we think about featured snippets and organic rankings is significant. So, let's dig deep into some examples and the implications for SEO.
What does this mean for Moz?
First, a product announcement. In the past, we treated Featured Snippets as stand-alone SERP features — they were identified in our "SERP Features" report but were not treated as organic due to the second listing. As of Saturday, January 25 (shout-out to many of our team for putting in a long weekend), we began rolling out data that treats the featured snippet as position #1. SERPs with featured snippets will continue to be tagged in SERP Features reporting, and we're working on ways to surface more data.
Here's a partial screenshot of our "SERP Features" report from one of my own experiments ...
At a glance, you can see which keywords displayed a featured snippet (the scissor icon), owned that featured snippet (highlighted in blue), as well as your organic ranking for those keywords. We're working on bringing more of this data into the Rankings report in the near future.
If you're a Moz Pro customer and would like to see this in action, you can jump directly to your SERP Features report using the button below (please let us know what you think about the update):
Check Your SERP Features
This change brings our data in line with Google's view that a featured snippet is a promoted organic result and also better aligns us with Google Search Console data. Hopefully, it also helps provide customers with more context about their featured snippets as organic entities.
How does Google count to 10?
Let's take a deeper look at the before and after of this change. Here are the desktop organic results (left-column only) from a search for "LCD vs LED" on January 21st ...
Pardon some big images, but I promise there's method to my madness. In the "before" screenshot above, we can clearly see that the featured snippet URL is duplicated as the #1 organic result (note: I've added the green box and removed a People Also Ask box). Ranking #1 wasn't always the case prior to January 22nd, but most featured snippet URLs appeared in the #1–#3 organic positions, and all of them came from page-one results.
Here's the same SERP from January 23rd ...
You can see that not only is the featured snippet URL missing from the #1 position, but it doesn't appear on page one at all. There's more to this puzzle, though. Look at the January 21st SERP again, but numbered ...
Notice that, even with the featured snippet, page one displays 10 full organic results. This was part of our rationale for treating the featured snippet as the #0 position and a special case, even though it came from organic results. We also debated whether duplicating data in rankings reports added value for customers or just created confusion.
Now, look at the numbered SERP from January 23rd ...
The duplicate URL hasn't been replaced — it's been removed entirely. So, we're only left with 10 total results, including the featured snippet itself. If we started with #0, we'd be left with a page-one SERP that goes from #0–#9.
What about double snippets?
In rare cases, Google may show two featured snippets in a row. If you haven't seen one of these in action, here's an example for the search "Irish names" from January 21st ...
I've highlighted the organic URLs to show that, prior to the update, both featured snippet URLs appeared on page one. A quick count will also show you that there are 10 traditional organic listings and 12 total listings (counting the two featured snippets).
Here's that same SERP from January 23rd, which I've numbered ...
In this case, both featured snippet URLs have been removed from the traditional organic listings, and we're left once again with 10 total page-one results. We see the same pattern with SERP features (such as Top Stories or Video carousels) that occupy an organic position. Whatever the combination in play, the featured snippet appears to count as one of the 10 results on page one after January 22nd.
What about right-hand side panels?
More recently, Google introduced a hybrid desktop result that looks like a Knowledge Panel but pulls information from organic results, like a Featured Snippet. Here's an example from January 21st (just the panel) ...
In the left-hand column, the same Wordstream URL ranked #3 in organic results (I've truncated the image below to save your scrolling finger) ...
After January 22nd, this URL was also treated as a duplicate, which was met with considerable public outcry. Unlike the prominent Featured Snippet placement, many people felt (including myself) that the panel-style UI was confusing and very likely to reduce click-through rate (CTR). In a fairly rare occurrence, Google backtracked on this decision ...
Our data set showed reversal kicking in on January 29th (a week after the initial change). Currently, while some featured snippets are still displayed in right-hand panels (about 30% of all featured snippets across MozCast's 10,000 keywords), those URLs once again appear in the organic listings.
Note that Google has said this is a multi-part project, and they're likely going to be moving these featured snippets back to the left-hand column in the near future. We don't currently know if that means they'll become traditional featured snippets or if they'll evolve into a new entity.
How do I block featured snippets?
Cool your jets, Starscream. Almost the moment Google announced this change, SEOs started talking about how to block featured snippets, including some folks asking publicly about de-optimizing content. "De-optimizing" sounds harmless, but it's really a euphemism for making your own content worse so that it ranks lower. In other words, you're going to take a CTR hit (the organic CTR curve drops off quickly as a power function) to avoid possibly taking a CTR hit. As Ford Prefect wisely said: "There's no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later."
More importantly, there are better options. The oldest currently available option is the meta-nosnippet directive. I'd generally consider this a last resort — as a recent experiment by Claire Carlile re-affirms, meta-nosnippet blocks all snippets/descriptions, including your organic snippet.
As of 2019, we have two more options to work with. The meta-max-snippet directive limits the character-length of search snippets (both featured snippets and organic snippets). It looks something like this ...
<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:50">
Setting the max-snippet value to zero should function essentially the same as a nosnippet directive. However, by playing with intermediate values, you might be able to maintain your organic snippet while controlling or removing the featured snippet.
Another relatively new option is the data-nosnippet HTML attribute. This is a tag attribute that you can wrap around content you wish to block from snippets. It looks something like this ...
<span data-nosnippet>I will take this content to the grave!</span>
Ok, that was probably melodramatic, but the data-nosnippet attribute can be wrapped around specific content that you'd like to keep out of snippets (again, this impacts all snippets). This could be very useful if you've got information appearing from the wrong part of a page or even a snippet that just doesn't answer the question very well. Of course, keep in mind that Google could simply select another part of your page for the featured snippet.
One thing to keep in mind: in some cases, Featured snippet content drives voice answers. Danny Sullivan at Google confirmed that, if you block your snippets using one of the methods above, you also block your eligibility for voice answers ...
A featured snippet isn't guaranteed to drive voice answers (there are a few more layers to the Google Assistant algorithms), but if you're interested in ranking for voice, then you may want to proceed with caution. Also keep in mind that there's no position #2 in voice search.
How much should I freak out?
We expect these changes are here to stay, at least for a while, but we know very little about the impact of featured snippets on CTR after January 22nd. In early 2018, Moz did a major, internal CTR study and found the impact of featured snippets almost impossible to interpret, because the available data (whether click-stream or Google Search Console) provided no way to tell if clicks were going to the featured snippet or the duplicated organic URL.
My hunch, informed by that project, is that there are two realities. In one case, featured snippets definitively answer a question and negatively impact CTR. If a concise, self-contained answer is possible, expect some people not to click on the URL. You've given them what they need.
In the other case, though, a featured snippet acts as an incomplete teaser, naturally encouraging clicks (if the information is worthwhile). Consider this featured snippet for "science fair ideas" ...
The "More items..." indicator clearly suggests that this is just part of a much longer list, and I can tell you from my as a parent that I wouldn't stop at the featured snippet. Lists and instructional content are especially well-suited to this kind of teaser experience, as are questions that can't be answered easily in a paragraph.
All of this is to say that I wouldn't take a hatchet to your featured snippets. Answering the questions your visitors ask is a good thing, generally, and drives search visibility. As we learn more about the impact on CTR, it makes sense to be more strategic, but featured snippets are organic opportunities that are here to stay.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
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0 notes
kjt-lawyers · 5 years ago
Text
Position Zero Is Dead; Long Live Position Zero
Posted by Dr-Pete
In 2014, Google introduced the featured snippet, a promoted organic ranking that we affectionately (some days were more affectionate than others) referred to as "position zero" or "ranking #0." One of the benefits to being in position zero was that you got to double-dip, with your organic listing appearing in both the featured snippet and page-1 results (usually in the top 3–4). On January 23, Google announced a significant change (which rolled out globally on January 22) ...
"Declutters" sounds innocuous, but the impact to how we think about featured snippets and organic rankings is significant. So, let's dig deep into some examples and the implications for SEO.
What does this mean for Moz?
First, a product announcement. In the past, we treated Featured Snippets as stand-alone SERP features — they were identified in our "SERP Features" report but were not treated as organic due to the second listing. As of Saturday, January 25 (shout-out to many of our team for putting in a long weekend), we began rolling out data that treats the featured snippet as position #1. SERPs with featured snippets will continue to be tagged in SERP Features reporting, and we're working on ways to surface more data.
Here's a partial screenshot of our "SERP Features" report from one of my own experiments ...
At a glance, you can see which keywords displayed a featured snippet (the scissor icon), owned that featured snippet (highlighted in blue), as well as your organic ranking for those keywords. We're working on bringing more of this data into the Rankings report in the near future.
If you're a Moz Pro customer and would like to see this in action, you can jump directly to your SERP Features report using the button below (please let us know what you think about the update):
Check Your SERP Features
This change brings our data in line with Google's view that a featured snippet is a promoted organic result and also better aligns us with Google Search Console data. Hopefully, it also helps provide customers with more context about their featured snippets as organic entities.
How does Google count to 10?
Let's take a deeper look at the before and after of this change. Here are the desktop organic results (left-column only) from a search for "LCD vs LED" on January 21st ...
Pardon some big images, but I promise there's method to my madness. In the "before" screenshot above, we can clearly see that the featured snippet URL is duplicated as the #1 organic result (note: I've added the green box and removed a People Also Ask box). Ranking #1 wasn't always the case prior to January 22nd, but most featured snippet URLs appeared in the #1–#3 organic positions, and all of them came from page-one results.
Here's the same SERP from January 23rd ...
You can see that not only is the featured snippet URL missing from the #1 position, but it doesn't appear on page one at all. There's more to this puzzle, though. Look at the January 21st SERP again, but numbered ...
Notice that, even with the featured snippet, page one displays 10 full organic results. This was part of our rationale for treating the featured snippet as the #0 position and a special case, even though it came from organic results. We also debated whether duplicating data in rankings reports added value for customers or just created confusion.
Now, look at the numbered SERP from January 23rd ...
The duplicate URL hasn't been replaced — it's been removed entirely. So, we're only left with 10 total results, including the featured snippet itself. If we started with #0, we'd be left with a page-one SERP that goes from #0–#9.
What about double snippets?
In rare cases, Google may show two featured snippets in a row. If you haven't seen one of these in action, here's an example for the search "Irish names" from January 21st ...
I've highlighted the organic URLs to show that, prior to the update, both featured snippet URLs appeared on page one. A quick count will also show you that there are 10 traditional organic listings and 12 total listings (counting the two featured snippets).
Here's that same SERP from January 23rd, which I've numbered ...
In this case, both featured snippet URLs have been removed from the traditional organic listings, and we're left once again with 10 total page-one results. We see the same pattern with SERP features (such as Top Stories or Video carousels) that occupy an organic position. Whatever the combination in play, the featured snippet appears to count as one of the 10 results on page one after January 22nd.
What about right-hand side panels?
More recently, Google introduced a hybrid desktop result that looks like a Knowledge Panel but pulls information from organic results, like a Featured Snippet. Here's an example from January 21st (just the panel) ...
In the left-hand column, the same Wordstream URL ranked #3 in organic results (I've truncated the image below to save your scrolling finger) ...
After January 22nd, this URL was also treated as a duplicate, which was met with considerable public outcry. Unlike the prominent Featured Snippet placement, many people felt (including myself) that the panel-style UI was confusing and very likely to reduce click-through rate (CTR). In a fairly rare occurrence, Google backtracked on this decision ...
Our data set showed reversal kicking in on January 29th (a week after the initial change). Currently, while some featured snippets are still displayed in right-hand panels (about 30% of all featured snippets across MozCast's 10,000 keywords), those URLs once again appear in the organic listings.
Note that Google has said this is a multi-part project, and they're likely going to be moving these featured snippets back to the left-hand column in the near future. We don't currently know if that means they'll become traditional featured snippets or if they'll evolve into a new entity.
How do I block featured snippets?
Cool your jets, Starscream. Almost the moment Google announced this change, SEOs started talking about how to block featured snippets, including some folks asking publicly about de-optimizing content. "De-optimizing" sounds harmless, but it's really a euphemism for making your own content worse so that it ranks lower. In other words, you're going to take a CTR hit (the organic CTR curve drops off quickly as a power function) to avoid possibly taking a CTR hit. As Ford Prefect wisely said: "There's no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later."
More importantly, there are better options. The oldest currently available option is the meta-nosnippet directive. I'd generally consider this a last resort — as a recent experiment by Claire Carlile re-affirms, meta-nosnippet blocks all snippets/descriptions, including your organic snippet.
As of 2019, we have two more options to work with. The meta-max-snippet directive limits the character-length of search snippets (both featured snippets and organic snippets). It looks something like this ...
<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:50">
Setting the max-snippet value to zero should function essentially the same as a nosnippet directive. However, by playing with intermediate values, you might be able to maintain your organic snippet while controlling or removing the featured snippet.
Another relatively new option is the data-nosnippet HTML attribute. This is a tag attribute that you can wrap around content you wish to block from snippets. It looks something like this ...
<span data-nosnippet>I will take this content to the grave!</span>
Ok, that was probably melodramatic, but the data-nosnippet attribute can be wrapped around specific content that you'd like to keep out of snippets (again, this impacts all snippets). This could be very useful if you've got information appearing from the wrong part of a page or even a snippet that just doesn't answer the question very well. Of course, keep in mind that Google could simply select another part of your page for the featured snippet.
One thing to keep in mind: in some cases, Featured snippet content drives voice answers. Danny Sullivan at Google confirmed that, if you block your snippets using one of the methods above, you also block your eligibility for voice answers ...
A featured snippet isn't guaranteed to drive voice answers (there are a few more layers to the Google Assistant algorithms), but if you're interested in ranking for voice, then you may want to proceed with caution. Also keep in mind that there's no position #2 in voice search.
How much should I freak out?
We expect these changes are here to stay, at least for a while, but we know very little about the impact of featured snippets on CTR after January 22nd. In early 2018, Moz did a major, internal CTR study and found the impact of featured snippets almost impossible to interpret, because the available data (whether click-stream or Google Search Console) provided no way to tell if clicks were going to the featured snippet or the duplicated organic URL.
My hunch, informed by that project, is that there are two realities. In one case, featured snippets definitively answer a question and negatively impact CTR. If a concise, self-contained answer is possible, expect some people not to click on the URL. You've given them what they need.
In the other case, though, a featured snippet acts as an incomplete teaser, naturally encouraging clicks (if the information is worthwhile). Consider this featured snippet for "science fair ideas" ...
The "More items..." indicator clearly suggests that this is just part of a much longer list, and I can tell you from my as a parent that I wouldn't stop at the featured snippet. Lists and instructional content are especially well-suited to this kind of teaser experience, as are questions that can't be answered easily in a paragraph.
All of this is to say that I wouldn't take a hatchet to your featured snippets. Answering the questions your visitors ask is a good thing, generally, and drives search visibility. As we learn more about the impact on CTR, it makes sense to be more strategic, but featured snippets are organic opportunities that are here to stay.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
0 notes
gamebazu · 5 years ago
Text
Position Zero Is Dead; Long Live Position Zero
Posted by Dr-Pete
In 2014, Google introduced the featured snippet, a promoted organic ranking that we affectionately (some days were more affectionate than others) referred to as "position zero" or "ranking #0." One of the benefits to being in position zero was that you got to double-dip, with your organic listing appearing in both the featured snippet and page-1 results (usually in the top 3–4). On January 23, Google announced a significant change (which rolled out globally on January 22) ...
"Declutters" sounds innocuous, but the impact to how we think about featured snippets and organic rankings is significant. So, let's dig deep into some examples and the implications for SEO.
What does this mean for Moz?
First, a product announcement. In the past, we treated Featured Snippets as stand-alone SERP features — they were identified in our "SERP Features" report but were not treated as organic due to the second listing. As of Saturday, January 25 (shout-out to many of our team for putting in a long weekend), we began rolling out data that treats the featured snippet as position #1. SERPs with featured snippets will continue to be tagged in SERP Features reporting, and we're working on ways to surface more data.
Here's a partial screenshot of our "SERP Features" report from one of my own experiments ...
At a glance, you can see which keywords displayed a featured snippet (the scissor icon), owned that featured snippet (highlighted in blue), as well as your organic ranking for those keywords. We're working on bringing more of this data into the Rankings report in the near future.
If you're a Moz Pro customer and would like to see this in action, you can jump directly to your SERP Features report using the button below (please let us know what you think about the update):
Check Your SERP Features
This change brings our data in line with Google's view that a featured snippet is a promoted organic result and also better aligns us with Google Search Console data. Hopefully, it also helps provide customers with more context about their featured snippets as organic entities.
How does Google count to 10?
Let's take a deeper look at the before and after of this change. Here are the desktop organic results (left-column only) from a search for "LCD vs LED" on January 21st ...
Pardon some big images, but I promise there's method to my madness. In the "before" screenshot above, we can clearly see that the featured snippet URL is duplicated as the #1 organic result (note: I've added the green box and removed a People Also Ask box). Ranking #1 wasn't always the case prior to January 22nd, but most featured snippet URLs appeared in the #1–#3 organic positions, and all of them came from page-one results.
Here's the same SERP from January 23rd ...
You can see that not only is the featured snippet URL missing from the #1 position, but it doesn't appear on page one at all. There's more to this puzzle, though. Look at the January 21st SERP again, but numbered ...
Notice that, even with the featured snippet, page one displays 10 full organic results. This was part of our rationale for treating the featured snippet as the #0 position and a special case, even though it came from organic results. We also debated whether duplicating data in rankings reports added value for customers or just created confusion.
Now, look at the numbered SERP from January 23rd ...
The duplicate URL hasn't been replaced — it's been removed entirely. So, we're only left with 10 total results, including the featured snippet itself. If we started with #0, we'd be left with a page-one SERP that goes from #0–#9.
What about double snippets?
In rare cases, Google may show two featured snippets in a row. If you haven't seen one of these in action, here's an example for the search "Irish names" from January 21st ...
I've highlighted the organic URLs to show that, prior to the update, both featured snippet URLs appeared on page one. A quick count will also show you that there are 10 traditional organic listings and 12 total listings (counting the two featured snippets).
Here's that same SERP from January 23rd, which I've numbered ...
In this case, both featured snippet URLs have been removed from the traditional organic listings, and we're left once again with 10 total page-one results. We see the same pattern with SERP features (such as Top Stories or Video carousels) that occupy an organic position. Whatever the combination in play, the featured snippet appears to count as one of the 10 results on page one after January 22nd.
What about right-hand side panels?
More recently, Google introduced a hybrid desktop result that looks like a Knowledge Panel but pulls information from organic results, like a Featured Snippet. Here's an example from January 21st (just the panel) ...
In the left-hand column, the same Wordstream URL ranked #3 in organic results (I've truncated the image below to save your scrolling finger) ...
After January 22nd, this URL was also treated as a duplicate, which was met with considerable public outcry. Unlike the prominent Featured Snippet placement, many people felt (including myself) that the panel-style UI was confusing and very likely to reduce click-through rate (CTR). In a fairly rare occurrence, Google backtracked on this decision ...
Our data set showed reversal kicking in on January 29th (a week after the initial change). Currently, while some featured snippets are still displayed in right-hand panels (about 30% of all featured snippets across MozCast's 10,000 keywords), those URLs once again appear in the organic listings.
Note that Google has said this is a multi-part project, and they're likely going to be moving these featured snippets back to the left-hand column in the near future. We don't currently know if that means they'll become traditional featured snippets or if they'll evolve into a new entity.
How do I block featured snippets?
Cool your jets, Starscream. Almost the moment Google announced this change, SEOs started talking about how to block featured snippets, including some folks asking publicly about de-optimizing content. "De-optimizing" sounds harmless, but it's really a euphemism for making your own content worse so that it ranks lower. In other words, you're going to take a CTR hit (the organic CTR curve drops off quickly as a power function) to avoid possibly taking a CTR hit. As Ford Prefect wisely said: "There's no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later."
More importantly, there are better options. The oldest currently available option is the meta-nosnippet directive. I'd generally consider this a last resort — as a recent experiment by Claire Carlile re-affirms, meta-nosnippet blocks all snippets/descriptions, including your organic snippet.
As of 2019, we have two more options to work with. The meta-max-snippet directive limits the character-length of search snippets (both featured snippets and organic snippets). It looks something like this ...
<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:50">
Setting the max-snippet value to zero should function essentially the same as a nosnippet directive. However, by playing with intermediate values, you might be able to maintain your organic snippet while controlling or removing the featured snippet.
Another relatively new option is the data-nosnippet HTML attribute. This is a tag attribute that you can wrap around content you wish to block from snippets. It looks something like this ...
<span data-nosnippet>I will take this content to the grave!</span>
Ok, that was probably melodramatic, but the data-nosnippet attribute can be wrapped around specific content that you'd like to keep out of snippets (again, this impacts all snippets). This could be very useful if you've got information appearing from the wrong part of a page or even a snippet that just doesn't answer the question very well. Of course, keep in mind that Google could simply select another part of your page for the featured snippet.
One thing to keep in mind: in some cases, Featured snippet content drives voice answers. Danny Sullivan at Google confirmed that, if you block your snippets using one of the methods above, you also block your eligibility for voice answers ...
A featured snippet isn't guaranteed to drive voice answers (there are a few more layers to the Google Assistant algorithms), but if you're interested in ranking for voice, then you may want to proceed with caution. Also keep in mind that there's no position #2 in voice search.
How much should I freak out?
We expect these changes are here to stay, at least for a while, but we know very little about the impact of featured snippets on CTR after January 22nd. In early 2018, Moz did a major, internal CTR study and found the impact of featured snippets almost impossible to interpret, because the available data (whether click-stream or Google Search Console) provided no way to tell if clicks were going to the featured snippet or the duplicated organic URL.
My hunch, informed by that project, is that there are two realities. In one case, featured snippets definitively answer a question and negatively impact CTR. If a concise, self-contained answer is possible, expect some people not to click on the URL. You've given them what they need.
In the other case, though, a featured snippet acts as an incomplete teaser, naturally encouraging clicks (if the information is worthwhile). Consider this featured snippet for "science fair ideas" ...
The "More items..." indicator clearly suggests that this is just part of a much longer list, and I can tell you from my as a parent that I wouldn't stop at the featured snippet. Lists and instructional content are especially well-suited to this kind of teaser experience, as are questions that can't be answered easily in a paragraph.
All of this is to say that I wouldn't take a hatchet to your featured snippets. Answering the questions your visitors ask is a good thing, generally, and drives search visibility. As we learn more about the impact on CTR, it makes sense to be more strategic, but featured snippets are organic opportunities that are here to stay.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
0 notes
daynamartinez22 · 5 years ago
Text
Position Zero Is Dead; Long Live Position Zero
Posted by Dr-Pete
In 2014, Google introduced the featured snippet, a promoted organic ranking that we affectionately (some days were more affectionate than others) referred to as "position zero" or "ranking #0." One of the benefits to being in position zero was that you got to double-dip, with your organic listing appearing in both the featured snippet and page-1 results (usually in the top 3–4). On January 23, Google announced a significant change (which rolled out globally on January 22) ...
"Declutters" sounds innocuous, but the impact to how we think about featured snippets and organic rankings is significant. So, let's dig deep into some examples and the implications for SEO.
What does this mean for Moz?
First, a product announcement. In the past, we treated Featured Snippets as stand-alone SERP features — they were identified in our "SERP Features" report but were not treated as organic due to the second listing. As of Saturday, January 25 (shout-out to many of our team for putting in a long weekend), we began rolling out data that treats the featured snippet as position #1. SERPs with featured snippets will continue to be tagged in SERP Features reporting, and we're working on ways to surface more data.
Here's a partial screenshot of our "SERP Features" report from one of my own experiments ...
At a glance, you can see which keywords displayed a featured snippet (the scissor icon), owned that featured snippet (highlighted in blue), as well as your organic ranking for those keywords. We're working on bringing more of this data into the Rankings report in the near future.
If you're a Moz Pro customer and would like to see this in action, you can jump directly to your SERP Features report using the button below (please let us know what you think about the update):
Check Your SERP Features
This change brings our data in line with Google's view that a featured snippet is a promoted organic result and also better aligns us with Google Search Console data. Hopefully, it also helps provide customers with more context about their featured snippets as organic entities.
How does Google count to 10?
Let's take a deeper look at the before and after of this change. Here are the desktop organic results (left-column only) from a search for "LCD vs LED" on January 21st ...
Pardon some big images, but I promise there's method to my madness. In the "before" screenshot above, we can clearly see that the featured snippet URL is duplicated as the #1 organic result (note: I've added the green box and removed a People Also Ask box). Ranking #1 wasn't always the case prior to January 22nd, but most featured snippet URLs appeared in the #1–#3 organic positions, and all of them came from page-one results.
Here's the same SERP from January 23rd ...
You can see that not only is the featured snippet URL missing from the #1 position, but it doesn't appear on page one at all. There's more to this puzzle, though. Look at the January 21st SERP again, but numbered ...
Notice that, even with the featured snippet, page one displays 10 full organic results. This was part of our rationale for treating the featured snippet as the #0 position and a special case, even though it came from organic results. We also debated whether duplicating data in rankings reports added value for customers or just created confusion.
Now, look at the numbered SERP from January 23rd ...
The duplicate URL hasn't been replaced — it's been removed entirely. So, we're only left with 10 total results, including the featured snippet itself. If we started with #0, we'd be left with a page-one SERP that goes from #0–#9.
What about double snippets?
In rare cases, Google may show two featured snippets in a row. If you haven't seen one of these in action, here's an example for the search "Irish names" from January 21st ...
I've highlighted the organic URLs to show that, prior to the update, both featured snippet URLs appeared on page one. A quick count will also show you that there are 10 traditional organic listings and 12 total listings (counting the two featured snippets).
Here's that same SERP from January 23rd, which I've numbered ...
In this case, both featured snippet URLs have been removed from the traditional organic listings, and we're left once again with 10 total page-one results. We see the same pattern with SERP features (such as Top Stories or Video carousels) that occupy an organic position. Whatever the combination in play, the featured snippet appears to count as one of the 10 results on page one after January 22nd.
What about right-hand side panels?
More recently, Google introduced a hybrid desktop result that looks like a Knowledge Panel but pulls information from organic results, like a Featured Snippet. Here's an example from January 21st (just the panel) ...
In the left-hand column, the same Wordstream URL ranked #3 in organic results (I've truncated the image below to save your scrolling finger) ...
After January 22nd, this URL was also treated as a duplicate, which was met with considerable public outcry. Unlike the prominent Featured Snippet placement, many people felt (including myself) that the panel-style UI was confusing and very likely to reduce click-through rate (CTR). In a fairly rare occurrence, Google backtracked on this decision ...
Our data set showed reversal kicking in on January 29th (a week after the initial change). Currently, while some featured snippets are still displayed in right-hand panels (about 30% of all featured snippets across MozCast's 10,000 keywords), those URLs once again appear in the organic listings.
Note that Google has said this is a multi-part project, and they're likely going to be moving these featured snippets back to the left-hand column in the near future. We don't currently know if that means they'll become traditional featured snippets or if they'll evolve into a new entity.
How do I block featured snippets?
Cool your jets, Starscream. Almost the moment Google announced this change, SEOs started talking about how to block featured snippets, including some folks asking publicly about de-optimizing content. "De-optimizing" sounds harmless, but it's really a euphemism for making your own content worse so that it ranks lower. In other words, you're going to take a CTR hit (the organic CTR curve drops off quickly as a power function) to avoid possibly taking a CTR hit. As Ford Prefect wisely said: "There's no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later."
More importantly, there are better options. The oldest currently available option is the meta-nosnippet directive. I'd generally consider this a last resort — as a recent experiment by Claire Carlile re-affirms, meta-nosnippet blocks all snippets/descriptions, including your organic snippet.
As of 2019, we have two more options to work with. The meta-max-snippet directive limits the character-length of search snippets (both featured snippets and organic snippets). It looks something like this ...
<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:50">
Setting the max-snippet value to zero should function essentially the same as a nosnippet directive. However, by playing with intermediate values, you might be able to maintain your organic snippet while controlling or removing the featured snippet.
Another relatively new option is the data-nosnippet HTML attribute. This is a tag attribute that you can wrap around content you wish to block from snippets. It looks something like this ...
<span data-nosnippet>I will take this content to the grave!</span>
Ok, that was probably melodramatic, but the data-nosnippet attribute can be wrapped around specific content that you'd like to keep out of snippets (again, this impacts all snippets). This could be very useful if you've got information appearing from the wrong part of a page or even a snippet that just doesn't answer the question very well. Of course, keep in mind that Google could simply select another part of your page for the featured snippet.
One thing to keep in mind: in some cases, Featured snippet content drives voice answers. Danny Sullivan at Google confirmed that, if you block your snippets using one of the methods above, you also block your eligibility for voice answers ...
A featured snippet isn't guaranteed to drive voice answers (there are a few more layers to the Google Assistant algorithms), but if you're interested in ranking for voice, then you may want to proceed with caution. Also keep in mind that there's no position #2 in voice search.
How much should I freak out?
We expect these changes are here to stay, at least for a while, but we know very little about the impact of featured snippets on CTR after January 22nd. In early 2018, Moz did a major, internal CTR study and found the impact of featured snippets almost impossible to interpret, because the available data (whether click-stream or Google Search Console) provided no way to tell if clicks were going to the featured snippet or the duplicated organic URL.
My hunch, informed by that project, is that there are two realities. In one case, featured snippets definitively answer a question and negatively impact CTR. If a concise, self-contained answer is possible, expect some people not to click on the URL. You've given them what they need.
In the other case, though, a featured snippet acts as an incomplete teaser, naturally encouraging clicks (if the information is worthwhile). Consider this featured snippet for "science fair ideas" ...
The "More items..." indicator clearly suggests that this is just part of a much longer list, and I can tell you from my as a parent that I wouldn't stop at the featured snippet. Lists and instructional content are especially well-suited to this kind of teaser experience, as are questions that can't be answered easily in a paragraph.
All of this is to say that I wouldn't take a hatchet to your featured snippets. Answering the questions your visitors ask is a good thing, generally, and drives search visibility. As we learn more about the impact on CTR, it makes sense to be more strategic, but featured snippets are organic opportunities that are here to stay.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
0 notes
noithatotoaz · 5 years ago
Text
Position Zero Is Dead; Long Live Position Zero
Posted by Dr-Pete
In 2014, Google introduced the featured snippet, a promoted organic ranking that we affectionately (some days were more affectionate than others) referred to as "position zero" or "ranking #0." One of the benefits to being in position zero was that you got to double-dip, with your organic listing appearing in both the featured snippet and page-1 results (usually in the top 3–4). On January 23, Google announced a significant change (which rolled out globally on January 22) ...
"Declutters" sounds innocuous, but the impact to how we think about featured snippets and organic rankings is significant. So, let's dig deep into some examples and the implications for SEO.
What does this mean for Moz?
First, a product announcement. In the past, we treated Featured Snippets as stand-alone SERP features — they were identified in our "SERP Features" report but were not treated as organic due to the second listing. As of Saturday, January 25 (shout-out to many of our team for putting in a long weekend), we began rolling out data that treats the featured snippet as position #1. SERPs with featured snippets will continue to be tagged in SERP Features reporting, and we're working on ways to surface more data.
Here's a partial screenshot of our "SERP Features" report from one of my own experiments ...
At a glance, you can see which keywords displayed a featured snippet (the scissor icon), owned that featured snippet (highlighted in blue), as well as your organic ranking for those keywords. We're working on bringing more of this data into the Rankings report in the near future.
If you're a Moz Pro customer and would like to see this in action, you can jump directly to your SERP Features report using the button below (please let us know what you think about the update):
Check Your SERP Features
This change brings our data in line with Google's view that a featured snippet is a promoted organic result and also better aligns us with Google Search Console data. Hopefully, it also helps provide customers with more context about their featured snippets as organic entities.
How does Google count to 10?
Let's take a deeper look at the before and after of this change. Here are the desktop organic results (left-column only) from a search for "LCD vs LED" on January 21st ...
Pardon some big images, but I promise there's method to my madness. In the "before" screenshot above, we can clearly see that the featured snippet URL is duplicated as the #1 organic result (note: I've added the green box and removed a People Also Ask box). Ranking #1 wasn't always the case prior to January 22nd, but most featured snippet URLs appeared in the #1–#3 organic positions, and all of them came from page-one results.
Here's the same SERP from January 23rd ...
You can see that not only is the featured snippet URL missing from the #1 position, but it doesn't appear on page one at all. There's more to this puzzle, though. Look at the January 21st SERP again, but numbered ...
Notice that, even with the featured snippet, page one displays 10 full organic results. This was part of our rationale for treating the featured snippet as the #0 position and a special case, even though it came from organic results. We also debated whether duplicating data in rankings reports added value for customers or just created confusion.
Now, look at the numbered SERP from January 23rd ...
The duplicate URL hasn't been replaced — it's been removed entirely. So, we're only left with 10 total results, including the featured snippet itself. If we started with #0, we'd be left with a page-one SERP that goes from #0–#9.
What about double snippets?
In rare cases, Google may show two featured snippets in a row. If you haven't seen one of these in action, here's an example for the search "Irish names" from January 21st ...
I've highlighted the organic URLs to show that, prior to the update, both featured snippet URLs appeared on page one. A quick count will also show you that there are 10 traditional organic listings and 12 total listings (counting the two featured snippets).
Here's that same SERP from January 23rd, which I've numbered ...
In this case, both featured snippet URLs have been removed from the traditional organic listings, and we're left once again with 10 total page-one results. We see the same pattern with SERP features (such as Top Stories or Video carousels) that occupy an organic position. Whatever the combination in play, the featured snippet appears to count as one of the 10 results on page one after January 22nd.
What about right-hand side panels?
More recently, Google introduced a hybrid desktop result that looks like a Knowledge Panel but pulls information from organic results, like a Featured Snippet. Here's an example from January 21st (just the panel) ...
In the left-hand column, the same Wordstream URL ranked #3 in organic results (I've truncated the image below to save your scrolling finger) ...
After January 22nd, this URL was also treated as a duplicate, which was met with considerable public outcry. Unlike the prominent Featured Snippet placement, many people felt (including myself) that the panel-style UI was confusing and very likely to reduce click-through rate (CTR). In a fairly rare occurrence, Google backtracked on this decision ...
Our data set showed reversal kicking in on January 29th (a week after the initial change). Currently, while some featured snippets are still displayed in right-hand panels (about 30% of all featured snippets across MozCast's 10,000 keywords), those URLs once again appear in the organic listings.
Note that Google has said this is a multi-part project, and they're likely going to be moving these featured snippets back to the left-hand column in the near future. We don't currently know if that means they'll become traditional featured snippets or if they'll evolve into a new entity.
How do I block featured snippets?
Cool your jets, Starscream. Almost the moment Google announced this change, SEOs started talking about how to block featured snippets, including some folks asking publicly about de-optimizing content. "De-optimizing" sounds harmless, but it's really a euphemism for making your own content worse so that it ranks lower. In other words, you're going to take a CTR hit (the organic CTR curve drops off quickly as a power function) to avoid possibly taking a CTR hit. As Ford Prefect wisely said: "There's no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later."
More importantly, there are better options. The oldest currently available option is the meta-nosnippet directive. I'd generally consider this a last resort — as a recent experiment by Claire Carlile re-affirms, meta-nosnippet blocks all snippets/descriptions, including your organic snippet.
As of 2019, we have two more options to work with. The meta-max-snippet directive limits the character-length of search snippets (both featured snippets and organic snippets). It looks something like this ...
<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:50">
Setting the max-snippet value to zero should function essentially the same as a nosnippet directive. However, by playing with intermediate values, you might be able to maintain your organic snippet while controlling or removing the featured snippet.
Another relatively new option is the data-nosnippet HTML attribute. This is a tag attribute that you can wrap around content you wish to block from snippets. It looks something like this ...
<span data-nosnippet>I will take this content to the grave!</span>
Ok, that was probably melodramatic, but the data-nosnippet attribute can be wrapped around specific content that you'd like to keep out of snippets (again, this impacts all snippets). This could be very useful if you've got information appearing from the wrong part of a page or even a snippet that just doesn't answer the question very well. Of course, keep in mind that Google could simply select another part of your page for the featured snippet.
One thing to keep in mind: in some cases, Featured snippet content drives voice answers. Danny Sullivan at Google confirmed that, if you block your snippets using one of the methods above, you also block your eligibility for voice answers ...
A featured snippet isn't guaranteed to drive voice answers (there are a few more layers to the Google Assistant algorithms), but if you're interested in ranking for voice, then you may want to proceed with caution. Also keep in mind that there's no position #2 in voice search.
How much should I freak out?
We expect these changes are here to stay, at least for a while, but we know very little about the impact of featured snippets on CTR after January 22nd. In early 2018, Moz did a major, internal CTR study and found the impact of featured snippets almost impossible to interpret, because the available data (whether click-stream or Google Search Console) provided no way to tell if clicks were going to the featured snippet or the duplicated organic URL.
My hunch, informed by that project, is that there are two realities. In one case, featured snippets definitively answer a question and negatively impact CTR. If a concise, self-contained answer is possible, expect some people not to click on the URL. You've given them what they need.
In the other case, though, a featured snippet acts as an incomplete teaser, naturally encouraging clicks (if the information is worthwhile). Consider this featured snippet for "science fair ideas" ...
The "More items..." indicator clearly suggests that this is just part of a much longer list, and I can tell you from my as a parent that I wouldn't stop at the featured snippet. Lists and instructional content are especially well-suited to this kind of teaser experience, as are questions that can't be answered easily in a paragraph.
All of this is to say that I wouldn't take a hatchet to your featured snippets. Answering the questions your visitors ask is a good thing, generally, and drives search visibility. As we learn more about the impact on CTR, it makes sense to be more strategic, but featured snippets are organic opportunities that are here to stay.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
0 notes
drummcarpentry · 5 years ago
Text
Position Zero Is Dead; Long Live Position Zero
Posted by Dr-Pete
In 2014, Google introduced the featured snippet, a promoted organic ranking that we affectionately (some days were more affectionate than others) referred to as "position zero" or "ranking #0." One of the benefits to being in position zero was that you got to double-dip, with your organic listing appearing in both the featured snippet and page-1 results (usually in the top 3–4). On January 23, Google announced a significant change (which rolled out globally on January 22) ...
"Declutters" sounds innocuous, but the impact to how we think about featured snippets and organic rankings is significant. So, let's dig deep into some examples and the implications for SEO.
What does this mean for Moz?
First, a product announcement. In the past, we treated Featured Snippets as stand-alone SERP features — they were identified in our "SERP Features" report but were not treated as organic due to the second listing. As of Saturday, January 25 (shout-out to many of our team for putting in a long weekend), we began rolling out data that treats the featured snippet as position #1. SERPs with featured snippets will continue to be tagged in SERP Features reporting, and we're working on ways to surface more data.
Here's a partial screenshot of our "SERP Features" report from one of my own experiments ...
At a glance, you can see which keywords displayed a featured snippet (the scissor icon), owned that featured snippet (highlighted in blue), as well as your organic ranking for those keywords. We're working on bringing more of this data into the Rankings report in the near future.
If you're a Moz Pro customer and would like to see this in action, you can jump directly to your SERP Features report using the button below (please let us know what you think about the update):
Check Your SERP Features
This change brings our data in line with Google's view that a featured snippet is a promoted organic result and also better aligns us with Google Search Console data. Hopefully, it also helps provide customers with more context about their featured snippets as organic entities.
How does Google count to 10?
Let's take a deeper look at the before and after of this change. Here are the desktop organic results (left-column only) from a search for "LCD vs LED" on January 21st ...
Pardon some big images, but I promise there's method to my madness. In the "before" screenshot above, we can clearly see that the featured snippet URL is duplicated as the #1 organic result (note: I've added the green box and removed a People Also Ask box). Ranking #1 wasn't always the case prior to January 22nd, but most featured snippet URLs appeared in the #1–#3 organic positions, and all of them came from page-one results.
Here's the same SERP from January 23rd ...
You can see that not only is the featured snippet URL missing from the #1 position, but it doesn't appear on page one at all. There's more to this puzzle, though. Look at the January 21st SERP again, but numbered ...
Notice that, even with the featured snippet, page one displays 10 full organic results. This was part of our rationale for treating the featured snippet as the #0 position and a special case, even though it came from organic results. We also debated whether duplicating data in rankings reports added value for customers or just created confusion.
Now, look at the numbered SERP from January 23rd ...
The duplicate URL hasn't been replaced — it's been removed entirely. So, we're only left with 10 total results, including the featured snippet itself. If we started with #0, we'd be left with a page-one SERP that goes from #0–#9.
What about double snippets?
In rare cases, Google may show two featured snippets in a row. If you haven't seen one of these in action, here's an example for the search "Irish names" from January 21st ...
I've highlighted the organic URLs to show that, prior to the update, both featured snippet URLs appeared on page one. A quick count will also show you that there are 10 traditional organic listings and 12 total listings (counting the two featured snippets).
Here's that same SERP from January 23rd, which I've numbered ...
In this case, both featured snippet URLs have been removed from the traditional organic listings, and we're left once again with 10 total page-one results. We see the same pattern with SERP features (such as Top Stories or Video carousels) that occupy an organic position. Whatever the combination in play, the featured snippet appears to count as one of the 10 results on page one after January 22nd.
What about right-hand side panels?
More recently, Google introduced a hybrid desktop result that looks like a Knowledge Panel but pulls information from organic results, like a Featured Snippet. Here's an example from January 21st (just the panel) ...
In the left-hand column, the same Wordstream URL ranked #3 in organic results (I've truncated the image below to save your scrolling finger) ...
After January 22nd, this URL was also treated as a duplicate, which was met with considerable public outcry. Unlike the prominent Featured Snippet placement, many people felt (including myself) that the panel-style UI was confusing and very likely to reduce click-through rate (CTR). In a fairly rare occurrence, Google backtracked on this decision ...
Our data set showed reversal kicking in on January 29th (a week after the initial change). Currently, while some featured snippets are still displayed in right-hand panels (about 30% of all featured snippets across MozCast's 10,000 keywords), those URLs once again appear in the organic listings.
Note that Google has said this is a multi-part project, and they're likely going to be moving these featured snippets back to the left-hand column in the near future. We don't currently know if that means they'll become traditional featured snippets or if they'll evolve into a new entity.
How do I block featured snippets?
Cool your jets, Starscream. Almost the moment Google announced this change, SEOs started talking about how to block featured snippets, including some folks asking publicly about de-optimizing content. "De-optimizing" sounds harmless, but it's really a euphemism for making your own content worse so that it ranks lower. In other words, you're going to take a CTR hit (the organic CTR curve drops off quickly as a power function) to avoid possibly taking a CTR hit. As Ford Prefect wisely said: "There's no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later."
More importantly, there are better options. The oldest currently available option is the meta-nosnippet directive. I'd generally consider this a last resort — as a recent experiment by Claire Carlile re-affirms, meta-nosnippet blocks all snippets/descriptions, including your organic snippet.
As of 2019, we have two more options to work with. The meta-max-snippet directive limits the character-length of search snippets (both featured snippets and organic snippets). It looks something like this ...
<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:50">
Setting the max-snippet value to zero should function essentially the same as a nosnippet directive. However, by playing with intermediate values, you might be able to maintain your organic snippet while controlling or removing the featured snippet.
Another relatively new option is the data-nosnippet HTML attribute. This is a tag attribute that you can wrap around content you wish to block from snippets. It looks something like this ...
<span data-nosnippet>I will take this content to the grave!</span>
Ok, that was probably melodramatic, but the data-nosnippet attribute can be wrapped around specific content that you'd like to keep out of snippets (again, this impacts all snippets). This could be very useful if you've got information appearing from the wrong part of a page or even a snippet that just doesn't answer the question very well. Of course, keep in mind that Google could simply select another part of your page for the featured snippet.
One thing to keep in mind: in some cases, Featured snippet content drives voice answers. Danny Sullivan at Google confirmed that, if you block your snippets using one of the methods above, you also block your eligibility for voice answers ...
A featured snippet isn't guaranteed to drive voice answers (there are a few more layers to the Google Assistant algorithms), but if you're interested in ranking for voice, then you may want to proceed with caution. Also keep in mind that there's no position #2 in voice search.
How much should I freak out?
We expect these changes are here to stay, at least for a while, but we know very little about the impact of featured snippets on CTR after January 22nd. In early 2018, Moz did a major, internal CTR study and found the impact of featured snippets almost impossible to interpret, because the available data (whether click-stream or Google Search Console) provided no way to tell if clicks were going to the featured snippet or the duplicated organic URL.
My hunch, informed by that project, is that there are two realities. In one case, featured snippets definitively answer a question and negatively impact CTR. If a concise, self-contained answer is possible, expect some people not to click on the URL. You've given them what they need.
In the other case, though, a featured snippet acts as an incomplete teaser, naturally encouraging clicks (if the information is worthwhile). Consider this featured snippet for "science fair ideas" ...
The "More items..." indicator clearly suggests that this is just part of a much longer list, and I can tell you from my as a parent that I wouldn't stop at the featured snippet. Lists and instructional content are especially well-suited to this kind of teaser experience, as are questions that can't be answered easily in a paragraph.
All of this is to say that I wouldn't take a hatchet to your featured snippets. Answering the questions your visitors ask is a good thing, generally, and drives search visibility. As we learn more about the impact on CTR, it makes sense to be more strategic, but featured snippets are organic opportunities that are here to stay.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
0 notes
xaydungtruonggia · 5 years ago
Text
Position Zero Is Dead; Long Live Position Zero
Posted by Dr-Pete
In 2014, Google introduced the featured snippet, a promoted organic ranking that we affectionately (some days were more affectionate than others) referred to as "position zero" or "ranking #0." One of the benefits to being in position zero was that you got to double-dip, with your organic listing appearing in both the featured snippet and page-1 results (usually in the top 3–4). On January 23, Google announced a significant change (which rolled out globally on January 22) ...
"Declutters" sounds innocuous, but the impact to how we think about featured snippets and organic rankings is significant. So, let's dig deep into some examples and the implications for SEO.
What does this mean for Moz?
First, a product announcement. In the past, we treated Featured Snippets as stand-alone SERP features — they were identified in our "SERP Features" report but were not treated as organic due to the second listing. As of Saturday, January 25 (shout-out to many of our team for putting in a long weekend), we began rolling out data that treats the featured snippet as position #1. SERPs with featured snippets will continue to be tagged in SERP Features reporting, and we're working on ways to surface more data.
Here's a partial screenshot of our "SERP Features" report from one of my own experiments ...
At a glance, you can see which keywords displayed a featured snippet (the scissor icon), owned that featured snippet (highlighted in blue), as well as your organic ranking for those keywords. We're working on bringing more of this data into the Rankings report in the near future.
If you're a Moz Pro customer and would like to see this in action, you can jump directly to your SERP Features report using the button below (please let us know what you think about the update):
Check Your SERP Features
This change brings our data in line with Google's view that a featured snippet is a promoted organic result and also better aligns us with Google Search Console data. Hopefully, it also helps provide customers with more context about their featured snippets as organic entities.
How does Google count to 10?
Let's take a deeper look at the before and after of this change. Here are the desktop organic results (left-column only) from a search for "LCD vs LED" on January 21st ...
Pardon some big images, but I promise there's method to my madness. In the "before" screenshot above, we can clearly see that the featured snippet URL is duplicated as the #1 organic result (note: I've added the green box and removed a People Also Ask box). Ranking #1 wasn't always the case prior to January 22nd, but most featured snippet URLs appeared in the #1–#3 organic positions, and all of them came from page-one results.
Here's the same SERP from January 23rd ...
You can see that not only is the featured snippet URL missing from the #1 position, but it doesn't appear on page one at all. There's more to this puzzle, though. Look at the January 21st SERP again, but numbered ...
Notice that, even with the featured snippet, page one displays 10 full organic results. This was part of our rationale for treating the featured snippet as the #0 position and a special case, even though it came from organic results. We also debated whether duplicating data in rankings reports added value for customers or just created confusion.
Now, look at the numbered SERP from January 23rd ...
The duplicate URL hasn't been replaced — it's been removed entirely. So, we're only left with 10 total results, including the featured snippet itself. If we started with #0, we'd be left with a page-one SERP that goes from #0–#9.
What about double snippets?
In rare cases, Google may show two featured snippets in a row. If you haven't seen one of these in action, here's an example for the search "Irish names" from January 21st ...
I've highlighted the organic URLs to show that, prior to the update, both featured snippet URLs appeared on page one. A quick count will also show you that there are 10 traditional organic listings and 12 total listings (counting the two featured snippets).
Here's that same SERP from January 23rd, which I've numbered ...
In this case, both featured snippet URLs have been removed from the traditional organic listings, and we're left once again with 10 total page-one results. We see the same pattern with SERP features (such as Top Stories or Video carousels) that occupy an organic position. Whatever the combination in play, the featured snippet appears to count as one of the 10 results on page one after January 22nd.
What about right-hand side panels?
More recently, Google introduced a hybrid desktop result that looks like a Knowledge Panel but pulls information from organic results, like a Featured Snippet. Here's an example from January 21st (just the panel) ...
In the left-hand column, the same Wordstream URL ranked #3 in organic results (I've truncated the image below to save your scrolling finger) ...
After January 22nd, this URL was also treated as a duplicate, which was met with considerable public outcry. Unlike the prominent Featured Snippet placement, many people felt (including myself) that the panel-style UI was confusing and very likely to reduce click-through rate (CTR). In a fairly rare occurrence, Google backtracked on this decision ...
Our data set showed reversal kicking in on January 29th (a week after the initial change). Currently, while some featured snippets are still displayed in right-hand panels (about 30% of all featured snippets across MozCast's 10,000 keywords), those URLs once again appear in the organic listings.
Note that Google has said this is a multi-part project, and they're likely going to be moving these featured snippets back to the left-hand column in the near future. We don't currently know if that means they'll become traditional featured snippets or if they'll evolve into a new entity.
How do I block featured snippets?
Cool your jets, Starscream. Almost the moment Google announced this change, SEOs started talking about how to block featured snippets, including some folks asking publicly about de-optimizing content. "De-optimizing" sounds harmless, but it's really a euphemism for making your own content worse so that it ranks lower. In other words, you're going to take a CTR hit (the organic CTR curve drops off quickly as a power function) to avoid possibly taking a CTR hit. As Ford Prefect wisely said: "There's no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later."
More importantly, there are better options. The oldest currently available option is the meta-nosnippet directive. I'd generally consider this a last resort — as a recent experiment by Claire Carlile re-affirms, meta-nosnippet blocks all snippets/descriptions, including your organic snippet.
As of 2019, we have two more options to work with. The meta-max-snippet directive limits the character-length of search snippets (both featured snippets and organic snippets). It looks something like this ...
<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:50">
Setting the max-snippet value to zero should function essentially the same as a nosnippet directive. However, by playing with intermediate values, you might be able to maintain your organic snippet while controlling or removing the featured snippet.
Another relatively new option is the data-nosnippet HTML attribute. This is a tag attribute that you can wrap around content you wish to block from snippets. It looks something like this ...
<span data-nosnippet>I will take this content to the grave!</span>
Ok, that was probably melodramatic, but the data-nosnippet attribute can be wrapped around specific content that you'd like to keep out of snippets (again, this impacts all snippets). This could be very useful if you've got information appearing from the wrong part of a page or even a snippet that just doesn't answer the question very well. Of course, keep in mind that Google could simply select another part of your page for the featured snippet.
One thing to keep in mind: in some cases, Featured snippet content drives voice answers. Danny Sullivan at Google confirmed that, if you block your snippets using one of the methods above, you also block your eligibility for voice answers ...
A featured snippet isn't guaranteed to drive voice answers (there are a few more layers to the Google Assistant algorithms), but if you're interested in ranking for voice, then you may want to proceed with caution. Also keep in mind that there's no position #2 in voice search.
How much should I freak out?
We expect these changes are here to stay, at least for a while, but we know very little about the impact of featured snippets on CTR after January 22nd. In early 2018, Moz did a major, internal CTR study and found the impact of featured snippets almost impossible to interpret, because the available data (whether click-stream or Google Search Console) provided no way to tell if clicks were going to the featured snippet or the duplicated organic URL.
My hunch, informed by that project, is that there are two realities. In one case, featured snippets definitively answer a question and negatively impact CTR. If a concise, self-contained answer is possible, expect some people not to click on the URL. You've given them what they need.
In the other case, though, a featured snippet acts as an incomplete teaser, naturally encouraging clicks (if the information is worthwhile). Consider this featured snippet for "science fair ideas" ...
The "More items..." indicator clearly suggests that this is just part of a much longer list, and I can tell you from my as a parent that I wouldn't stop at the featured snippet. Lists and instructional content are especially well-suited to this kind of teaser experience, as are questions that can't be answered easily in a paragraph.
All of this is to say that I wouldn't take a hatchet to your featured snippets. Answering the questions your visitors ask is a good thing, generally, and drives search visibility. As we learn more about the impact on CTR, it makes sense to be more strategic, but featured snippets are organic opportunities that are here to stay.
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