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Google has recently updated its favicon guidelines, setting clearer requirements on size, aspect ratio, and resolution. These small changes are all about enhancing the look and clarity of favicons in search results. What is a Favicon? A favicon is a tiny icon that represents a website, usually appearing next to the site's title in browser tabs, bookmarks, and search results. It's often a simplified, recognizable image that makes your site easier to identify at a glance. For businesses, it’s a small but valuable piece of branding that users recognize instantly. The Update: Aspect Ratio and Size Requirements In this update, Google has introduced two key requirements: 1:1 Aspect Ratio : Favicons displayed in Google Search must be square—meaning the width and height should be equal. This is to make sure the favicon appears clean and uniform, with no squishing or stretching. Size Requirements : The minimum favicon size is now 8x8 pi...

In a recent LinkedIn discussion, a digital entrepreneur shared some interesting observations about the effects of Core Web Vitals (CWV) and advertisements on website rankings. This post prompted a response from John Mueller, a Google Search Advocate, who provided clarification on how CWV and overall user experience (UX) contribute to search performance. The User’s Concerns: Ads, Rankings, and Core Web Vitals The author of the post, an entrepreneur and an experienced SEO specialist, describes how introducing ads led to an almost immediate drop in rankings for their website, despite achieving high scores in Core Web Vitals and PageSpeed Insights. These metrics, designed to measure a site’s loading, interactivity, and visual stability, are known to be part of Google’s ranking considerations. However, the user noted that their ad-enabled site saw dramatic drops in rankings and search traffic shortly after the ads went live. Here’s how the user describes the issue: ...

Managing AMP subdomains and ensuring that Google properly handles URL redirects can be challenging, especially for large-scale websites. This issue was raised by a website owner on Reddit, where they questioned whether returning a 410 status for old AMP URLs would have saved crawl budget, or if relying on 301 redirects was sufficient. In response, Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller provided valuable advice on managing AMP subdomains, crawl budget, and redirect strategies. The Situation Several years ago, the user created an AMP subdomain ( amp.example.com ) to optimize their website for mobile users. Three years ago, they decided to stop using AMP and implemented 301 redirects for all AMP URLs back to their main domain ( example.com ). Despite this, Googlebot continues to crawl hundreds of thousands of AMP URLs: HTTPS AMP URLs : 100,000 URLs redirect, with 7,000 still marked as “crawled but not indexed.” Non-HTTPS AMP URLs : 8,000 URLs redirec...

Google Search Central has confirmed that it will retire the sitelinks search box feature from search results globally on November 21, 2024 . This represents a major change in the way users interact with search results, particularly for websites that have integrated structured data related to this feature. The removal is part of Google’s broader effort to simplify search results and improve the overall user experience. Key Points Sitelinks Search Box Removal : The feature will no longer appear in search results globally. No Impact on Rankings : The removal won't affect search rankings or other sitelinks elements. Updates to Search Console : The Search Console rich results report for the sitelinks search box will be removed, along with its appearance in the Rich Results Test. Structured Data Implications : Website owners can keep the structured data without causing issues, but its removal will not trigger errors. 1. Si...

In a Reddit post, a user raised concerns about a dramatic drop in their website’s Domain Authority (DA) following a surge in spammy backlinks and spam comments. Google Search Advocate John Mueller responded, offering insight into the relationship between third-party metrics like DA and SEO best practices. This interaction provides valuable lessons for website owners who might be tempted to rely heavily on SEO tool metrics instead of focusing on long-term strategies. Key Takeaways: Domain Authority (DA) is a third-party metric not used by Google. Disavowing spammy links won’t affect your DA, but might still be useful for SEO purposes. True long-term SEO success comes from building unique, valuable content. Chasing after metrics like DA often results in short-term gains with little long-term value. Understanding the Concerns A Reddit user posted about his website’s DA dropping more than 50% after attracting a large number of...