8/31/2020: SEO Rewind

I’ve compiled a list of the most important news and opportunities in SEO from last week. Ready for you on Monday morning so you can have a head start for the workweek ahead.

Jon Henshaw analyzed changes in Spotlight Search that may indicate Apple will launch a fully-featured search engine Spotlight Search in iOS 14 beta provides more direct answers, bypassing Google Search. Also, Apple recently updated its Applebot support page.

This is an exciting possibility to think about - especially for us, privacy-oriented marketed who root for alternatives such as DuckDuckGo.

Apple showing signs it may soon launch a search engine to compete against Google Search

Changes in Spotlight Search on iOS and iPadOS 14 beta, a significant update to its Applebot support page, and an increase in crawling from AppleBot signify that Apple may be launching a search engine soon.

Coywolf LLCJon Henshaw

Apple Search | SEO Book

SEO Book blog

Apple Maps will let users submit reviews and photos. Based on first reports from the latest iOS 14 beta, Apple is moves away from third-party websites - Yelp and Foursquare - which are now used as data sources for reviews/ratings and photos.

If these new features get adopted by users, it’ll significantly impact local search for specific businesses.

Apple Maps will let users leave reviews and photos in latest iOS 14 beta | Appleinsider

Apple Maps may replace Yelp and other third-party solutions with an in-house user review system when iOS 14 releases this fall.

AppleInsiderWesley Hilliard

Ecommerce reporting available in Google Analytics App+Web. Reporting features for e-commerce data recently started appearing in App+Web properties. E-commerce tracking capabilities have already been available for some time, but the interface was missing any e-commerce reporting features.

Now there is is one less reason not to experiment with App+Web properties.

Currently, new reports are rolling out. I can see the new reports in every other account I manage.

Digital Debrief – New Ecommerce Setup and Reporting in Google Analytics App+Web

The wait is over! Ecommerce reporting is finally here for App+Web properties in Google Analytics! While the Ecommerce schema for App+Web was released

Digital DebriefKrista

The Official AMP plugin for WordPress has been updated to version 2.0 The new version brings a host of new features. There are significant improvements with the Reader mode and great reporting of validation issues.

This update makes AMP pages accessible to more webmasters. If you run a WordPress site but still don’t use AMP, this is an excellent time to rethink that.

Introducing v2.0 of the official AMP for WordPress Plugin

TL;DR Approximately three years ago we set out to solve the challenge of enabling full AMP content publishing in WordPress with the goal of making it easy for WordPress site owners to traverse fric…

The AMP BlogThe AMP Project

AMP

The Official AMP Plugin, supported by the AMP team. Formerly Accelerated Mobile Pages, AMP enables great experiences across both mobile and desktop.

WordPress.orgteenow

Google newly provides a direct way of reporting security issues. Google claims they’ve added a new “Report a Security Issue” button to their Google Search Console help pages. It’ll lead you to a form that you can use to communicate with Google directly. That’s a significant improvement for the cases when the existing “Request review” is not enough.

In any case, I don’t see the newly added buttons yet.

Google is testing a new “Short Videos” carousel in Google Discover. There are first reports of users seeing this new carousel in their Google Discover feed. We may see this more frequently in the future once Google launches YouTube Shorts.

Google Discover surfacing TikTok-esque ‘Short videos’ - 9to5Google

Many social networks are vying to replicate the success of TikTok. A Google Discover Short videos carousel interestingly highlights...

9to5GoogleAbner Li

See you on Monday with the next Rewind!