Industry News

Catch up on interesting new discussion and industry news.

    The uncertainty of friendship

    by Rian van der Merwe
    Aug 21, 2018
    The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased by causes too slender for complaint, and too numerous for removal. Those who are angry may be reconciled; those who have been injured may receive a recompense: but when the desire of pleasing and willingness to be pleased is silently diminished, the renovation of friendship is hopeless; as, when the vital powers sink into languor, there is no longer any use of the physician.

    — Samuel Johnson, No. 23....

    New Google Search Console Finally Gets Link Report

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Aug 21, 2018
    Google has announced that the new beta Google Search Console is now getting the link report. Google said they are moving the Links to your site and Internal Links report from the old interface into the new Google Search Console under a single Links report. I do not see it rolled out yet but it should be live soon, Google says.

    Reports Of Some Google Medic Update Recoveries

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Aug 20, 2018
    I am seeing some webmasters and SEOs claim they have seen recoveries over the weekend with some of their sites impacted by the Google Medic update that took place on August 1st. I am not sure if we can trust these reports or if they are confusing this Medic update with a different update - but I am seeing some people claim they recovered.

    Google Medic Update: Many Are Looking Back To Google's Panda Advice From 2011

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Aug 16, 2018
    With the Google Medic Update from August 1st, the core broad Google algorithm update. Many are not just looking at the quality raters guidelines but also looking back at the advice former head of search Amit Singhal gave around the Google Panda update from May 2011.

    Remote product management: challenges and opportunities

    by Rian van der Merwe
    Aug 15, 2018
    Even though more and more companies are getting comfortable with remote work, the field of product management still seems to push back against this trend quite forcefully. There is a general sense that product managers can’t do the things they need to do unless they are physically located with their teams. This has some ironic consequences, such as that Slack — a company that builds a tool “where work happens” — doesn’t hire remote employees.

    I confess that at first I was skeptical as...

    A pragmatic approach to digital ethics

    by Rian van der Merwe
    Aug 14, 2018
    Cal Newport has some thoughts on the “digital ethics” movement. In his post Beyond Digital Ethics he argues that large companies will never turn their backs on revenue just because it’s “the right thing to do”:

    Instead of quixotically convincing some of the most valuable business enterprises in the history of the world to behave against their interests, we should convince individuals to adopt a much more skeptical and minimalist approach to the digital junk these companies peddle....

    Don't Flat Line After The Google Medic Update

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Aug 13, 2018
    As you know, the Google Medic update was pretty big and Google'a advice is there is no fix. But that does not mean you should sit on your hands and just wait it out. You need to work harder, make your site better or just give up altogether but don't sit idle and expect your rankings to get better without doing anything.

    Google Medic Update Complete But We Are Seeing New Search Fluctuations

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Aug 9, 2018
    Google has confirmed that the Google core algorithm update that we named the Medic Update is now fully rolled out. But the SEO community noticed a lot of fluctuations and ranking changes yesterday as well.

    What is Twitter even for

    by Rian van der Merwe
    Aug 8, 2018
    Two lofty but surprisingly insightful Twitter think-pieces caught my attention this week. The first is Jennifer Senior’s description of it as The High School We Can’t Log Off From:

    A few years back, the sociologist Robert Faris described high school to me as “a large box of strangers.” The kids don’t necessarily share much in common, after all; they just happen to be the same age and live in the same place. So what do they do in this giant box to give it order, structure? They divide...

    Google Medic Update: Google's Core Search Update Had Big Impact On Health/Medical Sites

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Aug 8, 2018
    The big core Google search algorithm update is being named the Google Medic Update. The reason for this name is because it seemed to be heavily targeting the health and medical space based on our survey data.