Summer is here, and things are heating up online in more ways than one. Some people are heated over the wrong dates associated with their content in Google’s search results, and others are upset over lost rankings due to a Yoast bug.
It’s not all bad, though. There are also some exciting updates this month as well– the recent Google News makeover brings new features; Instagram may allow users to post hour long videos; Facebook took away their trending section and is in the process of adding some new features. Keep reading for more details about these latest changes.
Google Displays Wrong Dates for Content
Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Google sometimes displays a date next to the meta descriptions in search results. It’s a way to let users know if the content is outdated.
Unfortunately, Google has been displaying the wrong dates for some results. John Mueller says it’s because the bot picks up another date from the content instead of the published date.
The other issue is that some publishers have discovered this bug and have used it to their advantage to make their content look updated when it’s outdated. Publishers simply place a current date on the page, and Google picks it up during a crawl and then displays it in the search results.
Google continues to work on a fix for this but encourages anyone who sees incorrect dates to submit feedback to them by clicking on the small icon under the search result.
Yoast Apologizes for Ranking Drops
Source: Search Engine Journal
A Yoast update earlier in the year has caused a lot of strife for some users. A bug in the tool has caused “Panda-like problems,” leading to dropped rankings.
Users who noticed a drop in rankings after March 6 were probably affected by the Yoast SEO Plugin bug. Settings in an earlier version didn’t convert to the updated one (version 7.0.2). This caused all posts/pages using Yoast to lose valuable optimized data.
Yoast Founder Joost de Valk had this to say to users:
“This post serves both as a warning and an apology. …We’re so very sorry. …we messed up. I myself, am sorry. More so than normal, because I came up with and coded this change myself…”
Google News Makeover Shows Off New Features
Source: Search Engine Journal
Google News is all new, and with it comes new features. This is what they had to say about the changes:
“With the launch of the new Google News, we re-evaluated some features, tags, and schema guidelines which were built over many years for publishers. While we are keeping and evolving certain features, we have also deprecated others.
Our goal is to engage the publisher community with features that bring substantial value to both our publishers and our users. Some of the underlying ideas for these deprecated features may show up in new ways in the future.”
Publishers need to be aware that they will no longer receive error notifications from Google Search Console for errors such as incorrect article length, there are off-site redirects, date not found, and if there are any news-specific errors.
Ditching Facebook Trends for New Features
Source: Facebook
Facebook has removed Trends from its application because it wasn’t being widely used. Now, the social network wants to replace it with something that may be more popular.
- Breaking News – This will be a feed of the most current news worldwide. Notifications may be included with this new feature.
- Today In – This will include local news. Facebook wants to feature content from local publishers, especially from officials and organizations.
- News Video in Watch – This will be video coverage of local, national and worldwide news. Important events may be streamed in this section.
Instagram Considers Hour Long Videos
Source: Wall Street Journal
As people spend more time on social networks like Instagram, long-form content has increased in popularity. To meet the demand, Instagram is exploring the option of allowing users to publish hour long videos.
Wall Street Journal published, “The Facebook Inc.-owned photo and video sharing app is preparing to launch a new feature that will include long-form video, according to people familiar with the matter. The feature, which could allow videos of up to an hour in length, will focus on vertical video, or video that is taller than it is wide, one of the people said. Until now, Instagram hasn’t allowed users to post any videos longer than one minute.
The people said the plans are tentative and subject to change.
In recent weeks, Instagram has had conversations with content creators and publishers about producing long-form video for the platform, a person familiar with the matter said. The feature, if it launches, will do so within the Instagram app, another person said.”
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The summer is off to a great start in digital marketing. We don’t know about you, but we’re excited to see what else this season has in store for us. Make sure to check back in for July’s News Roundup!
