Going beyond the core updates and ranking algorithm updates, Google rolled out a number of changes to how pages are displayed in Google Search and how links are attributed between sites.
Evolving the “nofollow” link attribute
On top of the existing rel=”nofollow” link attribute for link building, Google has also introduced the rel=“sponsored” for links that are advertisements or paid placements (such as a sponsored blog post), and rel=”ugc” for links to comments, forum posts, and other user-generated content.
Changes to structured data markup
In January 2020, Google announced that all sites that used data-vocabulary.org structured data markup will be ineligible for Google rich results, and website owners have until January 29, 2021 to switch to schema.org markup. If you’re unsure whether your site supports rich results, run the Rich Results Test to see which rich results can be generated based on the structured data on your site.
Changes to featured snippets
Previously, sites that appeared as a featured snippet could also appear on page one of Google search results. However, in January 2020, Google announced that they decluttered the first page of search so that pages that have earned a snippet won’t show up again as a regular listing. These snippets are now also counted as part of the top 10 organic results, and Google has also launched its featured snippet to web page highlight feature.
Updates to reporting and analytics tools
Both Google and Bing made significant updates to their analytics platforms in 2020. These changes included additional insights and reports, new tools, and new performance metrics such as Core Web Vitals.
Launch of the new removals tool in Google Search Console
This tool allows site owners to hide URLs from appearing in search results. On top of this, site owners can also see which pages have been filtered by SafeSearch, and which content isn’t displaying in search because users have made requests via the public Remove Outdated Content tool.
New and revamped Search Console reports
As we touched on earlier, Google has rolled out the Core Web Vitals report ahead of the new Page Experience Google Update. In addition, Search Console also revamped its crawl stats report to provide more actionable data for any site crawl issues.
Introduction of Search Console Insights
In August 2020, Google launched a closed beta for Search Console Insights. This view combines data from Search Console and Google Analytics to help publishers identify top-performing content, see how people are discovering their content, and more.
Google unveils Google Analytics 4
Google Analytics 4 is one of the biggest changes to the Analytics platform that the SEO community has seen in recent years. GA4 comes with a number of features and updates, including:
AI-powered insights and predictions that can alert marketers to shifting data trends, and predict outcomes such as churn rates or the potential revenue that could be earned from a particular customer segment.
Google Ads integration that allows businesses to create audiences from their website visitors and app users. GA4 will also provide cross-platform metrics across YouTube, Google Search and the Google Display Network.
Reorganised reports that are centred around the customer lifecycle. Businesses can now get granular and drill down to particular aspects of the customer journey, such as acquisition, engagement and retention.
Microsoft Revamps Bing Webmaster Tools
Alongside the Google update to Analytics and Search Console, Microsoft has also overhauled its Bing Webmaster Tools with new features and tools.
Some of the highlights include a new site scan tool that crawls a site and identifies any common technical SEO issues, a backlinks comparison tool that allows site owners to compare their backlink profile to another site’s, and an enhanced robots.txt tester.
eCommerce SEO updates
eCommerce saw a surge in 2020, largely due to lockdowns and social distancing brought about by the pandemic. In turn, both Google and Bing have made a number of updates to their eCommerce search results.
Google and Bing opens up Shopping to unpaid organic listings
By far one of the most welcome updates amongst eCommerce businesses and the broader SEO community, Google and Bing have both opened up Shopping search results for unpaid organic listings — a domain that was previously reserved for paid ads only. Paid placements will still appear at the top and bottom of the page and, like paid Shopping Ads, these product feeds need to be uploaded to Google and Bing Merchant Centre.
Google updates popular products section to mobile search
In addition to Google Shopping listings, Google added a Popular Products section to search results for apparel, shoes, and other retail categories. This section is purely organic for the time being, and draws data from product schema and product feeds uploaded to Google Merchant Centre.
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