Google has announced that July 2018 onwards PageSpeed tool will be used as a factor to rank pages in mobile search. Since 2010, speed is a factor that determines page rankings for desktop searches.

However, now it will be extended to mobile searches, as well.

This “Speed Update” will only target the pages that render the slowest loading experience to the users, as of now. This means, whether the page is affected by this algorithm update or not, wouldn’t be easy to determine.

Recently, in a Google Webmaster Hangout, John Mueller answered a query that would using the same content for product and category pages demote or affect any one or both the pages. He threw light on how Google handles duplication of content among product and category pages, the consequences of repeating snippets, and puts forward his opinion on how publishers should handle this.

Category pages consist product listings, which users can browse through and click on a specific product. They will be then redirected to the product page. The problem arises when these two contain the same content.

Google has recently released an important AMP testing tool update. Users can now access the tool in two ways. One, at its usual destination, and second, by entering AMP directly in the Google search bar.

Google is constantly adding new features and advanced filtering options to it’s new Search Console.

One of the major change in Search Console that Google announced earlier this week was the access to 16 months of data. On top of that, Google now brings up new ways to filter data.

Business owners with access to the new Google Search Console can see the filters within their Search Performance report.

Recently, in a Webmaster Central Hangout, John Mueller from Google discussed content optimization for voice search and Google Assistant, and answered queries related to the same. He classified good and bad content, and suggested what’s not a good fit. He advises to avoid over-optimizing and provided examples of what might be perceived as a spam.

Some time back, Google launched Google Assistant for speakers and cars. They sent notice to publishers suggesting them ways to upgrade their content to be more visible on Google Assistant. Currently, the feature is applicable only to a handful kinds of content, which would surely expand to other types of content. Thus, understanding content optimization for Google Assistant would be an important aspect of search marketing in 2018.

Google recently announced about launching another resource for you to understand your website better and improve its performance. It has begun with a new series of short videos, which they call SEO snippets, used for providing short & to the point answers to specific questions.

Have a look at the following video for detailed understanding of SEO snippets:

Google spokesperson confirmed to the Search Engine Journal about minor changes made to the core algorithm this month. He said, “We released several minor improvements during this timeframe, part of our regular and routine efforts to improve relevancy”.

Many websites experienced volatility mainly from December 12-14.

Danny Sullivan, Google’s public liaison for search, in a Twitter post, made it appear less important. He said, “Reports calling this a single “update” or calling it “Fred” don’t reflect what we actually said: there were several minor changes that happened as they routinely do in any particular week.”

Google posted on Webmaster central blog that it is introducing of new version of structured data testing tool in order to make diagnosing your pages’ structured data easier.

A common terminology of “rich results” will be used for rich snippets, rich cards, and enriched results.

Google said the new testing tool “focuses on the structured data types that are eligible to be shown as rich results.” it would allow you to test all data sources on your pages, including the recommended JSON-LD, Microdata or RDFa. Google said this new version is a “more accurate reflection of the page’s appearance on Search and includes improved handling for Structured Data found on dynamically loaded content.”

After rolling out the mobile-first index for a few sites, Google has now posted more advice regarding the mobile-first index feature.

Confirming the update, Google said “This process has already started for a handful of sites and is closely being monitored by the search team.”

Previously, the snippets in the results, as well as the content on the Google cache pages were displayed in the desktop version, which frequently caused issues for the mobile searchers. However, now they will be from the mobile version of the pages, and Webmasters will see significantly increased crawling by Smartphone Googlebot.

John Mueller from Google recently shared that the company plans to roll out new and improved Search Console in 2018.

The company’s been testing the new Search Console version since summer, 2017. Its quite clear to the officials what the new version would be like and what is it going to offer. Some of the industry experts have even had their hands on the latest version.

The current version allows beta users to access data of up to 90 days. However, now, with the new version, they would be able to get access to over a year’s worth of Search Console data. It is a considerable leap ahead as it would mean four times the current data accessibility time period.