We hope you are in good health. Here are some of the major SEO news updates of the week you need to know:

Search Related Updates and News from Major Search Engines

John Muller Discusses the Effects of no Indexing Author Archives on E-A-T

John Muller from Google recently answered a question regarding E-A-T scores and whether they get affected by author archives. He first stated that there is nothing like Eat scores and then continued talking about how Google views author archive pages.

John Muller Explains the Domain Extension Affect on SEO

‘John Mueller, Google’s Search Advocate, addresses whether your domain extension affects SEO and other issues about the impact of domain choices on search results. These queries are answered in the most recent instalment of the Ask Googlebot video series on YouTube. Mueller discusses how the dot-com domain compares to other domain extensions, gTLDs vs ccTLDs, www vs non-www, and other topics. 

Your Search Ranking Can Get Hurt by the Search Consoles, International Targeting Options

During a Google Search Central SEO office hours Hangout that was recorded on 31 December, John Muller discussed a question raised by SEO named Aleem Bawany. He explains why utilizing Search Consoles Geotargetting can negatively affect your web page’s search rankings.

Google Discover Might Get a New Look For Trending Searches

Google is all set to test the new look and design for the trending searches that pop up on the Googles home page on bile as well as the Discover page. Click on the link above to know more about this discussion.

Finally, Google Fixes the Users and Permission Issues For its Console

Previously, a bug in the Search Console user interface caused Full Users to see their status as Delegated Owners under Settings > Ownership Verification. “If you see your status as Delegated Owner but can’t see the Users and Permissions option when you go to Ownership verification, your user is probably a Full User and not a Delegated Owner,” he stated.

We reported on a Google Search Console permissions issue a few months ago. Google has now clarified the data in Search Console.

Google Advises You Not to Drop Amp and Migrate Domains at the Same Time

Migrating to a new domain name while also removing your AMP pages might not be the greatest decision to make. This query was discussed in a Google SEO hangout with John Mueller, “a site transferred to a new domain in September and discontinued AMP at the same time, and the site’s traffic has yet to return.” This was brought up at the 35-minute point of the hangout when Stijn Berkhaus indicated that they had done a “three-month-old website migration to a new domain.” He also stated that AMP was enabled on the previous domain but not on the new one. His website no longer appears in Google Search’s top news carousel. 

Google Explains Soft 404s in Detail

Google advised us a few months ago that returning a “results not found” page could cause Google Search to treat it as a soft 404 and remove it from the search results. The same can be said about pages that say, “Sorry, we don’t deliver to this address” or other pages that appear to be negative or error-prone. Google has recently removed pages from its index that had the words “Sorry, we don’t deliver to this location.” The site’s soft 404-page count increased, while traffic and impressions in Google search decreased dramatically, according to a tweet from Nikhil Raj. R.  

Social Media Updates and News

Now You Might See More Content on Instagram From People You Don’t Follow

Instagram is now planning to include more feeds in the app. Soon, you will see an updated home feed that will involve content from accounts you don’t really know. Instagram is also going to bring back the chronological feed that will have content related to followed accounts only. Another update that from the gram is going to be similar to the Twitter list. This will allow you to create accounts you wish to see content from.

Author

Navneet Kaushal is the Editor-in-Chief of PageTraffic Buzz. A leading search strategist, Navneet helps clients maintain an edge in search engines and the online media. Navneet is also the CEO of SEO Services company PageTraffic which is one of the leading search marketing company in Asia.