Hiiii SEOs. How’s everybody doing? Good, I hope. I’ve found some more cool stuff across SEO Twitter and e-blasts that would be fun to share. But first, a quick interruption to talk about me. And more specifically, my progress at USC for those considering my– or similar – MBA programs. (OK, FINE – skip ahead if you wish).
It’s my fourth official week as a USC EMBA student… and I have just wrapped up Theme 1! Only eight more to go. Some key takeaways so far have been:
- The importance of thoughtfully and respectfully sticking up for your ideas when others disagree. And balancing this concept with maintaining harmony within the team.
- Assets = Liabilities + Stockholders Equity! And, Change in Shareholders’ Equity = Net Income – Dividends
- There are some freaking inspirational people in my program. I’ll go back and flesh out this bullet a bit more later. But for now, please read this post from a member of my cohort, Travis Roderick.
- I could be a better karaoke singer. (To be fair, I already knew this, but our cohort’s residential at the Rancho Bernardo Inn strongly reinforced this concept).
OK – back to the post.
1. Kevin and the folks at Re:signal share their best practices on e-commerce SEO when stuff goes out of stock
In their recent e-newsletter, they explain how their agency recommends handling temporarily out-of-stock products with a new version and discontinued products:
- Tips for temporarily out-of-stock products: Let users sign up for alerts, show similar products, stop linking to it from relevant categories and other products, update your structured data and products’ feed
- Products with a new version: Update internal links, update XML and HTML sitemaps, remove from products’ feed, add a 301 redirect
- Discontinued products: Remove internal links, remove from XML and HTML sitemaps, remove from products’ feed, review the performance of the page, add a 301 redirect or a 410 status
^ My smug face when I get the “last one left!” in inventory
2. Screaming Frog SEO Spider jumps to version 17
This version update includes new features such as:
- “New issues” tab – detailing issues, warnings, and opportunities discovered from the last crawl.
- “New links” tab to help SEOs better identify link-based issues like crawl depth, orphans, no-follow internal links, non-descriptive anchor text, etc.
- “New limits” – users can now control the number of URLs crawled by URL path for improved crawl control.
- “Multiple properties” config for URL inspection API – users can now select to use multiple properties in a single crawl. The spider will automatically detect all relevant properties and use the most specific one to request data for the URL
- “Detachable tabs” – users can now right-click and detach any tab from the main UI and move to a different position. (Think: Chrome Developer Tools pane flexibility).
I’ll say that overall, this seems like a prudent move for the unique SEO tool to keep up with similar crawlers like Deep Crawl, SEM Rush, and Botify. I can’t wait to update my app!
My interpretation of a crawler hard at work ^
3. Google’s Helpful Content Update has finished rolling out, baby!
Google’s latest update, the “Helpful Content Update,” finished rolling out yesterday in tandem with its September Core Algorithm update. “The update started on August 25 and was completed 15 days later on September 9.” – SEM Rush
^ Have you seen a recent lift or drop in SEO traffic? Probably. You can send your fan mail or hate mail to The Helpful Content Update that just finished rolling out.
4. A data analyst reviews Google Analytics 4 (TLDR: “what are you waiting for?!” she says)
“Amongst its plethora of advantages, the GA4 platform brings with it pre-created events and custom events features, which will give you more thorough insights on user engagement and also means it takes just a few clicks to get started. With enhanced data collection comes bespoke data visualization, imparting more intuitive and precise control over how data is collected and reported on the platform. The development of advanced attribution modeling (accessible through GA4 for free!) has also further revolutionized the way you can analyze your data.” – Manya Agarwal, Data Consultant with Builtvisible.
^ Still personally a GA3 babe by preference though * shrug * (though I do have a GA4 account set up)
5. John Mu says you’re never penalized for not including H1s
Google’s John Mueller said something he normally does not say, “never.” He said Google would never penalize a site for not having an H1. John said this on Reddit, adding that it is good practice and low effort to have H1s, but you won’t be penalized for not having them on your site.” – SEO Roundtable
…. Is “no duh” too fine a point to put on it? Anyways, it’s confirmed for those unsure or who want an extra layer of clarity.
^ Jerry gets it!
OK, people, well… I got to get back to work ‘n stuff. I hope you found this somewhat useful. Hit me up if I missed anything major. ?
