May 4, 2022: A Smattering of SEO News From Around The Twitter-verse

Preface
Heyyyy SEOs & DI’s. In an effort to pull myself back into the blogging game, I’d like to start a new weekly series: “A Smattering of SEO News From Around The Twitter-verse”. Get it? An astronaut featured image? Trying too hard? Probably yea.
At any rate, the concept of this series is to curate a list of quick news bits I’ve discovered from exploring the Twitter-verse each week. And also, a few other corners of the internet when they’re interesting.
You see, I’ve found that it can be hard enough to keep up with all of the big SEO blogs (Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Watch, and the like) covering breaking news and best practices — let alone peruse Twitter afterward for some sidebar industry chatter. That’s what this is post is for.
But before we get started, I need to welcome you all to the month of May properly with this Britney Spears meme that has officially replaced Justin Timberlake’s:
I hate Justin Timberlake so I made this to replace the stupid “gonna be may” meme – you’re welcome world pic.twitter.com/2RJjWqIfK6
— quasimodo predicted all this (@CrappyFumes) April 30, 2021
God I love Britney. Ok, with that all settled, let’s move onto the 8 things I discovered this week.
1. Google rolled out a new ‘Visual Stories’ SERP feature
Google is now showing Visual Stories on the first page of results. @brodieseo discovered a rollout of this feature in the SERPs.
— Chris Long (@gofishchris) March 28, 2022
Here you can see Visual Stories appearing for "top SEO", "SEO tool" and "SEO": https://t.co/yONg9giqd9 pic.twitter.com/6HxIQYfVbQ
I’m able to replicate this too when I use the same sample queries. It will be cool to learn more about optimizing for this feature in the months to come. I recommend checking out Brodie Clark’s article to learn more about how to optimize for web stories, and how they help boost SEO traffic. Also, I recommend following Chris Long on Twitter and LinkedIn.
2. Google also rolled out a new multi-source featured snippet SERP feature
Another shoutout to Chris Long is going to be needed here, as he posted about ANOTHER new Google SERP feature where the featured snippet shows multiple sources instead of just a single one. I actually haven’t seen result type yet, and can’t replicate Long’s ‘benefits of carrots’ screenshot. But very cool nonetheless.
Has anyone else seen this featured snippet in the wild yet? (From @gofishchris) https://t.co/TgL6ZoSLWU
— Elizabeth Lefelstein (@lefelstein) May 2, 2022
3. People are coming out with awesome Google Analytics 4 / GTM YouTube tutorials and you should watch them
And my favorite creator that I’ve come across by far is Julius Fedorovicius. In addition to his strong YouTube game, he also has helpful e-books, newsletters, and even a Facebook group where members discuss GTM ‘recipes’, etc. Smash his YouTube like button ya’ll!
New video: How to track custom events with @googleanalytics 4 and Google Tag Manager (2022 edition)https://t.co/kNq4VYAUK6#measure pic.twitter.com/v9gDarONlg
— Julius Fedorovicius ?? (@fedorovicius) April 19, 2022
UPDATE (5/5/22): And for those who want help in setting up GA4 e-commerce tracking specifically within GTM, you have to, have to, have to watch what the ANGELSSSSSSSSS from MeasurementMarketing.io put together for us all on YouTube. The guy breaks down the ‘data layer’ super simply and also shares some sweet community variables to make set up a cinch. [* pauses to consider giving him my future first born child for this resource *].
4. The SEO gods remind us from LondonSEOMeetupXL that AMP is dying, and that we should dance on its ashes
I still have my blog’s AMP pages though. Ha.
Hahaha when asked about AMP: “is it dead?”
— Aleyda Solis ?? (@aleyda) May 4, 2022
the “non-official” AMP stand of @OritSiMu: “kill it with fire”. ?@njmott “never alive” ? #londonseomeetupXL pic.twitter.com/44VmopH5C4
5. Proactive indexing is the new black
Crystal Carter shares the Star Wars-themed benefits for taking a proactive approach to Google indexing. In her linked Slideshare deck, she provides great validation that all that crawl cleanup you’re doing (across the XML sitemap, Robots.txt, interlinking, etc) is worthwhile.
SEOs shouldn't need a "New hope" ? to get indexed. If this a key component of your strategy, please know that it doesn't have to be that way ?
— Crystal Carter (@CrystalontheWeb) May 4, 2022
Try Proactive Indexing FTW: Tactics for better indexing. @bluearrayseo @LondonSEOMeetup #LondonSEOMeetUpXL https://t.co/7ZV4DyeKVK
6. Google says bye-bye to page 1 (maybe) as it currently tests continuous scroll on desktop
I think I like this. But only if I’m currently ranking on page 2.
Goodbye to page 1? Google is currently testing continuous scrolling on desktop, after rolling out similar on mobile late last year. This has come up in various forms over the years, now showing with the standard continuous scroll finishing with a 'see more' tab. Thoughts? ? pic.twitter.com/4pGpLwT2nz
— Brodie Clark (@brodieseo) May 2, 2022
7. Bulk URL inspection just got eaaaaasssyyyyyy thanks to Google’s URL inspection API + Valentin Pletzer’s free tool
Aleyda Solis told us about it so you know the tool is good. Check it here.
SEO questions we can now answer in bulk with the new @googlesearchc URL Inspection API adoption by SEO crawlers like @screamingfrog & @sitebulb ???
— Aleyda Solis ?? (@aleyda) February 5, 2022
1. For which pages Google is not using the specified indexability/canonical configuration and what is doing/using instead?
… pic.twitter.com/Ckn39Iuo7q
8. V2 of the SERP feature timeline is here (… I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t know there was a V1)
Did you ever think to yourself: ‘How COOL would it be to have a scrollable timeline of all of the Google SERP features that ever came out ever’ No? Well, fortunately Brodie Clark did. And his is pretty cool. Check it out here.
Want to track changes to Google's SERP features? I've just released V2 of my SERP feature timeline!
— Brodie Clark (@brodieseo) April 26, 2022
With new filter functionality, my timeline now has entries dating back almost 12 months (more to come).
Check it out here: https://t.co/j6IUtkSa1z pic.twitter.com/yvwPbKw5CE
Thanks for scrolling through to the end, everyone. Chat next week.
Liz
SEO expert with a specialized background in news, entertainment, and real estate websites | USC EMBA Candidate '24 | Based in LA | Can I pet your dog?