Web Stories dashboard screen in WordPress. What comes as a surprise to few, Google has updated its content guidelines for its Web Stories format. For users of its recently-released Web Stories for WordPress plugin, they will want to follow the extended rules for their Stories to appear in the “richer experiences” across Google’s services. This includes the grid view on …
Google Podcasts Manager Adds More Data from Search: Impressions, Top-Discovered Episodes, and Search Terms
Google announced an expansion of listener engagement metrics today for those using its Podcast Manager. Previously, audience insights included data about the types of devices listeners are using, where listeners tune in and drop off during a given episode, total number of listens, and listening duration, but the service lacked analytics regarding how visitors were discovering the podcast. Google is …
Google Officially Releases Its Web Stories for WordPress Plugin
Web Stories for WordPress dashboard. Two and a half months after the launch of its public beta, Google released its Web Stories for WordPress plugin. So far, the plugin has over 10,000 active installations and has garnered a solid five-star rating from four reviews. Google created the Web Stories format through its AMP Project to allow publishers to create visually-rich …
Google Delays Mobile-First Indexing Deadline to March 2021
Google had set September 2020 as the deadline for when it would begin to fully switch over to crawling and indexing sites using mobile-first indexing but announced today that site owners will have more time to prepare. The deadline has been extended to March 2021. Mobile-first indexing is a long-term plan that Google began rolling out in July 2019 by …
Google Search to Introduce New Page Experience Ranking Signal in 2021
Google is preparing to introduce a new ranking signal for Search, based on page experience as measured by Core Web Vitals metrics. This includes factors like page speed, responsiveness, and the stability of content as it loads. The upcoming update will combine these signals with previously announced UX-related signals for mobile-friendliness, safe browsing, HTTPS security, and intrusive interstitials. Google is …
Google Patches Critical Vulnerability in Site Kit Plugin
In late April Wordfence discovered a critical vulnerability in Google’s Site Kit plugin for WordPress that would make it possible for any user on the site to gain full access to the Google Search Console without verifying ownership. Google patched the vulnerability and released the fix in version 1.8.0 on May 7, 2020. Wordfence published a timeline of the vulnerability, …
Google Shopping Is Now Open to Free Product Listings
Google announced today that it is bringing free listings to the Shopping tab in the United States before the end of April and will expand globally by the end of the year. Previously, merchants were required to pay for ad placement and product listings, which led to major online retailers dominating the Shopping tab. “Beginning next week, search results on …
Google Releases Native Lazyload Plugin for WordPress
The most recent release of Chrome (76) added a new “loading” attribute that supports native lazy loading in the browser. An implementation for WordPress core is still under discussion. In the meantime, plugins that enable this for WordPress sites are starting to pop up, and Google has just released one of its own. Native Lazyload was created by Google engineer …
The New Google PageSpeed Insights: A Perfect 100 Is Now Super Easy
Google PageSpeed Insights just got an update and scoring a perfect 100 is way easier. This is excellent news for agencies and freelancers with site management packages. Trying to explain Google’s flawed scoring system to clients who see their PageSpeed score as a pass-fail system has always been tricky. “Why are you okay with a […] View original post at …
AMP for WordPress 0.7 RC 1 Released
XWP, Automattic, and Google’s AMP team, has released 0.7 Release Candidate 1 of the AMP for WordPress plugin. Hinted at during AMP Conf 2018 earlier this year, 0.7 is a major release that contains significant new features. This release adds Native AMP support for all of the default widgets, embeds, and commenting. Notifications will be triggered for posts that contain …