Google is willing to do two things, improve its algorithm and combat fake news or misleading elements. And to do so, it is starting to take measures that some of us have been demanding, especially those of us who work on SEO for media, who had to deal with some dubious practices.
That’s why today I want to tell you, in a practical summary, what the 3 changes are that Google has made in recent days, and the fact is that the search engine company is not stopping. Some of them are already immediate, while others we will have to wait to see the results.
Contenidos
NoFollow, Sponsored, and UGC Attributes
The first change we learned about last week, where Google announced two new tags for links and how they will be categorized. So, we have the classic nofollow and two more: sponsored and ugc.
Sponsored Attribute
Until now, we used nofollow to categorize all those links to which we didn’t want to pass authority, a measure that applied, for example, to promotional links. Google cracked down on SPAM, and offered this alternative so that referral links or promotional articles wouldn’t count towards the SPAM classification on a website.
Well, now we have to use sponsored. Plain and simple. We can debate it at length, but it all boils down to the fact that if you’re using promotional links or offers, you have to start using this attribute. Google wants to differentiate our links even more, and if you manage a medium, then it’s time to do so.
UGC Attribute
The use of the ugc attribute is along the same lines. The comment section or forums were being filled with SPAM by users who wanted to insert links to boost their linkbuilding. To combat this, we used nofollow. But now Google is interested in knowing what content is generated by the user and what is generated by the webmaster, so the “User Generated Content” is the rel that needs to be added to these types of links.
NoFollow Link Attribute
The nature of nofollow will remain the same, it will be used to link to sites that we technically don’t want to pass authority to. With the caveat that now we can’t apply it to an entire site if, for example, comments can be configured as ugc and promotional links as sponsored.
What incentive does Google give us to work for them? Well, basically, starting from March 2020, they will start taking nofollow into account as signals. They haven’t specified how or what these “signals” will be, but something is something.
Should I be Worried? Do I Need to Change Anything?
According to Google, there’s no need to change anything. What you already have as nofollow can stay that way, and that’s it. Additionally, it’s possible to combine nofollow tags with sponsored and ugc tags. However, they do invite us to start using these types of link attributes.
Visibility of Original Stories
Another relevant change, and here we get into the matter, is that now Google will give more weight to the original story. That is, if you manage a medium, you will have priority if you are the original source of a news story. You might think it’s something trivial, but the reality is that even being the original source of a news story, some media with a higher pagerank than yours would end up burying your story, even though they themselves would cite you with a follow link… You can imagine the joke.
Google’s commitment now is to detect the original source and keep it in the top positions, and also for a longer time. How they will do it, well, it’s not clear or detailed, as is usually the case, it’s a matter of experimenting.
What Can I Do to Improve the SEO of My News Stories?
Well, basically, generate truthful and quality content, be unique, and as always, make sure this content is interesting for both the user and the competition that ends up linking to you. Additionally, my advice is to have rich snippets properly implemented, such as news article snippets.
I have the theory that in the near future, nofollow links will count as signals for this. With this, Google will know, based on the volume of links and the date, who the original author of an article or news story is.
Goodbye to Deceptive Stars
Stars as a method of review are currently one of the most used resources by SEOs in their posts. This greatly enriches search results and increases CTR. The problem comes when they are used indiscriminately. I myself have this system implemented to know the ratings of my users and decide which content is liked most and which is liked least.
The problem is that it has been used in all types of formats. And now Google wants them to be used only in content that is truly valued by customers. Therefore, even if you have implemented rich snippets of “stars” throughout your site, they will only appear as such in search results for the following types of markup:
- schema.org/Book
- schema.org/Course
- schema.org/CreativeWorkSeason
- schema.org/CreativeWorkSeries
- schema.org/Episode
- schema.org/Event
- schema.org/Game
- schema.org/HowTo
- schema.org/LocalBusiness
- schema.org/MediaObject
- schema.org/Movie
- schema.org/MusicPlaylist
- schema.org/MusicRecording
- schema.org/Organization
- schema.org/Product
- schema.org/Recipe
- schema.org/SoftwareApplication
As you can see, BlogPost and NewsArticle are not included. Additionally, another important point is that from now on, reviews about our own services, business, or website will not be allowed.