This week were reminded that poor SEO choices in the past could come back to haunt you in the future, and we got introduced to two new useful tools from Google.
Full details about each of these headlines are contained in this week’s SEO news roundup.
Latest SEO News – Week Ending 6/26/2015
Google Trends Now Provides Real-Time Data on Trending Searches
Want to know what people are searching for right now? Curious about what searches are trending right this second in virtually any niche? With the latest update to Google Trends, now you can find out.
This is the biggest update to come to Google Trends in the past three years. Previously you were only able to see what searches were popular on a day-by-day basis — now you can drill down much deeper into minute-by-minute data.
In addition, you can track this data over a custom time period, so you can see if interest in a particular topic is generally going up or down. Google Trends data now comes from measuring search queries across Google Search, Google News, and YouTube.
So if you’re wondering what type of content to create next to capture the interest of searchers, consulting Google Trends would be an ideal place to begin your research.
Google Introduces the Google News Lab
If you run a website where you report on the latest news in your industry, Google’s new News Lab is for you.
Contained in the News Lab is the powerful new Google Trends mentioned above, as well as a new site called YouTube Newswire and a couple of useful new tools.
These new tools, called the WITNESS Media Lab and The First Draft Collection, are designed to teach reporters about important things like journalistic ethics and the ramifications of rushing to publish that first draft prematurely.
Best of all, just like all other Google web-based services, everything contained in the News Lab is completely free to use.
Watch Out for Skeletons in Your SEO Closet
There was much chatter in the SEO community this past week when hiring site Thumbtack, a company backed by Google Capital, was hit with a search penalty.
Google de-indexing a company it invested its own money in? What’s up with that?
Well it goes to show that when it comes to issuing penalties, Google doesn’t play favorites. It also goes to show that questionable activity in your site’s past can come back to hurt you years later — even if you’re now making every effort to play by the rules.
When questioned about this situation in a recent Google Hangout, Google’s John Mueller had this to say:
“… maybe they’ve been building up for years and years and finally it kind of bites them that they’ve been doing things wrong for such a long time.”
So if you worked with an SEO company in the past that did some questionable link-building for you over a period of time, for example, don’t think that you won’t eventually end up on Google’s radar just because it hasn’t noticed already.
To that end, if you’re positive a competitor is outranking you by manipulating Google’s algorithm, don’t get discouraged or think about stooping to their level just for a search rank. They will eventually get caught.
FYI, Thumbtack eventually got re-indexed after cleaning up what had been done in the past and submitting a detailed reconsideration request.
Wrapping it Up
The big G has acknowledged, once again, that poor SEO activity in the past can come back to haunt you in the future — and it introduced several useful new tools that can help improve your content creation process.
If you’re concerned about any of this past week’s developments, please leave a comment and we’ll be sure to respond.
Pam Aungst
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