It is two weeks ago since John Mueller announced: we’re simplifying the way authorship is shown in mobile and desktop search results. Google is not showing the author photo’s and circle count in the SERPs anymore. This is what changed in the SERPs:

How do you get those pictures back?

There is another rich snippet which gives you the possibility to add a picture to the SERPs: the recipe snippet! All the information can be found in Google’s documentation: Recipe rich snippet documentation. An example:

So you just add two of the required mark up data from this list of four characteristics:

1. photo
2. prepTime, cookTime, totalTime, or ingredients
3. calories
4. review

This means the following code is enough to implement, just use your blog title as the Name element, use your profile photo as the Photo element and reviews can be added everywhere:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Recipe" >
<h1 itemprop="name">This is my blog title</h1>
<img itemprop="photo" src="author-photo.jpg" />
<span itemprop="review" itemscope itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate">
<span itemprop="rating">4.0</span> stars based on
<span itemprop="count">35</span> reviews
</span>
</div>

Disclaimer: this tactic is not allowed by Google, so it could harm your other rich snippets if Google decides your spamming their SERPs with irrelevant rich snippet additions. In most cases they will removed all your snippets, it will not affect your rankings.

Performance Marketing Insights in Berlin has been a great experience this week. Always good to meet with industry friends and visit a conference which is not only focused on Search. Below you can find my slides:

Taming The Hummingbird – PMI Berlin

Hummingbird is all about processing words, texts, content. With Hummingbird Google became better in building relations between words and based on that rewrite queries to be able to query their index more effectively. A lot of confusion is made with the Knowlegde Graph cards in all their representations. In Europe only English queries are fully integrated, which shows Google is not familiar enough with smaller languages like Nordic languages, Dutch etc. The combination of Hummingbird (parsing queries) and the Knowlegde graph (making use of external datasources like DBpedia, Freebase and some smaller ones) will be key in future search. Invest some time in getting familiar with language processing and entity linking to understand the principles behind the additions Google is building at the moment.

During the last weekend of October, the Summit for Gaming in Malta is taking place. During the last three years, SiGMA became one of the largest dedicated Remote Gaming and Digital Gaming exhibitions and conferences for the industry with 3,000+ delegates, 50+ top-level speakers and over 70 stands.

The conference is three-tracked, with track one focusing on remote gaming global regulation, the legal landscape, best practices in operations and marketing and the convergence between interactive and land-based gaming. The second track is focused on remote gaming acquisition and will feature SEO professionals, latest e-marketing techniques, industry trends, affiliate, social media marketing tactics and more. The third and last track will focus on digital games, an industry that is dominating Maltese shores, thanks also to the impetus by Malta Enterprise.

The conference is free of charge for affiliates and since Malta is not the most expensive place to stay, I can advise everyone to come over and enjoy the beautiful atmosphere & weather of Malta!

Keep an eye open for the final schedule! For more information, have a look at the event website: https://maltaigamingsummit.com/

Google filed a patent at the 25th of March, which discusses a system to rank webpages based on specific groups of resources. One of them being brand mentions! Do remember, the fact that Google describes a system and try to get a patent for it, doesn’t mean they really use it within their algorithms! Most SEOs have been talking about that for the past couple of years but this is the first time I see something like this being discussed in a patent. You can find the patent at USPTO.gov

The original find was by Christopher Penn

The authors discuss how they use independent links, groups of resources and references to determine the ranking of specific webpages. Patents are always using (on first hand) complicated formulas and graphics, but in between that it states useful information. One excerpt that most of the PR and SEO professionals will like is:

 

An implied link is a reference to a target resource, e.g., a citation to the target resource, which is included in a source resource but is not an express link to the target resource. Thus, a resource in the group can be the target of an implied link without a user being able to navigate to the resource by following the implied link.

In other words, even if a link is not clickable, it counts as a ranking factor! I still remember Google Webmastertools giving me a 404 linked message, but their was no link at all, just a mention of the brand or an entity association in any possible way. In other words, every mention of your brand influences your organic traffic results! In one way this is a logical way to go for Google after all the link graph manipulation. Brand mentions on high authority sites are the new linkbuilding 🙂

Actually, as most agencies are doing right now, try to do real marketing and your brand mentions will come automatically.