Google Updates in September 2020

Want to know what Google got up to in September and how it might affect you?

I've listed all the important stuff here:

1. Google Bugs: There were numerous bugs last month with Google Search around canonicalization, mobile-indexing, news-indexing and top stories carousel, these led to reports of possible Google updates.

You might have noticed big problems at the time. These bugs have now been fixed.

2. Core Updates: Google gave us more clues around broad core updates and recoveries and said: “you can recover from core updates without a new core update” However, "some situations do require a new core update to be released to have a site refreshed fully."

This is good to hear as it was previously thought that recovery was only possible when Google rolled out a new core update.

Please note: If your SEO is ethical Google updates are unlikely to impact your website negatively.

3. New Shipping Detail Schema Markup: On the 22nd Sept Google announced that you no longer need to use Google Merchant Center to communicate your shipping details in the product search results. Now you can use new shipping detail schema markup to do the same thing.

Google wrote "starting today, we support shippingDetails schema.org markup as an alternative way for retailers to be eligible for shipping details in Google Search results."

This schema is aimed at helping searchers see shipping costs and estimated delivery time frames based on the searcher's location and your company's shipping policies.

This schema is currently only available in the US, in English, and on mobile devices.

4. Google Shopping: Google announced that by mid-October it will make Google Shopping free not just in the US, but also worldwide. Google said it is "bringing free listings to the Shopping tab in countries across Europe, Asia, and Latin America."

Google said, "just as we don't charge sites to be part of the Google Search index, listings for participating retailers are eligible to appear in these results at no cost to them."

Paid listings are still there, Google said it will still show paid listings "in ad slots and will operate in the same way as Shopping ads do today." But now you can also participate for free. This change will take effect by mid-October 2020.

5. Google Search developer document: Google has updated its fact check Google Search developer document to list out all the current guidelines, both eligibility and technical guidelines. There were guidelines listed there before, but now all the guidelines are in this one document now.

6. Other Updates: There were some updates to Search Console, Google My Business and tons of Google user interface tests and feature launches.

7. Happy Birthday Google: Google celebrated its 22nd birthday on Sunday, September 27th, in a socially distant manner!

Did you notice any changes this month with your Google rankings and organic search traffic? Let me know in the comments below.

If there's anything I can do to help or support you in your SEO journey then please do let me know.

I’m Hazel from SEO+.

2020 has been a tough year hasn't it and it's certainly taught us the importance of getting our business online, making it easy for our potential customers to find us there, interact with us there and most importantly – buy from us there.

And this means harnessing the power of ethical SEO is super important.

Want someone to do your SEO for you so your website is transformed into a super-effective and hardworking sales tool - take a look at our SEO Packages 

Want to learn more about SEO and do it yourself? Check out my SEO hub of online resources and courses. A good starting point is my Free SEO Checklist. 

Whether you're a little bit scared by SEO, not sure where to start, or what really needs attention to catapult you up the rankings so you're super visible and making sales... I'd love to help you.

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