It’s been an eventful week to say the least. We’re back with our top digital headlines to watch including some updated information on Google’s policies and documentation. Here’s our weekly five to watch:
The death of Queen Elizabeth II; how brands got it wrong
Of course, last week the UK was met with the sad news of the death of Queen Elizabeth II. While plenty of brands paid their respects, some didn’t hit the right mark. For example, Crossfit UK posted a workout of the day called “Queen Elizabeth II” originally used for the 2022 jubilee. Similarly, Ann Summers homepage features a photo of the Queen and the words “Thank you Your Majesty” with links and images to sex toys below. While all were meant with good intentions, there is a clear lesson to be learnt here about whether or not every brand needs to post content to cash in on trends.
4-day week trails proving successful
12 weeks into a UK-wide trial to see if a four-day working week is viable and the some initial feedback is in. So far, it seems that participating brands are noting a significant improvement in employee morale. The trial is organised by the non-profit 4 Day Week Global, think-tank Autonomy and researchers at Cambridge University, Oxford University and Boston College. While team morale and profits are up, brands are making adjustments as needed. For example, implementing a rota system between which days off employees can take to ensure there is always someone around five days a week.
Google updates guidance on preventing spam and abuse
Google have released updated spam and abuse documentation to provide more robust suggestions for site owners to prevent abuse proactively and identify spam accounts, instead of just focusing on how to monitor it. The page now provides more actionable steps that site owners can take to protect their website in advance, rather than having to rely on a reactive only strategy. The language has been updated to be more inclusive of all site owners, not just low budget ones, to acknowledge that even the most secure websites can still suffer this spam.
Google updates guidance for meta descriptions
Google have updated their guidance on how to write meta descriptions that will be shown in the SERPs, aiming to give site owners more control over the snippet and avoid Google re-writing it. The actual requirements for what Google deems to be a good meta description haven’t changed, it’s just that they have added examples of both good and bad meta description practices to make this clearer. The newly added examples clarify what to include and what to avoid in your meta descriptions.
Google answers whether or not you should post content every day
It’s a pretty age-old myth that companies should be posting content every day. It was believed that the more content, the better and posting every day means you are remaining ‘active’. So, in a recent SEO office hours hangout, someone asked, “Does posting one content daily increase ranking?”. Google’s response was, “No. Posting daily or at any specific frequency for that matter doesn’t help with ranking better in Google search results. However, the more pages you have in the Google index, the more your content may show up in search results.”
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