Google News
Why Google Now Allows Third Party JavaScript in AMP
Google is opening the door to more JavaScript availability for AMP pages. Historically, JavaScript has been largely restricted on AMP pages due to the need to keep them extremely light. By utilising web workers, now widely supported by major browsers, AMPScript is a component that allows AMP pages to run as much JavaScript as you can fit into 150kb.
To keep the page loading quickly, AMPScript uses an implementation of the DOM API that is intended to run in a Web Worker, known as WorkerDOM. WorkerDOM creates a copy of the DOM within the web worker, and updates it as the page content changes. This allows the JavaScript to be run simultaneously by the web worker, without blocking or slowing the main thread.
Along with the 150kb restriction mentioned above, AMPScript also cannot be run on page load. It requires a user interaction (such as a click) before the component will run. For a video (fully transcribed if text is preferred) on the topic of AMPScript and WorkerDOM see this interview between Eric Enge of Perficient Digital and Google Developer Advocate Ben Morss.
For sites serving AMP versions of pages this represents an excellent opportunity to review whether use of AMPScript can introduce or enhance the functionality and appearance of these pages. Review the component documents (linked above) and be sure to test the features, as behaviour may not be exactly the same when running in a Web Worker. As this is a new feature, expect there to be bugs.
Google Provides Support for Paused Businesses & Events
As COVID-19 continues to impact the personal and professional lives of millions around the globe, Google has provided additional Schema properties and guidelines to help those businesses who are pausing activities both on and offline.
How to pause your business online in Google Search provides a suite of recommendations aimed at helping businesses wind down their online presence while minimising the impact, and are aimed in particular at companies who have paused the selling of products or services online. The post in particular recommends limiting site functionality over a complete shutdown approach.
For events that have been cancelled, postponed or replaced with a virtual event, Google has updated its developer documentation with a range of schema properties. These properties are aimed at informing Google and users a true status for the event, rather than dropping it from the event search experience entirely.
The post provides recommendations for the following scenarios:
- Cancelled Events
- Postponed Events (whether a new date is known or not)
- Events that have been moved from in-person to online-only
The full list of recommendations can be found on the Webmaster Central Blog here, along with a version aimed at developers here.
If your business has been impacted by COVID-19 we would strongly recommend that you review these guidelines. While they apply primarily to events and businesses that have temporarily ceased trading, the central tenet of limiting functionality in place of a full shutdown is relevant to all impacted businesses.
Switch to Mobile-First Indexing to be Complete by September 2020
Announced on March 5, Google will switch all crawling to its smartphone GoogleBot user-agent from September 2020. Their own analysis has shown that at current figures 70% of sites indexed by Google are now subject to mobile-first indexing.
This will spell the end of the long migration process, which was begun back in 2016. Initially described as an ‘experiment’, it quickly became clear that this was a major keystone in Google’s reaction to the booming mobile search share.
Sites that have yet to move over to mobile-first indexing should receive a message in Search Console announcing the time frame, and reiterating the importance of eliminating mobile issues and errors.
As mentioned, 70% of sites have already been moved over to mobile-first indexing and as such it’s likely that any impact to indexing and ranking has already happened. Should you have an interest in a site that makes up part of the remaining 30%, the time to resolve issues relating to mobile users is now. Review Google Search Console reports pertaining to Mobile Friendliness and make these a priority.
Bing
Bing Offers Extra Schema Support for COVID-19 Announcements
Bing also announced a swathe of new Schema-based updates related to COVID-19 with a focus on special announcements.
Government health agencies were encouraged to use diseaseSpreadStatistics and SpecialAnnouncement properties to to provide official and accurate case statistics. gettingTestedInfo and CovidTestingFacility were also added to help users looking for advice on assessment or testing in their area. These were then ingested onto a special landing page at http://bing.com/covid.
SpecialAnnouncement will also offer functionality to local businesses, schools and healthcare outlets: allowing for marked-up announcements to appear directly in the SERPs or map view. travelBans and publicTransportClosuresInfo can also be used by government and travel agencies, airlines or other travel providers.
Governmental, healthcare and travel sites should take particular note of this expanded functionality. Read the full article to ensure that your site is eligible and meets the requirements before implementing any of the new Schema properties.
Bing Launches new URL & Content Submission API Portal
Bing’s microsite for its URL and Content Submission APIs is live, and can be found here. While these APIs are not brand new (both were released last year), the new portal offers expanded documentation as well as examples to assist users to get up to speed with the features.
Submission via API is a method of URL and content discovery that Bing are championing, with the launch of this new portal being a further encouragement to site owners.
For existing users of the Bing Submission APIs this doesn’t come with any new or updated functionality. For site owners who haven’t gotten onboard yet, this is a good opportunity to review whether or not there are gains to be made by increasing the speed at which Bing indexes your content.
Development News
Launch of iCodeSEO
JR Oakes of Locomotive Agency has launched a new resource aimed at Technical SEOs with an interest in development and data science, called iCodeSEO.
The site’s aim is to offer a Wikipedia-style source of information for Technical SEO, including documentation for workflows, code examples, as well as a list of open-source projects contributed by the SEO community.
Contributions are strongly encouraged, with a github available to encourage growth. Additionally, the site is looking for permanent contributors to take ownership of the Technical SEO and JavaScript sections.
SEOs with an interest in open source and collaborative projects in the Technical SEO space should find lots to be excited about here. Consider whether you can contribute and help to grow this resource.
Chrome 81 Blocks Mixed Content
Chrome 81, released on April 7, will automatically upgrade image files without a fallback. What this means in practice is that image assets that are hard coded with http:// will effectively rewrite the URL to read https:// instead.
As there’s no fallback, this will cause images that cannot be located and loaded via the https:// URL to fail to load.
Google’s reasons for not including a fallback are as follows:
- Users expect and benefit from a 100% secure environment.
- Page load times should reduce as unsecured images are not loaded.
- No potentially user-worrying “Unsecured Content” warning needs to be issued.
Full documentation for the new feature can be found here.
Despite sounding concerning, this change should benefit users and publishers. Users will benefit from the additional protection, while publishers will avoid the potentially damaging Mixed Content warning messages.
Developers and site owners do need to assess whether non-loading images could introduce functionality, styling or accessibility issues however.
8 Popular WordPress Plugins Targeted by Hackers
As reported by Matt Southern in Search Engine Journal, eight popular WordPress plugins are being targeted by hackers in an attempt to hijack sites.
The targeted plugins are as follows:
- Duplicator (1 million+ installs)
- ThemeGrill Demo Importer (200,000 installs)
- Async Javascript (100,000 installs)
- Profile Builder Plugin (65,000 installs)
- Flexible Checkout Fields for WooCommerce (20,000 installs)
- ThemeREX addons (included in all ThemeREX commercial themes)
- 10Web Map Builder for Google Maps (20,000 installs)
- Modern Events Calendar Lite (40,000 installs)
In each case, hackers either targeted sites using older versions of plugins with recently patched bugs, or uncovered zero-day exploits that are yet to have been patched by the plugin developers.
Sites using any of these plugins should ensure that they are updated to the latest version, as patches have been made available. Ensure that WordPress plugins are updated on a regular basis as a matter of course, to avoid exploits targeting old versions.
Further Reading
Improve Page Speed from Start to Finish
Patrick Stox’s indepth guide into improving Page Speed. The article takes a holistic look at the “How?” and “Why? of optimisation, rather than taking a blanket approach.
Moz Academy Free Throughout April & May
The popular Moz Academy training courses are currently free until the end of May (use the offer code “wegotthis”), offering SEO education for beginners, novices and on more intermediate topics.
Google Releases The Webmaster Conference Product Summit Videos
Video from the SEO and webmaster conference held by Google back in November 2019 have now been released. A full playlist of the talks by Google software engineers, product managers and others can be found here.
Excel Cell Manipulation Cheat Sheet
15 ready-to-use Excel formulas to manipulate cell content by Builtvisible. Read through them here or, if you prefer, grab the Google sheet.
Defense Against the Dark Arts
Russ Jones writing for moz.com on the impacts of negative SEO that go beyond a downturn in rankings, and an array of methods for mitigating them.
