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    A Month in Search: February 2019

    Verve Team Julian Smout Managing Director Written By Julian - Managing Director at Verve
    Verve News Articles A Month in Search February 2019 Verve News Articles A Month in Search February 2019

    Hello searchers what a great month we have had as it feels like spring is here. I hope everyone had a nice Valentines day! It’s been another busy month this month in organic search engine optimisation – we have a story about tree huggers, software updates and general chat from the search community.

    So without further ado let’s dive in…

    Moz

    First of all, I would like to talk about a great online resource for anyone who is interested in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) called Moz.com which has a great resource of information, products, blogs and online videos.

    This month Moz updated there domain authority (DA) metric. The Domain authority metric is a score given by Moz that estimates how valuable a certain domain is in terms of how well it might rank in search engines.

    Moz has a great little Chrome extension which if you have signed up to a free account with Moz it will give you your domain and page authority on the fly. This is a great way of getting a quick overview of your domain and pages health.

    https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mozbar/

    Test My Site tool update

    This month Google has rebuilt its mobile Site Speed Tool. Called “test My Site” below are the new features – some useful some not so!

    So what’s new?

    Test your website here

    Too many time tools

    While we are talking about speed tests! some site owners have been getting confused recently about the many different speed test tools that are available from Google – Page insights – Test my site – Lighthouse!

    Well, each has its own unique function set.

    Personally here at Verve, we use the Lighthouse App with our clients as this is easier to understand, but when we are looking deeper into a more technical SEO audit of a site, I use first print which gives a truer speed in milliseconds, this can be accessed through the inspector tool in chrome.

    Chrome > right click > inspect > Audits

    We Ignore Them say Google!

    Also this month we had an interesting point of view from Googles very own John Mueller about spammy backlinks coming to your site!

    In the past site owners would regularly create a disavow list in Google webmasters, so these site URL’s would be blocked as we all thought these were having a negative effect on your site’s ranking.. But interestingly John confirmed Google these would not damage your site’s reputation or trigger a Google penalty as Google ignores them!

    So anyone concerned about spam traffic can now rest at ease!

    Are you a tree hugger like me?

    I have been wanting to talk about this for a while now! But wanted to live test it beforehand!

    Do you feel guilty about surfing the web?  – Well if you have I have been testing a new search engine from ecosia!

    It is a search engine with a difference… I guarantee if you start using it like me you feel a lot better about the time you spend surfing the web – I have been using it for a while now and I love it!

    watch the short video below and let me know what you think!

    Chrome extension: Ecosia

    Google Doodle

    This month the Google Doodle which stood out to us was one which is very close to our hearts here at Verve! As it was for Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge 225th birthday on the 8th of February.

    Who I hear you say – Well Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge was the chemist who identified caffeine, which is a big deal for most of us!

    So if you are a coffee lover like ourselves next time you have a coffee raise your cup and wish old Frieddy a Happy 225th Birthday and thank you for helping us all get through the day!

     

     

    We are Changing!

    Next month will be a sad day for us as we say goodbye to our.EU domain extension and change to .CO.UK – We have taken the decision to change our domain name extension due in the main, to the vote from the British people on the 23rd June 2016. We have used our current.EU domain since our foundation so we are a bit sad to see it go.. Read more here: bye-bye-UK-EU

     


    I like to chat so as always if you have any questions please drop me a line here at Verve info@verve-design.co.uk