SEO News You Can Use: Google Confirms November Local Search Update

No, it’s not your imagination. Google has now confirmed that it rolled out a global local search update in early November that is likely affecting your local SEO rankings.

Google recently tweeted from its @SearchLiason account that “we began making use of neural matching as part of the process of generating local search results. Neural matching allows us to better understand how words are related to concepts.”

Local SEOs started seeing volatility in their rankings in November.

Google said the use of neural matching in local search doesn’t require any changes on behalf of businesses. Google has said it started using neural matching in search as far back as 2018 to better understand search queries, but now it’s even more of an emphasis.

Here’s another tweet from Google:

“The use of neural matching means that Google can do a better job going beyond the exact words in business name or description to understand conceptually how it might be related to the words searchers use and their intents.”

More SEO News You Can Use

Really Doesn’t Matter Whether You Use Absolute or Relative URLs: Google webmaster John Mueller recently said that whether you use absolute or relative URLs for internal links doesn’t really matter all that much.

Twitter CEO a Fan of DuckDuckGo: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recently gave a huge endorsement for a search engine other than Google. Dorsey said he prefers to use search engine DuckDuckGo over any other. DuckDuckGo handles an average of 48 million searches per day, considerably less than Google.

New Survey Sheds Light on Voice Search: A new survey on voice search specifies ways users employ voice interaction and determined that depends, in part, on a person’s age. The survey found that younger users are more likely to use voice to give commands such as setting an alarm or a reminder. Older users are more likely to use voice search for information, products or services.

You Should Dress Up Your Commodity Content: Google webmaster John Mueller said that it’s imperative to differentiate your website from others in order to maximize its full potential in organic rankings. That’s especially true for any webmaster using commodity content. You have to find a way to differentiate yourself to standout.

Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines Updated: On Thursday, Google’s search quality evaluator guidelines were updated. The revisions placed emphasis on diversity, impartiality and on users being actual people. This could help remove bias from ratings.

Adding Resources Helps Your Content Impact: Writing quality content isn’t enough to differentiate yourself from the competition. Also, you need to consider publishing resources with your content to make your website a go-to source for someone looking for answers.

Editor’s Note: “SEO News You Can Use” is a weekly blog post posted every Monday morning only on SEOblog.com, rounding up all the top SEO news from around the world. Our goal is to make SEOblog.com a one-stop shop for everyone looking for SEO news, education and for hiring an SEO expert with our comprehensive SEO agency directory.