The Week in SEO: 04/12

Branded The Week in SEO header in red

Welcome to the week in SEO! Every Saturday, Supersede Media will trawl the internet and bring together a delightful smörgåsbord of the top stories, updates, tips and general happenings in the world of tech. Here’s what you need to know from the past 7 days!

The Headlines

This week’s biggest headline belongs to Twitter, where longtime CEO and founder Jack Dorsey stepped down this week. Other stories we’re paying closer attention to this week cover UK broadband speeds and the Google Core Update rollout.

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey steps down as CEO

Jack Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter in 2006 and who had served as CEO since 2015, stepped down this week from his position as the head of the company. On Monday, he tweeted a screenshot of an internal email in which he explained his decision:

There’s a lot of talk about the importance of a company being “founder-led”. Ultimately I believe that’s severely limiting and a single point of failure. I’ve worked hard to ensure this company can break away from its founding and founders. […] I believe now is the right time.

Having also served as CEO between 2006 and 2008, Dorsey’s second spell in the role coincided with a particularly febrile political atmosphere on the site, culminating with the decision to ban former US President Donald Trump permanently in response to the January riot at the Capitol.

Dorsey will remain on the board of Twitter until next year, and still serves as CEO of payments company Square, which this week announced its rebranding to Block. Meanwhile, Parag Agrawal will take over as CEO of Twitter, having previously served as the company’s chief technology officer.

UK streets with the fastest (and slowest) internet speed revealed

Speedometer with dial between 0 and 1
Image source: Chris Liverani

We all know that internet speeds can vary drastically depending on your location. You might expect the fastest connections to be found in the heart of the UK’s big cities—Canary Wharf, perhaps, or even MediaCityUK. However, data compiled by Uswitch has found that things are more unpredictable than you might expect.

In an analysis of broadband speed tests conducted throughout 2021, Uswitch found that the street with the fastest average speed was Haul Fryn in Swansea. Here, downloading a 45-minute TV show in high definition would take just 24 seconds. At the other end of the scale was unfortunate Wistaston Road in Crewe, where the same download would take 24 hours.

While the best-performing streets in the country manage speeds of over 800 Mbps, the average lies at around 10% of that, at 79.1 Mbps. Even this average speed is good enough for most daily usage, such as gaming and HD streaming. However, as our broadband needs increase, speeds will need to keep up in the years to come.

Google’s latest core update has completed its rollout

A couple of weeks ago, we reported in an earlier edition of The Week in SEO that Google’s November 2021 Core Update had begun rolling out. As of Tuesday this week, that rollout is now officially complete.

At this point, we’re still piecing together exactly what happened. It seems, on the face of it, that this has been much less disruptive than previous Core Updates. A poll on Twitter found these results:

https://twitter.com/Marie_Haynes/status/1465776230364594179?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1465776230364594179%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.seroundtable.com%2Fno-changes-google-november-2021-core-update-32527.html

In other words, the majority of search marketers saw no obvious change to their rankings. One impact that has been noticed is more volatility when it comes to the Knowledge Graph, with queries returning around 6% more results.

Other tech news on our radar…

Step up your SEO game

There’s no time like the present to improve your SEO. We’ve brought together a few top links to help you optimise your site and its content.


Workplace wellness

Whether you’re back at the office or still holed up in your WFH den, here are some gems of wisdom (this week’s come courtesy of the team at Hive) that will make a difference to your professional and personal wellbeing. You’re welcome!

Small Christmas tree on an office desk next to a Mac
Image source: Tomasz Zagórski

“54% of American employees said they loved “holiday spirit in the workplace” the most. This means that most of your coworkers will be happy to ditch some of the more typical festivities in favor of fun experiences that bring you together and cultivate that holiday cheer.”

What comes to mind when you think of an office Christmas? It might be a Secret Santa with co-workers you don’t know that well, or awkward chatter at a company party. Fortunately, there are ways to have genuine festive fun in the workplace. Check out Hive’s list of 3 Refreshing Ways to Celebrate the Holidays with Your Coworkers for some seasonal inspiration!


And we’re done with another weekly roundup! That’s all from us, but don’t worry—you’ll be getting a fresh helping of SEO news at the same time next week. Until then, have a great weekend!

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