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
Big wins, a peek behind the curtain and an intriguing study from the land down under—let’s get into this week’s top tech stories!
Tech Giants’ Profits Soar as Pandemic Boom Continues
Technology has provided a welcome remedy to the boredom of lockdown for those of us lucky enough to access it. You won’t be completely shocked to learn, then, that companies including Apple, Microsoft and Google did very well indeed during the second quarter of 2021. In fact, Apple’s profits nearly doubled, Microsoft’s were up 47% year-on-year and the sales and profits at Google’s parent company, Alphabet, reached record highs. Not too shabby!
While the companies are no doubt thrilled about the increase in revenue, it comes with a potential downside. The tech giants are already facing a lot of scrutiny and these colossal profits are likely to result in more urgent calls for regulations to be imposed on them. Find out more here.
Google Now Shows Why It Ranked a Specific Search Result
Image source: Benjamin Dada (via Unsplash)
Us SEOs are forever trying to untap the secrets behind Google’s ranking decisions. This week the search engine started testing a feature that takes us one step closer to gaining a clear picture of how it configures search results! An expansion of the ‘about this result‘ box (which was tested in February this year), some users now have access to a ‘your search & this result‘ section which goes into further detail about why a user is seeing a particular result.
Google now lists information about the various factors involved in the ranking decision, including:
- Terms that appear in the result that match your query
- Related terms that appear in the result
- Other websites that link to the result that also include your search terms
- Related images
- Geographical relevancy
The feature is currently just rolling out in the US, but is expected to expand worldwide soon. Read more about the update here.
Wanted: Browsers to Help Uncover the Truth About Online Search Result Bias
Do search results on certain topics show up differently depending on who is searching? That’s a question a new research project in Australia is looking to answer! Researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society want to recruit thousands of internet users to see if search engines are guilty of presenting people with results that align with their existing views.
The project is going to take place across an election cycle, to determine whether companies like Google are encouraging political polarisation by skewing results. Want to know more about how the experiment will work? Read more.
Other tech news on our radar…
- Amazon ‘Definitely’ Lining Up Bitcoin Payments and Token, Confirms Insider
- Instagram Makes Under-16s’ Accounts Private By Default
- Sky Broadband Outage Forces Swathes of UK Customers Offline
Step up your SEO game
We found a few great guides and stumbled upon some fascinating insights this week. Check them out below!
- The Ultimate Web Content Writing Checklist for SEO
- YouTube SEO Study: Insights & Data to Help You Rank Higher
- How to Hire and Onboard Remote Workers: The Trello Guide to Success
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 guys at Psychology Today) that will make a difference to your professional and personal wellbeing. You’re welcome!
Image source: Ravi Roshan (via Unsplash)
“The Exceptional Growth Model helps new companies grow by combining vision, strategy, teamwork, infrastructure, identity, and altruism. Aside from helping companies, the six factors of the Exceptional Growth Model can help individuals flourish in their personal lives.“
In 6 Powerful Factors for Exceptional Growth, Diane Dreher Ph.D. describes the 6 factors that contribute to exceptional growth, and explains how they can be harnessed by both companies and individuals.
And so we bid goodbye to another week! Have a cracking weekend and we’ll be back in 7 days with more tech news and workplace tips. Until then, ta-ra!
