SEO News Monthly Roundup – January 2022

Expert roundups are a good way to get quick tips and insight on SEO.

Below is a collection of the SEO news roundups in January 2022.

SEO News Monthly Roundup – January 2022

1. Google Announces Search Console URL Inspection API

Google expanded Search Console access with the URL Inspection Tool API which extends functionalities of many SEO tools and WordPress plugins and themes

The new API access will help SEOs and publishers discover more issues and debug problems with greater ease.

2.  Google Changes More Than 61 Percent of Title Tags

A recent study on Zyppy.com, analyzed more than 80,000 title tags from 2370 sites to determine how many of the site title tags were used in search results. They discovered the search giant rewrote 61.6 percent of the title tags at least partially.

3. Google Unveils .Day Domains

Google launched the new .day generic TLD (top level domain) that has the potential for building a useful web presence. Top brands and smart marketers are rushing in to claim related domains right now, like BlackFri.day, CyberMon.day and Valentines.day (registered by FTD).

4.  Google Changes Recipe Structured Data Guidance

Google’s recipe structured data requirements have changed. The old way of structured data is no longer valid and Google requires updating the recipe structured data to the latest requirements.

5.  Google Considers Reducing Webpage Crawl Rate

Google may reduce the frequency of crawling webpages as it grows more conscious of the sustainability of crawling and indexing.

This topic is discussed by Google’s Search Relations team, which is made up of John Mueller, Martin Splitt, and Gary Illyes.

6.  Google Gives Sites More Indexing Control with New Robots Tag

A new robots tag, called indexifembedded, lets websites give Google more direction over which content to index in search results.

With this tag you can tell Google to only index content on a page if it’s embedded through iframes and similar HTML tags.

The indexifembedded tag overrides the noindex tag.

That means you can use noindex to keep a whole URL out of search results, and apply the indexifembedded tag to make a specific piece of content indexable when it’s embedded on another webpage.

7.  Google Has Two Types of Crawling – Discovery & Refresh

Google utilizes two types of crawling methods when it goes through webpages — one to discover new content and one to refresh existing content.

This is explained by Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller during the Google Search Central SEO office-hours hangout recorded on January 7.

8.  Google Tests Search Results Without Descriptions Again

Google has confirmed it has been testing Google Search result listings without any descriptions, again. Google first tested this in 2015 and is now testing it again for the past couple of weeks.

Google Tests Search Results Without Descriptions Again

9.   Google “People Search Next” Search Refinements

Google has a new search refinement titled “people search next.” This is in addition to the related searches, the people also ask, the people also search for and the others. Here is a screenshot of this in action:

Google "People Search Next"

I hope you enjoyed my SEO news roundups in January, 2022. If you find this post helpful, share it!