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SEO Update: Google Makes More Changes to Mobile

Sometimes there are huge announcements with lots of bells and whistles, like this one about the forthcoming Google Mobile update on April 21st.
This is very important and something you should be aware of, but sometimes it is the little things that sneak under the radar that can also make a difference to our SEO.

More Mobile Changes on Google

Google quietly releases a whole bunch of changes that most of the time we are not even aware of.
And this month is no exception.

Google Mobile Search Results URL Changes

The most recent change that can impact your mobile search results is as follows:
  • Your website name instead of your domain name (no more madlemmings.com in there)
  • Breadcrumbs instead of the URL (so website URL is important)
You can see an example of this change below.
Google URL Schema Changes 2
Google URL Schema Changes1
Images Courtesy of Google
Note: These results according to Google are:
  • only affecting mobile search results
  • the site name change is US only (for now)
  • breadcrumb changes are worldwide

Why You Should Care

Now that Google is taking your site name seriously, you might want to make sure it is correct (some resources below to help with that).
Not only that, but your URL structure is starting to become more of an issue (for me too, as mine was wrongly set up years ago to use year and month). The better your URL structure is at helping people and Google know what your content is about the better. It helps in finding it too. (more resources below)

Useful Resources

Google has some useful resources to help with
  • getting your site name right
  • adding structured data for breadcrumbs
And if you want to learn how to structure your URLs
  • Moz’s Short Guide on URLs
  • More in depth guide from WordTracker

Yoast – WordPress SEO Changes

Yoast is always on the ball and is taking these changes into account very shortly to help us easily modify our sites for these changes.
They are rolling out a new feature on Monday April 20th to help us set the site name (as well as an alternate). Which hopefully Google will use in the Search Results Pages.
Here is what the new settings in Yoast will look like:
Yoast Sitename Feature

The can also help you implement the Breadcrumbs if you are interested in those settings.
ref: http://madlemmings.com/2015/04/20/google-seo-updates-mobile-url/

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