It’s already March! It’s time for another CBMarketing’s SEO News Bulletin! Keep yourself up to date with all the SEO News and happenings from around the internet, all conveniently gathered and rounded up for you here. In case you missed the previous one, you can find it here. Now, let us get on and see what has been happening and what’s on the agenda for February!


Apparently, according to Google; it’s fine if 30 to 40 percent of URLs in search console are 404s and that 404 errors are a normal part of web crawling.

From John Mueller himself, we found out from the Google Search Central SEO hangout from February 25 that it’s essentially impossible to stop Google bots from attempting to crawl URLs that do not and no longer exist. And that Google has been known to try continuing to crawl URLs that havn’t existed on a website for years.

According to John Mueller, Google will see that those URLs once existed and were once live and functioning. So Google will naturally attempt to crawl those URLs just to see if it is still live. So, apparently it’s all very normal and the best you can do for now is to simply ignore that 404 errors that pop up on your Search Console report (assuming you know the specific 404 URLs that pop up no longer exist). But who knows, perhaps we can see a change regarding this in the future?

For those that want to see the video on Mueller’s answer, you can watch the video below:

 


Been wondering on what are Core Web Vitals and/or how you can go about auditing them? Well here is an article for you.

For those that don’t really know what Core Web Vitals are; they are essentially a set of metrics and data that are used to measure and determine a website’s loading, overall interactivity and the visual stability of the website. This is because these three categories are related to the websites speed. And we all know that having a fast, well-loading and overall optimised website makes a massive difference for both the users, as well as the search engines alike.

So, the thing is; last year Google announced that Core Web Vitals would soon before a part of Google’s algorithm and they have since told us that this new update will come in to effect in May 2021. In anticipation of the new update that’s just around the corner, here are some methods and ways you can go about auditing and checking on your Core Web Vitals for your SEO work.

data of google core web vitals


Another great article from “SEO News You Can Use” and this time it’s all about how HTML buttons can hide links from Google. In case you don’t quite know what that is, what some people have been doing for their SEO practices, is they have been hiding internal links within HTML buttons in order to help them manipulate their rankings.

Why you ask? Well, by doing this, it has helped them block Google from crawling their “non-essential” pages. Such a tactic has even been dubbed and referred to as the “new nofollow” method. And the thing is, it actually does work! Google cannot see most links that are hidden behind buttons and button elements!

google hidden links text

To learn more about this tactic and it’s uses, as well as Google’s response (bit of a spoiler, they do kind of disapprove this method), you can read more about it here.
Also here’s the link to Google’s Hidden Text section.

 


Our SEO News bulletin are not complete without us sharing with you some of the best SEO guides out there. And this SEO News article is no exception!

How well do you know your PBNs (Private Blog Networks)? They are pretty much a network of websites that are used to help you build links and authority for your website. So, how do you go about the best way of utilizing PBNs for your SEO practices? Rankclub.io has you covered in this 2021’s PBN Best Practice Guide. It shows and teaches you all the details of PBNs and how you can best use the different types to your advantage. Best of all, it’s all completely backed up by the data that they spent the past few years gathering for this guide. Enjoy!

2021’s PBN Best Practice Guide [Backed by Data]

 


Search Engine Watch has come out with a very interesting article regarding everyone’s favourite snack; Cookies! Okay, maybe not that kind of cookies but we all know about the website cookies. For those that are not quite sure; here’s a quick basic recap from Kaspersky:
“Cookies are text files with small pieces of data — like a username and password — that are used to identify your computer as you use a computer network. Specific cookies known as HTTP cookies are used to identify specific users and improve your web browsing experience.” Cookies summary text

However, ever since Google’s announcement for the expiration date of third-party cookies, people in the SEO and digital advertising world have been concerned and fixated regarding the future of cookies. Will there be a replacement for Cookies? What are some alternatives for the data? Search Engine Watch breaks the situation down for you all and what we can expect from this Cookie situation.