SEJ Today: Google Answers If Core Update Ranking Losses Are A Soft Penalty

Get the latest SEO, PPC, content marketing, and social media news delivered daily. [Read More]( [Read More]( [SEJTODAY]( Brought to you by: [Read More]( Wednesday, September 21, 2022 [Read the Article]( News, SEO [Google Answers If Core Update Ranking Losses Are A Soft Penalty]( By Roger Montti Google's Office Hours Hangout featured a question about algorithm updates and whether the rankings of a negatively affected site is suppressed by a "soft penalty." The person asking the question made reference to a soft penalty, which is a phrase that's been around for several years but isn't really a thing. They also make reference to suffering from a "flag" that's been assigned to their site, which alludes to Google having marked the site in some way, as in flagged. Here is the question: "Both of my websites have been hit by different updates, around 90% drops and are suffering from some type of flag that is suppressing our sites until the soft penalty is lifted. [Keep Reading...]( Sponsored [Futureproof Your Ecommerce Strategy!]( By SEMRUSH Read our new Key 2022 Ecommerce Trends report to assess your strategy and prepare for a rapidly evolving ecommerce marketplace. [Read It Now]( Ecommerce, SEO [Digital Marketplace Success Strategies From Nautical’s CEO]( By Bea Canuel With $3.23 trillion spent worldwide on the top 100 online marketplaces in 2021, it’s no surprise that businesses from various industries are investing heavily in their ecommerce strategies. But despite the unstoppable rise of the online marketplace model, it remains complex and challenging to build. "This funding is validation that we are focusing on the right problem, specifically an issue that is having a huge impact on the ecommerce market," Lee told S.E.J. "Plus, there are a variety of marketplaces, and right now, we are primarily focused on a couple of marketplace models. This funding will allow us to cast the net a little wider and help more organizations who have dreams of becoming multi-vendor marketplaces." [Read Now...]( Ask an SEO [Why Would Someone Build Links For Me?]( By Ryan Jones The best advice is to just laugh a little bit that somebody is choosing to spend their time trying to hurt your site rather than help their own, and then just ignore the links. Clearly whoever is doing this realizes that they can't create something better than you have, and are trying everything else to beat you. Take that as inspiration that your content and marketing are working, and keep focusing your efforts there. Without knowing your website or business, I'm going to guess it's not an escort agency. I also just want to say escort agency a lot on this post to see what weird keywords it will end up getting traffic for. It's normal to get some weird links from all kinds of crazy websites on the Internet. You can't control who visits your site or finds it useful, and people who visit escort sites also visit all the normal websites everybody else does and buy the same products as everybody else. [Read Now...]( SEJ Webinar [Real-World SEO – How People Search, Shop, and Buy Online]( By Search Engine Journal Join us for this Ecomm & SEO webinar. Learn how to create high converting content and drive more sales from search to checkout. [Register Now]( News, Tools [Wix Integrates With Semrush To Provide Users With Keyword Data]( By Matt G. Southern Wix is announcing an integration with Semrush, allowing Wix users to access Semrush’s SEO keyword data directly through the dashboard. [Read Now...]( SEO [Are Title Tags A Google Ranking Factor?]( By Matt G. Southern An association between page titles and Google search rankings exists as strongly today as in the early days of S.E.O. People of all levels of S.E.O. expertise agree that optimizing page titles is vital to success in search. Page titles are the most visible component of Google's search results pages (S.E.R.Ps.); it’s easy to conclude they carry weight as a ranking factor. But, more optimization is not necessarily better. Optimization can cross the line into manipulation. That’s when you’re writing for search engines before actual people. [Read Now...]( SEJ Webinar [Discover The Key To High-Converting Content With Measurable ROI]( By Search Engine Journal Join us for this Ecomm & SEO webinar. Learn how to create high converting content and drive more sales from search to checkout. [Register Now]( News, YouTube [YouTube Is Monetizing Shorts With 45% Revenue Split]( By Matt G. Southern YouTube announces Shorts will soon be eligible for monetization, and creators will keep 45% of the revenue generated from viewership. [Read Now...]( News, PPC [Google Streamlines Ad Creation Process]( By Matt G. Southern Google is rolling out several updates designed to streamline the process of creating ads with multiple extensions. [Read Now...]( News, WordPress [Yoast SEO 19.7 Causes Fatal Error & Crashes Websites]( By Roger Montti Yoast SEO WordPress plugin version 19.7 was discovered to contain a conflict with other plugins which resulted in websites experiencing fatal errors. 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