Sketchweb Microblog

In January 2025, it seems like Google Search has brought a new update. Many call it “January 2025 Local Search Update”.

So, what is this January 2025 Local Search Update all about?

Well, with this update, Google Search has empowered Google Business Profile listings over the website’s organic search results.

For example, say you have a Google Business Profile listing and in that listing’s website field you have added your website’s URL.

Now earlier, both of your website’s URL and Google Business Profile listing were ranking but now Google Search will only rank the GBP listing.

So, if you are doing Local SEO (on website) and GBP optimization for your brand at the same, then it may happen that your organic traffic might degrade for the Local keywords.

The best way to resolve this issue is simply by changing the GBP profile’s URL to a different one if it is the same as the organic search result.

To improve the user’s experience on Mobile Devices, Google removes breadcrumbs for Search Result.

Now, users on mobile devices will only see the domain name for the search result alongwith Title, Description, and other elements.

Breadcrumbs was introduced to improve the user experience because it helps in navigating the website. However, the screen size limitation of mobile devices truncates the breadcrumbs. That’s why Google decides to depreciate this feature from mobile devices.

However, breadcrumbs will remain present in Google Search for Desktop devices. And, there is no need to change the implementation strategy of breadcrumbs on the website.

This new change has been added to all the regions where Google Search is available.

While doing Local SEO for a brand, sometimes you may need to know, “How many Google Maps Listing the brand has in a particular location?”.

Well, this is understandable, because the more a brand has Google Maps Lisiting, the more number of its listing has chances to rank highers in Google Search for different queries.

So, without a further ado, here is a trick to find out the same. Actually, we will use the Google Search Operators to do this easily.

1. First open “Google Maps”.
2. Type the below Syntax for Google Search Operator: “brandname” “store” OR “dealer” OR “showroom” location:locationname
3. Hit Enter

Note: Keyword Marked in italics are variables and you can change it as per your need.

While doing SEO for a website, many of us questions that “Does URL always need to be in Lowercase?”

Well, in a recent Bluesky post, John Muller clarified that, URLs doesn’t always need to be in Lowecase.

Instead the URL should be uniform in Nature. Means, if your website is consitently using lowercase URLs then you should use the Lowercase URLs and vice versa.

John Muller also clarified that, one should also check the case sensitivity of URLs present in the structured data for taking better decision in creating the URL structure.

Also, one should take consideration of Kebab Case as well.

Google has updated one of its Search Central Documentation which is related to Crawl Budget.

In the new documentation, Google says that if their exist link parity between the desktop and mobile version of a webpage, then it will affect the crawl budget of a website.

Do note that, back in September 2020, Google rolled out mobile fist indexing which means Google predominantly uses the mobile version of a webpage for indexing and ranking.

Now, empowering the mobile indexing further, Google says “If your website uses seperate HTML for mobile and desktop versions then provide the same set of link on the mobile version and ensure that all these links are included in the sitemap for better discovery”.

Which means their shouldn’t be link parity between the desktop and mobile version of a webpage.

Starting November 21, 2024, Google Search is going to remove support for Sitelinks Search Box.

Google Search introduced this feature ten years back but now have noticed that its usage has been dropped, hence decided to remove this feature.

This new change has been rolled out globally for all the countries and languages and will not affect rankings of other sitelinks visual elements.

One Google Search stops showing Sitelinks Search Box, it will also be removed from the Google Search Console reports.

Now, while Sitelinks Search Box has been removed from the Google Search and it’s report from Google Search Console, you can still keep its structured data because it works in accordance with website structured data.

While doing SEO of a website built on Next.js (or any other Javascript technology), its important to crawl the website efficiently in Screaming Frog. But, Javascript websites are a little bit complicated in comparision to the websites built on other technologies like PHP, HTML and so on.

Below I have shared a few configurations that you can use to efficiently crawl a next.js website in Screaming Frog.

Note: You can use the below configurations for any other Javascript websites as well.

1. Rendering with Javascript: To enable this option visit Configuration > Spider > Rendering > Javascript. Do note that Javascript crawling is slower in comparison to the text rendering.

2. Crawled Linked Sitemap: To enable this option visit Configuration > Crawl Configuration > Crawled Linked XML Sitemap.

3. Auto Discover XML Sitemap via robots.txt: You can find this option at Configuration > Crawl Configuration. Enabling this option will automatically fetch the website’s sitemap URL from the website’s robots.txt file.

4. Crawl these Sitemaps: This option enables you to feed the website’s sitemap manually. This option is also located at Configuration > Crawl Configuration.

5. Crawl and Store Javascript Resource Links: While crawling a Javascript based website in Screaming Frog, make sure to enable options to crawl and store Javascript resource links. You can find this option in Configuration > Crawl Configuration.

6. User Agent: You can also change the Screaming Frog’s crawling user agent to Google Bot Smartphone via Configuration > User Agent.

7. Speed: Now, as I said crawling of a Javascript based website is comparitively slower, but if you can increase the crawl speed by tweaking this option. All you need to do is visit the Configuration > Speed and there you can increase the number of maximum threads and maximum URLs.

If I forgot to mention any configuration, please let me know in the comments down below.

GSC Performance Report Filter is now Sticky, which means now the filters will stick to the last setting where you left off.

In GSC, now there will be a reset filter button, clicking on which will reset all the filters applied.

Infact, if you have the set the filters for search performance, discover performance, or news performance (in the performance report), the filters will remain be there unless and until you reset it.

In SEO, GSC Performance Report filter plays an important role as it helps to narrow down the result we actually want.

And now, the filters become sticky, finding the results with the filters you applied earlier will never become that easy.