Spotify is one of the most important and versatile streaming services for independent artists. From its direct playlist pitching portal, to its profile customization options, to the way their algorithms throw fuel on the fire for a song that shows strong engagement, Spotify has a host of tools and features that empower musicians to shape their own destiny on the platform.  And the more frequently you release music, the more Spotify rewards you, helping you reach both existing fans and new listeners. How far can that reach extend? Well, Spotify is a wildly popular, global music streaming platform. To put that […]

Frank Sandtmann, an SEO who sends me tips every now and then, sent me a screenshot of Microsoft Bing showing three columns in the search results interface. I suspect it is a bug because it just looks wrong and when I collapse the screen, the right box goes into the second column.

Google announced that full coverage news is now rolling out in Google Search on mobile devices in the United States. I thought it rolled out in 2019 but here is Google’s official announcement that it is now rolling out officially, officially.

Google has updated the directions icon it uses for its local search results. Before the icon had a shape with an arrow in white within it, now it has a simple arrow upwards. This is present both in the local pack and in the Google Maps listings on mobile.

Google is likely going to keep releasing new features and functionality for Google Search Console over the years. John Mueller of Google kind of confirmed that when he said on Twitter that the Search Console team is preparing for “future functionality that’s not yet released.”

Google has upgraded the Search Console reports specifically for the Q&A and FAQ structured data. Now Google will check the validity of FAQ and Q&A structured data that is below the root entity level.

Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter that when you want to “unindex,” remove indexed pages from Google Search, you should not block Google with robots.txt, but rather use noindex. He said only unindex pages when if you don’t care if the page doesn’t rank but if you want it to rank, then improve the page.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

A couple of weeks ago we reported a steep dive in the number of featured snippets Google showed in its search results. Those numbers have not improved and not it is settling in that this may be the new norm – for now. Glenn Gabe shared some examples of sites that lost featured snippets on Twitter.

Google’s John Mueller asked if it would help if a site timestamped its content and pages using blockchain. John responded “Google doesn’t use that.” In short, he said Google does not use blockchain for search.

Google has announced that it is now offering a free version of its hotel listings, this is now in addition to the paid option. This is very much like how Google made Google Shopping free last year. Google wrote “we’re improving this experience by making it free for hotels and travel companies around the world to appear in hotel booking links, beginning this week on google.com/travel.”

Google announced that its PageSpeed Insights tool as of March 3, 2021 uses http/2 to make network requests, that is if the server supports it. If your site is on HTPT/2, you may see your PageSpeed Insights scores go up as a result. No, your rankings won’t go up as a result but just a heads up.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Let’s face it, singing in the cold sucks! Not only is your body cold, but usually your throat is more dry and your hands may be freezing from playing the stainless steel strings on your guitar or the piano keys.  But since gathering in large groups inside isn’t an option right now, people are singing outside in the cold weather more than ever. So that means that as a singer you need to learn to sing in colder weather.  Hi, my name is Matt from ramseyvoice.com and here are five tips to help you sing better when it’s cold outside. […]

How to use Notetracks to streamline your online music collaborations. If you’re anything like me, long-distance music collaboration can be a nightmare of scattered messages: emails, texts, DMs, Dropbox or Drive links, and even Marco Polos. And when I say “nightmare,” I mean for my collaborators; I send them feedback in whatever way is most convenient in the moment. They pick up the pieces (and quietly hate me). Worse, when I’m paying those collaborators, any extra time they have to spend making sense of my scattered messages is on my dime. Get better and faster results when collaborating on music. […]