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Google Turning Off Some Image And Video Sitemap Extensions They Say It's To Avoid Clutter

author image Written by: Rabije Gashi Corluka           Categories - In The News

Some of the image and video sitemap extensions will no longer be available on Google.

The company decided to turn off the use of these extensions after evaluating the tags and decided to sunset them on August 6, 2022. The documentation for the removed tags and attributes has already been deleted, according to Google.

To avoid confusion – image and video sitemaps will still be a part of the specs, but these specific tags won’t anymore.

Why Is Google Deprecating The Tags?

Because they’re declared to be outdated and can no longer be of use. Google determined that the value of the information passed through these tags and attributes no longer justifies using them.

However, the search engine mogul hasn’t offered any specifics as to why the value of tags was evaluated in the first place.

Upon evaluating the value of the Google sitemap extension tags, we decided to officially deprecate some tags and attributes, and remove them from our documentation. – stands in the official statement.

Gary Illyes from Google said they are removing the support for the tags so they can simplify sitemap extensions and help reduce the complexity of your codebases by making sitemaps “less cluttered in general.

What Is Being Removed?

These are the discontinued tags and attributes within image sitemaps:

  • <image:caption>
  • <image:geo_location>
  • <image:title>
  • <image:license>

These are the deprecated sitemap video tags and attributes within video sitemaps:

  • <video:category>
  • <video:gallery_loc>
  • autoplay and allow_embed of the <video:player_loc> tag
  • <video:price> tag and its attributes
  • <video:tvshow> tag and its attributes

So, Now What?

There is no need for panic. Google said that you don’t need to rush and take immediate action. You can leave these tags and attributes in place, but in the future, Search Console might warn that support is no longer offered.

So, if you use these tags or attributes, just make sure to update and use Google’s best image and video practices.

Tags - In The News, seo tips, Technical SEO

Rabije Gashi Corluka

Rabije always enjoyed finding different angles to a story, so it’s not surprising her curiosity influenced a move to a new continent, widening her perspective. She enjoys hearing people's stories and learning about different cultures and places - but most of all, she loves putting her thoughts on a piece of paper. Her love for writing led to her studying Journalism and PR, but she actually became a storyteller during her radio-hosting era. Now, she uses her skills, experience, and love for writing to help your brand stand out.

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What are Intrusive Interstitials?

You know how you come to a website and all these popups appear, it all looks impossible to turn off, and you can’t see anything else on the page because of them? There’s your answer.

According to Google, intrusive interstitials and dialogs are elements of your page that block users’ view of the content. Usually, they are used for promotional purposes. Even though there are particular reasons when the use of these elements is justified, using them in this sense, results in users leaving your page, which means your page experience is not great. Plus, it makes it hard for search engines to understand your content – which leads to bad ranking.

How To Create Nonintrusive Dialogs?

The goal here is to create interstitials that won’t affect the users’ experience. If you want to grab the attention of your users, use banners that take up only a fraction of the screen instead of full-page interstitials.

Use common libraries – there are many CMS plugins available that create standard dialogs and interstitials for the most common use cases, including newsletter sign-up prompts. As plugin developers can deploy improvements at scale, these can be helpful for Google, other search engines, and the internet in general.

If you have to use a mandatory interstitial (age confirmation, for example), make sure the interstitial is overlaid on the content. That way at least some of the content can then be indexed by Google and potentially be indexed in search results.

Even though this isn’t a case of manual action, intrusive interstitials impact your page experience and affect your ranking. So, if you get this notice – act on it!

 

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March 2022 Product Reviews Update Now Rolled Out

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Nineteen days after Google launched the third version of the product reviews update, it is now finished rolling out.

According to data providers, the update was much smaller than the one in December, but it still did manage to cause some fluctuations in rankings and impact organic traffic.

If you have products review on your website, it would be a good idea to check if your organic traffic improved, declined, or remained unchanged.

In the long run, you should definitely put more effort into your product and make it special, let it stand out on the web.

What To Do If You’re Affected

Those who were affected by this update probably felt it very strongly, but the chatter within the community was not as widespread as it was for the December update.

Google has provided advice on what you should consider if you are negatively impacted by this product reviews update.

Along with focusing on providing users with insightful and useful, expert-written content, you should also think about two things: multimedia and multiple sellers.

If you ask Google, you should provide evidence in your product review. Add visuals, audio, and links of you using the product –  show your expertise.

Also, add include links from multiple sellers. That will give readers more choice and help with your trustworthiness.

Include helpful details and specifics, show how the product is actually used and include information beyond the manufacturer’s. Explain why is that product better than the competition.

Take a look at Google’s best practices to use when writing a high-quality product review

In its third update to the products reviews, Google also added three new tips:

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This update’s goal is to promote review content that is much more than basic, dry, templated information you find on the web.

According to Google, these types of product reviews will be promoted in search results. So, why not benefit from the situation and do your best to get a fresh organic search result rank?

For now, Google is not punishing those who have a simplified summary of products. But, if there is better-written content out there, it will beat you and get the rank – so, you’re not punished, but they are rewarded.

So, go, check, rewrite and get that ranking!

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