IndexNow attributed for 7% of all new URLs clicked on in Bing in the past month
7-percent of all the new URLs clicked on URLs in Bing Search in the past month were sourced from the IndexNow protocol, Fabrice Canel from Microsoft told Search Engine Land. In fact, IndexNow has grown a lot, with more than 16 million websites that are using IndexNow, they are publishing over 1.2 billion URLs per day to the IndexNow API.
IndexNow’s growth. In February 2022 IndexNow has grown to support millions of sites by adding integration with Duda, All in One WordPress SEO plugin, and Rank Math SEO plugin. Microsoft released a simple-to-use WordPress plugin for IndexNow and Google announced it would be testing this protocol. Then in February 2022, Microsoft said 80,000 websites are now using IndexNow for URL submission. In March 2022 SEOPress added integration building the platform by another 200,000 sites. In June, Yoast SEO added support providing easy access for a lot of WordPress sites to turn on the feature. With those providers integrating IndexNow, it gained millions of sites adopting IndexNow, just several months after IndexNow was initially rolled out. Now, we are at over 16 million websites that are using IndexNow.
Earlier this year, the Czech search engine Seznam.CZ adopted IndexNow.
What is IndexNow? IndexNow provides a method for website owners to instantly inform search engines about the latest content changes on their website. IndexNow is a simple ping protocol so that search engines know that a URL and its content has been added, updated, or deleted, allowing search engines to reflect this change in their search results quickly. The co-sharing of IndexNow went fully live in January 2022.
Integrations. Why Microsoft built its own plugin for WordPress sites to use IndexNow, Yoast decided to build it into its premium plugin. Why did Yoast add it now? “The latest change to the protocol is the second significant development that made us change our minds about IndexNow. The IndexNow team changed the endpoint of the API from pinging each individual-supported search engine to a single API managed by the protocol. This means that sites only have to ping a single site, making the process much more efficient. All of this fits into our view of a sustainable crawling and indexing solution, so now is the time to implement IndexNow with a new integration in Yoast SEO,” the company explained.
Source: IndexNow attributed for 7% of all new URLs clicked on in Bing in the past month
YouTube takes notes from TikTok and adopts a popular feature
YouTube is experimenting with iOS users. It is trying out the feature of replying to comments through video format. YouTube adopted the feature from the short video-sharing giant TikTok.
TikTok made the short video sharing huge among the youngsters. The added features make it more interactive. It helps creators to interact with the audience and create content alongside.
The creators use the feature for various purposes. Some use it for making more content. At the same time, some creators use it to call out mean and abusive comments.
If a creator is looking to expand their library of YouTube Shorts content, replying to comments can help maintain a regular publishing schedule. It would also help in keeping the audience engaged.
According to reports, although comment stickers mimic similar functionality on TikTok. Unfortunately, the new feature on YouTube falls short in a few significant ways.
YouTube’s comment sticker is available on an experimental basis. Also, it is available only to iOS users.
The comment sticker option does not have a trace-back feature that enables the user to find the author or any details about the author. This leaves the user with no context about who left the comment sticker on what video.
Although not a priority, YouTube hopes to add this functionality to its platform in the future. Unlike YouTube, TikTok has the feature where the comment sticker can be traced back to its source, author, and original comment.
Source: YouTube takes notes from TikTok and adopts a popular feature
Yoast SEO new update causes fatal errors
Users who updated to the new version of Yoast SEO experienced errors. Reports of fatal errors caused by the update soon began surfacing online.
A fatal error occurs when there is a conflict between two plugins. The error appeared confined to specific situations and not across the board.
Yoast SEO updated to the 19.5 version. Yoast version 19.5 contains several changes that improve the user experience and fix a validation issue in the article’s structured data. Also, addressed some minor bugs.
A standout improvement in the new update is the Front-end SEO inspector. It provides an overview of posts and various SEO settings like meta tags.
Unfortunately, a bug occurred in a specific situation that caused a fatal error. The first report about the fatal error came from social media.
“….And this is why I wanted to switch my site to @Wix
. There goes my afternoon as I have to figure out why THIS happened.” Eli Schwartz reported through Twitter.
Bugs are not uncommon after updates on any application or website. But this particular fatal error did not seem like a random issue. A lot of reports started coming in after the initial report.
The official Yoast SEO support page on WordPress also contained reports of fatal errors. Yoast SEO identified that there was an issue with the new update. Yoast responded to the reports quickly and issued a patch for the same. In the update, 19.5.1, they fixed the bug issue, according to Yoast.
However, since there are millions of users with thousands of combinations of other plugins installed, it is almost inevitable that very few edge cases may pop up with issues.
Source: Yoast SEO new update causes fatal errors
OrganizeWP Launches with “Old School Software Pricing Model”
WordPress developer Jon Christopher has relaunched OrganizeWP, a commercial plugin that organizes content in the admin with a single, unified view and UI for streamlining common actions. It’s a utility plugin that Christopher has had on his mind since before he released its predecessor, the Hierarchy plugin, eight years ago.
“The WordPress Admin felt really disjointed once Custom Post Types were a new thing (this is how long ago we’re talking) because there was top-level content ‘buckets’ mixed and matched with Plugins and Settings and everything else,” Christopher said. “Then products started using the Admin Menu as a form of advertising to an extent, putting top-level Menu items in place when they absolutely aren’t necessary, and the problem just got worse and worse.”
Christopher aimed to tackle this problem with OrganizeWP but redesigned the UI and rebuilt it with JavaScript to accommodate new features like groups and drag and drop. The new product is now out of beta and is catching some attention due to its unusual pricing model.
For $29.00, users get access to updates and support for Version 2. OrganizeWP is selling licenses for the current major version with no subscription.
Source: OrganizeWP Launches with “Old School Software Pricing Model”
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