Our community is dedicated to helping fellow SEOs so we wanted to look back at a few insights shared this past year that were particularly popular with readers.

1. Google doesn’t hate your website

“The personal animosity complaint is as frequent as it is irrational,” explains ex-Googler Kaspar Szymanski. “Google has never demonstrated a dislike of a website and it would make little sense to operate a global business based on personal enmity. The claim that a site does not rank because of a Google feud is easily refuted with an SEO audit that will likely uncover all the technical, content, on- and off-page shortcomings. There are Google penalties, euphemistically referred to as Manual Spam Actions; however, these are not triggered by personal vendettas and can be lifted by submitting a compelling Reconsideration Request. If anything, Google continues to demonstrate indifference towards websites. This includes its own properties, which time and again had been penalized for different transgressions.” MORE >>

2. JavaScript publishers: Here’s how to view rendered HTML pages via desktop

“Many don’t know this but you can use the Rich Results Test to view the rendered HTML based on Googlebot desktop. Once you test a URL, you can view the rendered HTML, page loading issues and a JavaScript console containing warnings and errors,” explains Glenn Gabe of G-Squared Interactive. “And remember, this is the desktop render, not mobile. The tool will show you the user-agent used for rendering was Googlebot desktop. When you want to view the rendered HTML for a page, I would start with Google’s tools (in this article). But that doesn’t mean they are the only ways to check rendered pages. Between Chrome, third-party crawling tools and some plugins, you have several more rendering weapons in your SEO arsenal.” MORE >>

3. Missing results in SERP even after using FAQ Schema?

“Google will only show a maximum of three FAQ results on the first page. If you’re using FAQ Schema and ranking in the top 10 but your result isn’t appearing on the first page, then it could be something unrelated,” explains SEO consultant Brodie Clark. “A few possible scenarios include: 1) Google has decided to filter out your result because the query match isn’t relevant enough with the content on your page; 2) The guidelines for implementation are being breached in some form (maybe your content is too promotional in nature); 3) There is a technical issue with your implementation. Use Google’s Rich Results Test and Structured Data Testing Tool to troubleshoot.” MORE >>

4. How to avoid partial rendering issues with service workers

“When I think about service workers, I think about them as a content delivery network running in your web browser,” explains Hamlet Batista of Ranksense and SMX Advanced speaker. “A CDN helps speed up your site by offloading some of the website functionality to the network. One key functionality is caching, but most modern CDNs can do a lot more than that, like resizing/compressing images, blocking attacks, etc. A mini-CDN in your browser is similarly powerful. It can intercept and programmatically cache the content from a progressive web app. One practical use case is that this allows the app to work offline. But what caught my attention was that as service worker operates separate from the main browser thread, it could also be used to offload the processes that slow the page loading (and rendering process) down.” MORE >>

5. Using templates to create Actions for Google Assistant

“Google introduced a simplified way to create Actions for the Google Assistant: templates. While this option isn’t automated like the Google Action schema approach, there’s no code involved in the template process, either,” explains John Lincoln of Ignite Visibility. “Users can quickly create an action by filling out a Google Sheet, although this option only extends to four content types: personality quizzes, flashcards, trivia and how-to videos. How-to videos must be uploaded to YouTube to be eligible.” MORE >>

Pro Tip is a special feature for SEOs in our community to share a specific tactic others can use to elevate their performance. You can submit your own here.