Demise of an Internet Icon, Buy buttons and Site Moves

In which I bemoan the demise of an icon of the Internet age and muse about buy buttons and site moves.

Last week I had a shocking start to my day, when, on my daily constitutional login to Google Webmaster Tools, I was greeted with….. A new name! Google Search Console of all things. There was I, thinking I’d woken up in some parallel universe, or logged on to the wrong place or this was some ghastly late April fool but sure enough, soon sitting in my email inbox was an email from Google announcing the rebranding of Google Webmaster Tools, together with a blog post on the Google Webmaster Blog. Will this now change too, I wonder?

It’s been pretty busy this week, as it has all of this last month, with no less than 12 client site moves currently occurring or imminent. The rapid changes in technology and the move to mobile have obviously played a part in this but moving a site is a massive SEO project, and takes up a lot of time, resource, planning and brain power.

Even a move from one version of a platform to another requires a lot of thinking about and when you move from platform to platform, the impact multiplies. I do think a lot of website owners often overlook the impact small changes can have on SEO and don’t consider what we believe are really important issues when greeted with the prospect of an all singing and dancing new site. Fortunately we bang on about it so much that most of the people we work with now understand but it’s still a lot of work!

This week Google announced their plan to put a Buy Button on their search results page. Not sure what the EU will make of that with their action against Google Shopping but…….. At present, they’re only talking about adding it to mobile search, which I can see the value of, but it will get interesting.

The excitement of the week in the office has been Sophie’s impending departure on holiday for 10 days bronzing, boozing and whatever else you get up to in Corfu, for which we are all extremely jealous of. Meanwhile, Matt has been getting more and more like Kirstie and Phil each day, as he continues his search for a new luxury pied a terre in downtown Harrogate.

Anyway, lots to do, so until next week…..