Scott Hendison’s Blog

For quite a while now, I've been playing with the Google Search Console API trying to build a tool for analyzing websites from Google Search Console. With Google Analytics 4 turning out so horribly, I thought there had to be a better way to get the data I need, but as...

Update: As of 2pm PST November 18, 2021 the BBB has fixed the errors, and member profile pages have been correctly redirected. Hooray! Can you guess what Afternic, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, and A2 Web Hosting all have in common? All three are members of the...

We built this free Excel add-on to combine multiple CSV files exported from Screaming Frog into one Excel Workbook, with a table of contents and live hyperlinks throughout the workbook. It saves a LOT of time, compared to manually creating a report from multiple CSV...

We've recreated a fun free tool called GoogleFight that quit working a few years ago, and it helps settle the eternal question, "What gets searched for more often, "apples" or "oranges?" Because I consistently have unused API credits with SEMrush, and because the...

I'm not suggesting this is a good time to be asking your customers for reviews, especially since Google announced they won't be publishing any new ones during the pandemic. However, it's still worth pointing out that Google now offers business owners the ability to...

Over the past few days, we've put up a few Covid-19 statements on client websites. No two of them are exactly the same, but they all do have some things in common. I've also received countless COVID-19 emails from vendors, customers, clients, newsletters, and random...

I got a call from a client today that really shook me. Apparently, one of their employees sent an email to their bookkeeper, asking if they could change their direct deposit to their new bank. The bookkeeper replied to the employee, sending a form to be filled out......

This morning I received two Paypal invoices that were sent to me directly.  At first and even second glance they appear to be legitimate, but they're not. The invoices looked like real invoices via email, and they contained the GoDaddy logo, but the $64 amount was way...

I have a client that's opened a second office, and I'm unable to add their GMB listing. After adding the address, I'm unable to proceed because there's an error reading "Enter an address and marker that's specify at the same place". The problem is, there's nowhere to...

Google Search Console recently started delivering reports to webmasters who have their sites claimed, but it seems to be rolling out very slowly. Out of the dozens of sites that I have in GSC, for the month of September, I received only two, but this morning, for the...

Were you one of the early adopters to Google My Business messaging? I'm talking about this button right here, that allows your customers to message you right from Google's search results. If you want to read other business related posts, read this one about Service...

I was at the airport last week leaving for Pubcon and tried to add an image from the restaurant I was eating at, but I couldn't do it. I Tweeted about the bug to Google My Business, who asked me to send them a DM with all the details, so I did. #BugReport @GoogleMyBiz...

These are the slides from my Pubcon presentation on October 10, 2019, speaking in the agency track with the legendary Bill Hunt. Slides only Slides with notes   And below is a video of my run through the night before...

This morning Google killed off access to the "old" Webmaster Tools interface in Google Search Console, and with it, they've removed convenient access for two needed tools. If you've been poking around trying to find them, you're not the only one, and a lot of people...

The annual Farwest show is all about landscaping, and attended by gardening and landscaping industry consumers. My presentation is for the vendors and service providers in attendance, as beginner and intermediate marketers. It was not intended for search industry...

A couple of weeks ago I got a phone call from someone claiming to be Chistyan Duran, and he was interested in renting our Mexican timeshare that we bought 20 years ago. The company was a familiar name, Remax Realty, and they were based in Eden Prairie Minnesota. While...

For quite a while now, I've had issues adding properties to Google Search Console. Not every time, but often. It's actually been going on for months, and it's gotten a lot worse lately. Verification with Google Analytics used to work pretty well for a while,...

If you have a service area business like Jimmy John Shark with your street address hidden, and you serve customers in more than just your immediate area, there's good news... Google is now allowing you to expand the service area in your Google My Business larger than...

These are the slides from my Pubcon 2018 presentation, given in Las Vegas NV, October 17, 2018. The WordPress plugin that I demonstrate is called WP GDPR Fix.

I've had this free plugin available for years, and we just updated to version 4.0. There are paid plugins that don't work as well as this one, saving even the most experienced WordPress admins 20 to 40 minutes on each installation.

For the third year in a row, I am excited to be one of the judges for the US Search Awards, which will be presented at the Treasure Island Hotel in Las Vegas, on Wednesday, October 17, 2018. I'm judging in just three of the 33 categories, all listed here and Wednesday...

A new email scam has surfaced over the past couple of weeks, telling people that their WordPress Database needs to be updated, and providing a link. This is no different than other phishing email scams that are out there, hoping to catch some of the millions of...

Techsmith claims that I have to buy new software in order to be able to "share to Twitter" from my licensed Snaggit Version 11, but I found their original add-in file, and it works just fine. When old software stops working on new versions of Windows, it's...

Have you ever been buried in spam emails for a short time, maybe a couple of hours, or overnight? Do you know why the happened? What you see below is spam e-mail arriving at a rate of about 25 per minute, or a new one every couple of seconds. Obviously this is...

As of May 25th, 2018, visitors to this website arriving from EU countries began receiving this cookie notice upon entry... Showing this notice in the United States is not (yet) required by law, so we're not forcing it upon anyone else*.  It's only showing when you...

We've all been hearing for a long time now about the mobile first index from Google and they announced in March that it was going to begin. "Mobile-first indexing" means that when it kicks in for your website, then Googlebot will use the mobile version of your site...

If you've had your website for more than three years, Google is taking away a major ability to do analysis, if you don't check a certain box, by the end of the day TODAY.  Those aren't my words, they come from a video I just watched by Jeff Sauer Depending on how you...

In the past week, not just one, but two of my clients pointed out things they've read online, which say that Google cannot index the text in tabbed or expandable elements. The first client phoned me last Friday concerning an FAQ page that we had built for...

There seems to be a brand new Google feature for local businesses that I just ran across, called an "Offer Post", that should be available in most accounts now. For those who are bored, they can Google search games such as w88oaz.com. To access it, log into Google My...

Just like you, all this time, I've always assumed that posting on a Facebook business page would "reach" a certain number of people. Over the years we've seen that number decline, and there are are variety of reasons people have long been saying that organic reach is...

Yesterday I learned that if you want your ads to appear in Google Maps, then you have to choose to advertise in the Google Search Partners network. Did you know that?  I didn't. When advertising in a Google Adwords search campaign, you're given a choice for the Google...

This comprehensive tool scans Google’s search results to report what is actually indexed by Google. Enter your business name and zip code, and you’ll be able to select your business from the dropdown.  If your business is not listed, then you should claim your...

Back in 2010, Google released an "SEO Starter Guide" as a .pdf file, and shared it with the world. The guide was 32 pages long, and covered quite a few facts and basic information about SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. It was a helpful document that was referred to...

We've all known this day was coming for years now, ever since Google first started blocking the organic keywords from Google Analytics for signed in users back in 2011. We even got especially irritated after they started encrypting ALL searches back in 2013 For over a...

These are the slides from my Pubcon presentation about Google tag manager, that I gave on on Wednesday, November 8th in Las Vegas.

If you are in charge of your companies marketing, there is going to be an event next week in SE Portland, that you can't afford to miss. All you have to do is show up at any time throughout the day, and help will be available for whatever you need (look into Ful.io to...

Update 10/24 - This morning there's a warning. It comes up when you begin filling out the form. It's small, but it's there. Was it there when I wrote this? I don't know, but it's definitely there now, so this post is irrelevant.  I don't know about you, but I put a...

Unless you run one of the SEO toolbars in your browser, or you follow Googles instructions, the easiest way to see Google's cache of a particular page is to simply copy / paste this, directly in front of your the URL in the address bar....

I was contacted this morning by someone looking for SEO services, and the first thing I noticed while we were on the phone, was that when I searched for what they said was their most important keyword "house DJ", I couldn't see the number of competitors. There was...

***Update 10/2/17****  - Yelp is AGAIN showing ads for competitors. Better check your own page if you're paying them... I still think my August post about this should have made the national news, after I showed that Yelp was charging businesses to remove competitor...

Wouldn't it be great if there was a WordPress plugin that would let you give people a way to easily leave you a review at their preferred service? For example, if I could fill in my profile links in the back end, and then just use a shortcode to display them for you...

Different from Google Analytics, Google business listing Insights shows local businesses where customers find them on Google, and also shows various customer actions, like requesting directions, phone calls and views. However, since August 16th, the photo views seem...

Paying for a Yelp enhanced profile is SUPPOSED to include the removal of competitor ads from your Yelp Business Pages, but that’s not really true… I've used the Yelp Business manager for a lot of clients and different business types over the years, and sometimes used...

This morning I had a button in my Adwords account to try the new Google Adwords beta interface, so I did... Transcription: This is my very first look at the new AdWords experience. I got an email for one of my clients and it said that he qualified for the new AdWords...

Last summer when I was at SMX Advanced in Seattle, Danny Sullivan interviewed Googles Gary Illyes in a sort of "Fireside Chat" session. They covered a lot of ground, but the question that stood out most for me, was the last thing Danny asked, at the end of the day,...

In 2002, we moved our web hosting websites to a billing and hosting control panel called Hsphere, and for 15 years it's been a workhorse. On the other hand, if you're in search for a hosting company for your own site, then you can trust services like siteground....

It's pretty cool to have been included in this infographic, so I thought I'd share it here on my own blog...

Referral Spam in Analytics, a.k.a. "Fake Traffic" has been annoying us for a while now, and it's still a problem, ESPECIALLY for small businesses. If you have less than 1000 visitors a month, often nearly half the supposed traffic to a website is fake! After reviewing...

I know there are a myriad of secure and safe "password keeper" solutions out there, but I've never personally used one. This morning I had to get into a web hosting CPanel which I hadn't been in for over two years, and although the password was saved in Chrome, it...

Nearly two weeks ago, Google rolled out a brand new feature in Google Analytics, allowing you to move a property from one account to another. Yes, really! To accomplish the move, you do have to be a full admin user for each of the two accounts; the one that is the...