Page 67 - SEO Mad Scientist 2020 Report

One of our theories was that Google specifically has emojis filtered from Local SERPs. This would
mean that the search has local intent, but not the page content itself. This theory made sense. We
know emojis increase CTR and the last thing Google wants is your organic emojis pulling traffic
from the map pack. We have seen a significant amount of filtered emojis from local SERPs, so we
believe this to be the case. However, more testing is needed to confirm this theory.

Based on all our emoji tests, it appears Google never removes emojis from URLs or content
pulled for the meta description if it includes emojis. Emojis in H1, Meta title, and meta
description are subjected to filters and may or may not show. Additionally, local SERPs are
filtering emojis, but we cannot conclude why from our tests.

Image Tests

Test Setup:

Recently we discovered Gooogle reporting image embeds as backlinks in our Search Console
report. These were coming up as backlinks to the image itself. Google was reporting the image
URL that had been put in the "src" code on the website. This was not a hyperlinked image but
simply an image on the page that had the src set to the image of our website.

We began building "image embeds" to some single
variable test sites, as well as doing some overall testing
on established sites. Being that we only need to embed
an image, we were using web 2.0s to embed images
then tracking their progress.

Test Results: June 5, 2020

When we came back to check results, Google Search Console wasn’t showing the image
embeds as backlinks - we couldn’t find the same references. It could have just been a bug that
caused the GSC reference, but more testing will be required to give a definitive answer.

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