SEO Sunday Recap - What happened in the SEO world this week?

SEO Sunday Recap - What happened in the SEO world this week?

I've been thinking to start a new kind of post around here. There is a lot of SEO and Search related news coming every week that isn't important enough or detailed enough for me to cover in one dedicated post/article. I also want to keep you guys informed with the latest developments in the SEO world no matter how small, keep in mind some of these small developments and news can have a huge impact later on or can be just the thing that gives you that awesome new idea to turn things around for you website or clients. 

This will be a trial run. If everything turns well and I'll be doing more at the end of every week, on Sunday. 
So here is this week's SEO Sunday Recap:

1. Google drops the instant answers. 
Since 2010 the instant search feature was part of Google's search experience and it allowed you to see results as you typed a search query in Google. For some reason, instant search doesn't go well with mobile and apparently, Google wants to give users the same experience both on desktop and mobile. 

I really don't understand Google's move by dropping the instant answer feature. It was around for a long time and people got used to it and somehow seemed like the future of search, at least at the moment when it was launched. This is clearly a step back and the motive behind it seems pretty weak to me, I mean you can really make it work on mobile if you really want it too. 

It took some times before I've noticed Google removing the instant search on all Google search domains (rollout by region), but nevertheless, there will be some interesting developments in the SEO community now that instant search is gone. Keep in mind a lot of people well claiming back 2010 that instant search is the beginning of the end for SEO, well, it was not, 7 years later we still need SEO but apparently, Google doesn't need the instant search feature anymore. 

2. Google is clearly promoting AMP on an international level. 
17.39% of page one SERPs include at least 1 AMP result - more in info here: https://www.rankranger.com/mobile-serp-features
This has been pretty clear to me every since I've attended a Google mobile speed event this month. Google was clearly promoting AMP and "mobile speed" concerns were only a motive to have these meetings, the hidden agenda was promoting Google AMP. 

3. Having a sticky footer on your website is nothing to worry about
From an SEO point of view, everything is fine, as Gary Illyes said here:


4. Google is testing auto playing videos inside search result pages.
This definitely was a big surprise to me. Having auto playing videos inside Google search is a clear sign that Google takes serious Facebook developments and new features. Apparently, this was a pretty small test and not everybody got to see this feature. 
I personally hate auto playing videos, even on Facebook's feed. So I hope Google doesn;t decide to permanently implement such a feature inside its search results. 

5. Twitter still doesn't seem to experience growth. 
Twitter still haves trouble gaining any growth this year, in fact, 2 million people from the US dropped Twitter in the last few months. Except for the US, the UK and a couple of few other countries Twitter is basically unused by the vast majority of people around the world, it has never managed to catch up world wide and there is no surprise that Twitter is losing ground giving all the huge free speech scandals it has the last few years. 

So here was my first weekly SEO recap. Of course, this news is mostly on Google but I'll try to diversify as much as possible and include news from other search engines as well as big social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn maybe.