Happy Sunday! Get cosy and comfortable and let us go through the news of Sunday Rundown #82 together 🙂

John Mueller shares tips for simplifying site structure

Before making changes to your website structure, you must consider the impact it could have on search rankings and user experience. Google Search Advocate John Mueller recently shared valuable advice on this subject in a Reddit thread.

A Reddit user asked about streamlining their site structure by retiring /fr and /de subdirectories. Instead, they would direct all European traffic to the /eu subdirectory. They ask if that’s a good or bad idea and seek information about its impact on SEO and rankings.

My recommendation would be not to shift /de & /fr into /eu/de or /eu/fr. There’s no SEO advantage you’d get from that, and site-moves like this are a lot of work. If anything, I might consider moving “/” (en-us) into a “/us” folder. That way you have clearer separation of the parts (”/us/” is all US, “/fr/*” is all French, etc). It would make tracking a bit easier, and make it easier for search engines to understand the sections (vs moving /fr into /eu/fr, which would make it even harder to understand sections).

Also, hreflang is on a per-page basis, so you would do it on all pages. You mentioned it as being sections, and perhaps you’re already doing it properly, so this is just for completeness. If you’re not doing it on all pages, I’d consider checking your stats for pages that get confused the most (wrong country visitors), and at least add it there. Chances are this is mostly your homepage, so if you’re only doing it there, you’re probably getting a lot of the value of hreflang already.

John Mueller

Twitter provides new insights for March Madness engagement

With the NCAA ‘March Madness’ Tournament fast approaching, Twitter has shared some new insights to help marketers tap into the surrounding conversation, and maximise their reach among March Madness fans.

March Madness is an interactive experience on Twitter. Users live Tweet as the action takes place, with approximately 80% of #MarchMadness Tweets happening during gameplay in 2022. We recommend a mix of planned and live content for your campaign, to keep content fresh and demonstrate to fans that you’re invested and along for the ride.

Twitter

Apple’s Netflix competitor will be unveiled in March

Apple’s upcoming March 25th event will see the introduction of the company’s long-awaited video subscription service, according to a new report from Bloomberg. Yesterday, BuzzFeed News reported that Apple plans to announce its news subscription service at the March event, but it seems like the company has more than just that in the works.

Bonus links

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