Scott Services: Daily Search Forum Recap: February 6, 2019

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Poll: Is Moz Domain Authority Helpful Or Hurtful To SEOs?
Moz announced massive improvements to how they calculate their Domain Authority, DA, scores. I wrote about the “controversy” around the score at Search Engine Land yesterday. I included a lot of your reaction to the announcement and now I want to poll you all about if you think the score is helpful or hurtful to SEOs in our industry.
PSA: Old Google Search Console Not Closing In March, But Some Features Are
Google’s John Mueller issued a “PSA” this morning clarifying that the old Google Search Console is not closing in March. What is closing are some of the old features noted that are going away in March. But the old Search Console will remain active for some time until the other features are ported over.
Google Denies Negative People Or Organizational Associations Can Downgrade Rankings
Google’s John Mueller was asked if Google’s algorithm can associate negative factors with people or organizations that would lead the unrelated site to be downgraded in their search results. John said he doesn’t believe Google has such an algorithm but then explores other possibilities.
Google Maps Adds Hotel Check-In & Check-Out Times
Google announced that hotels can now add their check-in and check-out times to their Google Local, Google Maps and Google Hotel listings. Brad Brewer shared a screen shot of one listing that already has theirs listed.
Google: We Are Good At Ignoring Link Cruft
Google’s John Mueller said on yesterday’s Google hangout at around the 8:17 mark that Google is pretty good at ignoring link cruft. Basically old, spammy and irrelevant links accrued by the site over the years. This is similar messaging from before but the word “cruft” is newish, I think so I covered it again.
Google Expands Thailand Office
Here is a photo from Google’s Life at Google Twitter account from a month or so ago of the newly expanded Thailand office. Google said Googlers are exploring and settling into their newly expanded o