The Christmas Shopping Season of 2019 is expected to break sales records over Christmas 2018 online sales of US$765 Billion in the US and up to 12% according to the US National Retail Federation. In the US and the UK, the Christmas shopping season is the busiest shopping time of the year and accounts for as much as 30% of the total sales in the year for many retailers.

In a Google Webmaster Central Hangout last week (18th October 2019), a question was put to Google’s John Mueller. “Wondering if Google checks status codes before anything else, like before rendering content?” This is a great question to John – in very simple terms do Google care about the status code on your website? The answer is categorically yes. Google does indeed check the status code of a website page before indexing it, or rendering content.

What is Black Friday? The name originated in the US and it was given to the shopping day after Thanksgiving Day, which is the fourth Thursday in November with many Americans on holiday the following day. As most people are off work on the Friday following Thanksgiving, shops started cutting prices to entice customers just for one day and get the Christmas shopping season underway.