I hate to call anyone out; but for this post - I can say with first hand experience that Google is not doing that. Maybe thats their future ‘plan’ and with Google its common that they test it with 1% of users or a specific geographic area and pretty much 80% of Google’s ‘plans’ end up just being scrapped after a short testing period. 20% end up live and even when that happens; they allow years of explaining this before they start to ‘ding’ sites for this.
Remember the major ‘whole website SSL’ recommendation Google gave us in 2017(?) or earlier… It wasn’t until late 2018 which they started putting some ‘https’ sites ahead… 2019 was the year where the browser went live that changed the game and therefore everyone had to be https or they would look bad on Google Chrome browsers. Yet, even then; we had competitors with ‘http’ links ranking over our ‘https’ links in 2020.
Point is like my other post I wrote in this topic, don’t focus on things like this. There has been ONE core thing that Google says and has been saying for over 15 years now and yet everyone focuses on minor changes/tests vs the most important ranking factor. Google recommends that you create a blog post with GOOD content, written well, they want to see customers staying on that page for long periods and not bouncing off the page due to poor content. Google also wants to see people sharing the blog post as the content is AMAZING. The facts are very very basic and once this is done and done well - THEN fine tune details like ‘blog’ vs ‘blogs’ in the URL or no ‘blog’ at all in the URL. The facts are there is more content written in 1 day than if you took every word written in history as we know it… So imagine just how much content that is that’s posted daily… Google is all for content being good and written for the users; the users are your #1 benefit and they will share good content.
The ironic thing if you just Google “Blogs” or “Top Blogging Tips” = Some of the most competitive keywords on the web right now and the majority of them included /blog/ in their URL and were in the top 3 ranked in google for organic listings…
Sorry! I really hate going against a fellow Shopify User & Partner but I don’t want to put things in people’s head to get them over thinking simple things then they should be focusing on writing the most amazing piece of content there is about the topic your writing about… Then market it and share it on ALL social media channels, boost the post w/ $10, invite comments and shares. Go on Fiverr or Odesk and hire someone to create a video for $15 + $15 professional voice over and insert the video in the post as well as have the blog video transcribed and posted on YouTube, Vimeo, Etc. Linking back to original blog… Again, remember how much content is out there - you MUST market your blog post to win… The LEAST thing you should be worried about is your URL to be honest at this point unless your site has authority where your posting a blog post and your on top 5 pages of Google within a month; then the little details will matter but I guarantee your blog post isn’t on Google unless you posted a sitemap to Google Search Console after a month…or it may show up but on page 8,250… Facts are 90% of users never go to page 2 even…
I hold us ‘professionals’ ‘ ‘Shopify Partners’ in a different light as its our job to give best advice to our customers; so this is not meant to say “your wrong” - I feel my job is to put other Shopify Ecom Sites best interest #1. Thats my only goal with this.