SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: May 16, 2024
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.
We are still seeing really big and heated Google search ranking volatility. Tons of searchers do not want the AI Overviews in the Google Search results but there is no way to turn them off. Google Local Service Ads now lets you text multiple advertisers at the same time. Google said sites hit by the helpful content update, if they fix everything, can recover with the next core update. Service areas may be a new Google local ranking factor. Google AdSense will not change the minimum reporting thresholds.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
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Continued Heated Google Search Ranking Volatility Through May 16th
I have been continuing to update the May 9th Google ranking volatility story, but it is super unusual to see such heated volatility for such a long period within the Google Search rankings. This continued Google search ranking update of sorts kicked off with May 3rd but then spiked with May 9th and has really not let up much since. -
Google Local Service Ads Tests Message Multiple Businesses
Google is testing a new button for the Local Service Ads to “message multiple businesses” instead of just messaging one business at a time. We saw something like this before, but it only showed up after you messaged the first business. -
Google: Sites Hit By Helpful Content Update Could See Improvements With Next Core Update If…
Google’s John Mueller was asked when can a site expect to recover from the September 2023 helpful content update, assuming the site took all measures to “fix” their site. John Mueller said you can assume “bigger changes would be visible when the next core updates happen.” -
Is Service Areas A New Google Local Ranking Factor?
A bunch of local SEOs are buzzing about a possible new local SEO Google ranking factor and are looking to confirm it. Darren Shaw posted on X that while setting the service area historically had no influence on your Google local rankings, that may now have changed. -
Google AdSense Will Not Change Minimum Reporting Thresholds
Google AdSense planned on changing the minimum reporting thresholds for Custom Channels and Search Styles to 100 clicks per day on May 15th. But Google sent an email to AdSense publishers that it will not make those changes. -
Many Searchers Want To Turn Off Google AI Overviews
There are many searchers who have been using Google daily that are heading to the Google Web Search Help forums to ask how they can turn off the new AI Overviews within the Google Search results. As you know, AI Overviews started to roll out on Tuesday and some searchers simply do not want it. -
Google Level 5 Local Guide Banana Hat
It looks like GooGler biG miG, which is a stuffed banana, has reached level 5 as a Google Local Guide. I never heard of this banana before but this banana seems to take photos at a lot of local places and posts them as reviews as a local guide.
Other Great Search Threads:
- You’ll likely see ‘unknown’ in ad destination segment reporting for a couple of reasons: – Traffic landing in channels such as Gmail that don’t get segmented further by ad destination…, AdsLiaison on X
- Google was testing a ‘Define’ option for words directly on the SERP. Previously, there were two options: ‘Copy’ and ‘Define’. However, it appears that now only the ‘Define’ option is available., Shameem Adhikarath on X
- I’m also not flagging it as an issue to the Search Console folks, since hints like this are useful for site owners even if they’re not consistently used, John Mueller on X
- I imagine that we don’t use a cache when fetching sitemaps, it would be the reasonable thing to skip for something machine-readable like a sitemap file, or robots.txt, etc., John Mueller on Mastodon
- The most impressive and long-term impactful facet of GPT-4o is the two-way, streaming, interruptible, low-latency, full-duplex native speech. That is REALLY hard – possibly the first model that genuinely will be easier to talk to than type., Mikhail Parakhin on X
- When folks say that SEO is dead, will die, or go away, it would help to understand what they consider SEO to be. People do so many different things in the name of SEO – which of those things do they expect to change? (And there’s always change :-)), John Mueller on X
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Other Search
Feedback:
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SEARCHENGINES
July 4th Weekend Google Search Ranking Volatility
Surprise, surprise, it was another weekend and we again see some more than usual Google search ranking volatility/updates. Again, this reminds me of the weekend ranking bug Google had late last year into early this year. But who knows, maybe it is just a ranking system that shuffles things up for weekend searchers?
Or maybe we are all crazy – that might be just as likely.
I am seeing a spike in chatter after the July 4th date, so again, starting the Friday before the weekend and going through the weekend, like the past several unconfirmed updates I covered. This one seemed to kick off on July 5, 2024.
There as a spike in SEO chatter across the various forums and some, not all, of the tools picked up on the Google Search volatility over the past couple of days.
Here is what I am seeing.
Google Rank Tracking Volatility Tools
Here is what the tools are showing – notice around the July 5th date on many of these tools:
So many of the tools are heated around July 4th, 5th and 6th.
SEO Chatter
Now, it is normal to see a drop in traffic for many sites around the July 4th holiday and the weekend that follows. So keep that in mind, but many of these SEOs know it is July 4th and can compare it to previous July 4th holiday weekends.
Here is some of the chatter from WebmasterWorld and then from comments throughout several blog posts here on this topic:
I am seeing enormous drops of ~60% in traffic to some of my most important category pages this week. Upon further inspection it’s happening on the pages where Google has added one huge AI snippit result at top, then sometimes a huge image block, a People Also Ask and Things to Know block, and sponsored ads. Even though I am ranking #1-#3 the traffic is dropping off completely.
In one case, an article I wrote went to #1 and has been pulling in so much traffic that it passed my home page some days. Suddenly in the last day the traffic had dropped 81%! The reason being that my article is now being used for the AI snippit at top of results, and not just the first result. The link to my site is there, but apparently nobody clicks on it despite the huge top placement. Is this what others are seeing when their articles are being used for AI snippits at top?
Yesterday there was a 50% drop and today there are practically no visitors to my site. It’s like being kicked out of the index. I can’t explain it.
I also noticed a traffic drop yesterday (July 5th) especially towards the evening (Germany) and today is pretty sh*t so far
I agree, yesterday was a big drop in google traffic. now it’s starting to rise again
Yesterday, our pageviews were up 23 percent and UVs were up 16 percent. Our top pages were the usual batch (no unusual spikes).
I can’t thank Google for the increase, though–yesterday’s Google traffic was only 29 percent of the UV total, compared to 35 percent for the last 30 days.
Completely normal drops for me Thursday at 50% and 75% Friday, my explanation is the US long holiday weekend.
Clearly there’s something going on this weekend. The holiday slump doesn’t end.
The search results after July 4 were pretty much trash.
Has anyone else experienced a traffic drop like me on 4th July? I’ve experienced a 100-daily traffic drop.
Something seems to have happened in the past few hours, right after 4th of July ended.
Massive shuffling for my keywords and drops.
Yep, same here. Traffic died a death in the days before, and now it’s back again. I’m in UK, so shouldn’t be affected US hols (but we did get a new Prime Minister 🙂
And then a lot more of the same. But I saw both comments about negative ranking changes and also positive ranking changes. Sometimes it is hard to weed out holiday traffic drops, which can be normal versus ranking changes that are associated with traffic improvements or declines.
I am just wondering if we are seeing this Google weekend ranking bug again or if this is just normal patterns.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Search Console Difficulties, Google Ranking Volatility, Zero Click Study, Google Ads & More
This week, I posted the monthly Google Webmaster report and we had more search ranking volatility over the weekend. Google Search Console had huge delays, which started to be fixed on July 3rd and seems to have caught up late last night. Google also said these delays have nothing to do with core updates and they are not documented on its Search Status Dashboard. Rand Fishkin posted an updated zero-click data study on Google. Reddit is not blocking Google Search, despite what you see in its robots.txt file. Gary Illyes from Google explained why soft 404s are bad. Microsoft added prompt injection to its Bing Webmaster Guidelines. Google is testing “current styles” search carousel. Google Merchant Center may use your conversion data. Google Local Service Ads now show in the mobile local business finder. Google Ads’s new brand controls won’t prevent your ads from showing random firms. Google Ads gained a new checkbox to specify if it has altered or synthetic content. Google Ads will allow fantasy sports and lottery courier ads in many states. Microsoft Advertising has a new Property Center and expanded lodging campaigns. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.
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SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: July 5, 2024
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.
Google Search Console reports seem to be back to normal again. Reddit did not block Google from crawling or indexing. Google says request indexing does not change canonicalization. Google says if you are using a CDN and want to maintain one robots.txt file, you can redirect one to the other. Google updated its image SEO best practices. Google is testing a longer search bar for longer queries. And I posted the SEO video recap – subscribe!
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
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Google Search Console Performance Reports All Caught Up
Google seems to have fixed the Google Search Console Performance Reports last night at about 7:45pm ET. I posted a short update in my story yesterday, but waited until this morning to post a new story that it is fixed because sometimes I’ve seen it recover and then slip back. But it still seems to be showing recent and fresh data even the next morning. -
Google Search Console Performance Reports Catching Up But It’s Not Done Yet
As you know, Google Search Console’s performance reports were significantly delayed this week. But as of this morning, the reports are beginning to catch up. Google said last night it would take them “at least 2-3 days to fully catch up” and reprocess the data. So if you are seeing weird data, look away and come back on Monday. -
No – Reddit Is Not Blocking Google Search
Today being July 4th, I normally would avoid writing stories here but there are a lot of rumors out there that Reddit is blocking Google Search from crawling and indexing its content. It is not true – Reddit is not blocking Google Search. -
Google: Request Indexing Does Not Change Canonicalization
Google’s John Mueller said on that using the request indexing feature in Google Search Console’s URL Inspection Tool does not change canonicalization. The question that was asked is if it can help speed up URL removal for a 301 redirected URL. -
Google: Using A CDN & Want One Robots.txt File, Redirect Yours To The CDN
Do you use a CDN for some or all of your website and you want to manage just one robots.txt file, instead of both the CDN’s robots.txt file and your main site’s robots.txt file? Gary Illyes from Google said that all you need to do is redirect your main robots.txt to the CDN and control it on the CDN. -
Google Updated Image SEO Best Practices For Embedded Images
Google has made a small update to its image SEO best practices documentation, specific to the “Use HTML image elements to embed images” section. The update seems relatively minor but the changes to the wording was done for a reason. -
Google Search Tests Long Search Bar Variations
Google is testing a longer search bar, so I guess you can enter in a longer query into the search box. Google is also testing it in a gray color and other variations. -
Italian Google Product Expert Code T-Shirts
Here are some fun t-shirts a few Google Product Experts wore at the Google Product Expert Summit the other day. It says if product expert and Italian then do it better. -
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Search Console Difficulties, Google Ranking Volatility, Zero Click Study, Google Ads & More
This week, I posted the monthly Google Webmaster report and we had more search ranking volatility over the weekend. Google Search Console had huge delays…
Other Great Search Threads:
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Search Features
Other Search
Feedback:
Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.
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