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.

After the Google June spam update completed, we had even more Google Search ranking volatility over the weekend. Bing has a new Bing Webmaster Guideline for prompt injection. Some are seeing small increases for sites hit by the Google helpful content update. Google explained why soft 404s are bad. Google Maps added troubleshooting and FAQs for missing and removing reviews. Google Search is testing a top quality store badge near the site name.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• 
  Google Search Ranking Volatility Over June 28th & 29th Weekend
  
  
  On the heels of the completion of the June 2024 spam update this Thursday, June 27th, I am now seeing signs of an unconfirmed Google Search ranking algorithm update and volatility. It seems more heated than the week of this spam update rollout but less weak than you’d see with a Google core update.
• 
  Some Sites Hit By Google Helpful Content Update Seeing Small Lifts
  
  
  There are reports that some sites hit by the Google September 2023 Helpful Content Update are seeing small, somewhat tiny, lifts over the past week or so. Again, based on what we’ve been tracking, we have yet to see any recoveries but we are all hopeful we will see significant recoveries for some of those sites with the next core update.
• 
  Prompt Injection Added To Bing Webmaster Guidelines
  
  
  Bing added a new guideline to its Bing Webmaster Guidelines named Prompt Injection. A prompt injection is a type of cyberattack against large language models (LLMs). Hackers disguise malicious inputs as legitimate prompts, manipulating generative AI systems (GenAI) into leaking sensitive data, spreading misinformation, or worse, according to IBM.
• 
  Google Explains Why Soft 404s Are Bad
  
  
  Gary Illyes from Google explained two reasons why soft 404 errors are bad. Soft 404s are when a page returns a 200 status okay, but Google thinks that page should return a 404 page not found error. According to Gary, soft 404s are bad because they (1) limit crawl budget and (2) the pages won’t likely show up in Google Search.
• 
  Google Posts Reviews Troubleshooting & FAQs For Missing and Remove Reviews
  
  
  A Google community manager, Alistair D., posted a Reviews troubleshooting and FAQs document in the Google Business Profiles forums. It goes through why reviews go missing, why reviews are removed and how to troubleshoot those issues with the Google Business Profiles tools.
• 
  Google Search Tests Top Quality Store Badge Near Site Name
  
  
  Google is testing placing the top quality store badge and icon next to the site name area in the Google mobile search results. This brings up that icon from the bottom portion of the snippet to the very top of the snippet.




• 
  Mechanical Bull Riding At Google
  
  
  Google had an employee appreciation day event of some sort and here is a photo of one Googler riding a mechanical bull. I posted the embed of the video he posted on Instagram of the event.

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.

On the heels of the completion of the June 2024 spam update this Thursday, June 27th, I am now seeing signs of an unconfirmed Google Search ranking algorithm update and volatility. It seems more heated than the week of this spam update rollout but less weak than you’d see with a Google core update.

The volatility began on Friday, June 28th and continues through this weekend.

I am seeing both higher levels of chatter within the weekend since Friday and also some of the tools are showing a spike in volatility within the Google Search rankings.

Here is what I am seeing.

Google Rank Tracking Volatility Tools

Here is what the tools are showing, notice since Friday, the spike in volatility many of the tools are showing. Again, this was a day after the spam update was officially completed. Some tools are not showing this, as you can see:

Semrush:

SimilarWeb:

Mozcast:

Accuranker:

Algoroo:

SERPmetrics:

Mangools:

Wincher:

SERPstat:

Cognitive SEO:

Advanced Web Rankings:

BROKEN NOW

So something seems heated with these tracking tools over the weekend.

SEO Chatter

Here is some of the SEO chatter I spotted since Friday around Google ranking movement both at WebmasterWorld and the comments on this site:

Traffic is not great today. The “not-update” update is causing some damage.

Yesterday was drop in traffic in all of my sites. Coinciding with semrush spike.

The same. By now, traffic is more or less stable during updates but collapses after the end of an update.

Some of my competitor’s sites have returned to the SERP but aren’t receiving traffic.

Seeing some pages reappear tonight that have been deindexed for months.

Update finishes and Semrush send me notification to say sensors are high again (as high as 9.1 in Japan, and 7 to 8 in lots of other places). Is this now the normal weekend thing, and if it is, what exactly is shuffling?

My e-commerce traffic was nuked on Friday specifically. Previous updates hurt but I haven’t seen it this bad before. I will wait it out like previous algo changes.

My traffic died. After the update, my website went from 7 thousand active users every 30 minutes, to just 20…

What are you all seeing happen since the update completed last Thursday?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

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 is testing link cards at the top of the AI Overviews. Google says it is working on improving its ranking algorithms at the system level, not site by site level. Google Ads has updated its query matching and brand controls and advertisers are happy. Google Chrome launched some new search features for mobile devices. Google Search is testing sliding the page right when you type a new query.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• 
  Google Tests AI Overview Link Cards At The Top
  
  
  Google is testing placing the link cards at the top of the AI Overviews box within Google Search. Instead of having them deep at the bottom, they are being tested at the top, which would clearly drive more clicks to publishers than the current implementation.
• 
  Google: Our Search Rankings Can Improve But At Scale & System Level
  
  
  Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, said it again, that “there’s clearly more we should be doing” with ranking websites that deserve to rank better in Google Search. He clarified that this is not something Google does manually, on a per-site basis. Instead, Google does this at scale by updating its ranking systems and algorithms, he said.
• 
  Google Ads Changes Query Matching & Brand Controls – Advertisers Happy
  
  
  Google Ads announced updates to its Search ads query matching and brand controls that made advertisers happy (it has been a while). The updates include better reporting for misspellings, negative keywords now block misspellings, and changes to brand inclusions and brand exclusions.
• 
  Google Chrome For Mobile Adds Local Chrome Actions, Search Shortcuts & Trends
  
  
  Google has announced a number of new search-related features to its mobile version of the Chrome browser. These updates include new local Chrome Actions, new search shortcuts, trending in search suggestions and more.
• 
  Google Tests Search Results Sliding Right To Next Page On New Query
  
  
  Google seems to be testing (or maybe it is a bug) having the search results page slide over right to the next page (visually at least) when you enter a new query. It seems like some new animation when you change your query from the Google Search results page.
• 
  Google I’m Feeling Lucky Swag Dispenser
  
  
  Google has some sort of booth set up in Kraków, Poland and at that booth was a swag dispenser. The booth looks like a Google search home page and has an I’m Feeling Lucky button to press to get some Google swag, I think.

Other Great Search Threads:

• Looks like Google might be looking to switch up the appearance of free listings in the Shopping tab. Seeing a test in the US where it has product grids (that prev. only appeared in the main section) instead of the Shopping results. UK ha, SERP Alert on X
• Google results have gotten worse, and it’s costing you money. To illustrate this, we analyzed the top results for one of the most popular search queries: “best rewards credit cards.” The top results are not the best for consumers., WalletHub on LinkedIn
• We’re sharing an update on the advanced Voice Mode we demoed during our Spring Update, which we remain very excited about: We had planned to start rolling this out in alpha to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users in late June, but need on, OpenAI on X
• When SEO tools surface your tweet ranking for a competitive YMYL finance query. Note, it’s already on page 2 and will drop quickly, but that was fun while it lasted. It was #5 for a good part of yesterday, Glenn Gabe on X
• Apologies for the slow response. It seems there was an issue earlier today that has since been addressed. If you’re continuing to experience issues, let me know (DMs are open).” / X, AdsLiaison on X
• If SEO Dies – What Would You Do for Work?, Reddit

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.