SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: October 3, 2022
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 suspending a lot more businesses in Google Business Profiles now. Google also dropped the health and safety attributes from Business Profiles. Google Shopping is testing a chat feature in the product results. Google has a more hotels grid layout. I posted the big October Google webmaster monthly recap. And part two with Maggie Humphrey on my vlog is up, it is about content development for franchises.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- October 2022 Google Webmaster Report
Talk about a busy month, we didn’t just have one or two confirmed updates this past month – we had three! We had the helpful content update finish rolling out on September 9th, we then had the September 2022 core update kick off on the 12t, and then the September 2022 product reviews update on the 20th. - Google Business Profile Suspensions Spiking
There seems to be a much higher level of Google Business Profiles suspended in the past couple of weeks than one would typically see. So a higher number of businesses set up in Google Maps are being suspended and removed from the Google local search results. - Google Business Profiles Removes Health & Safety Attributes
In September 2020, Google added a new section for “health and safety” attributes to Google Business Profiles (formerly Google My Business). Those remained as an option until last week, Google removed those health and safety attributes late last week. - Google Shopping Chat Feature On Product Results
Google Shopping seems to be testing or maybe has launched a new chat feature in the product search results. I personally cannot replicate this at the time I am writing this but Saad AK spotted this and posted a screenshot on Twitter. - Google Search “More Hotels” Grid Layout
Google Search now has a grid layout option labeled “more hotels.” This is even when Google shows the hotel listings sections, other hotel listings, explore more hotels, and now also this “more hotels” four grid layout. - Vlog #191: Marguarite Humphrey On Content Development For Franchises
We learned about Maggie Humphrey in part one and what she did while working at DAC and in part two, we dig a bit more into content development strategies for franchises. - Google Pier 57 Event With Large Games
Google had another event at the new Pier 57 building and this one had massive games at them. Including a massive chess board, connect four, corn hole game and more.
Other Great Search Threads:
- 1000s of sitemaps submitted to search console from unused subdomains, Reddit
- Google Local Services Ads is sending out a new email on how to “attract more potential customers”.. In their words, this is “insulting & infuriating” to advertisers whose ads will not display because Google *refuses* to remove, Len on Twitter
- What would you do differently if you started a new website? How would you make sure that users return on their own?, John Mueller on Twitter
- For page experience & the core web vitals we use real user data. Not all sites have enough data-points to provide useful data there. In those cases, do lab tests, or implem, John Mueller on Twitter
- We love high-quality, unique, compelling, helpful content. There are some fantastic sites with affilia, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Search Features
Feedback:
Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, you can follow us on Facebook and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
SEARCHENGINES
Google Again Says Ignore Link Spam Especially To 404 Pages
I am not sure how many times Google has said that you do not need to disavow spammy links, that you can ignore link spam attacks and that links pointing to pages that 404/410 are links that do not count – but John Mueller from Google said it again.
In a thread on X, John Mueller from Google wrote, “if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped.” “They do nothing,” he added, “If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link.”
John then added, “I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.”
Asking if it would hurt to disavow, after responding with the messages above, John wrote:
It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).
Earlier this year we had tons of SEOs notice spammy links to 404 error pages, John said ignore them. In 2021, Google said links to 404 pages do not count, Google also said that in 2012 and many other times.
Plus, outside of links to 404 pages, Google has said to ignore spammy links, time and time again – even the toxic links – ignore them. The messaging around this changed in 2016 when Penguin 4.0 was released and Google began devaluing links over demoting them.
Here are those new posts in context:
I’d say add both. Lol
— Jeremy Rivera (@JeremyRiveraSEO) April 11, 2024
Sure. But also, save yourself the work completely :-).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024
Re-reading your initial post – if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped. They do nothing. If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link. I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024
… but still… is this a dumb idea?
— Rebekah Edwards (@rebekah_creates) April 11, 2024
It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024
And in general, Google says it ignores spammy links, so you should too (not new) but this post from John Mueller is:
I would just ignore them, Google ignores them too. Sometimes they’re just more visible in tools, but that doesn’t mean they’re a problem.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 18, 2024
And then also on Mastodon wrote about a similar situation, “Google has 2 decades of practice of ignoring spammy links. There’s no need to do anything for those links.”
Forum discussion at X.
Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Needs Very Few Links To Rank Pages; Links Are Less Important
Gary Illyes from Google spoke at the SERP Conf on Friday and he said what he said numerous times before, that Google values links a lot less today than it did in the past. He added that Google Search “needs very few links to rank pages.”
Gary reportedly said, “We need very few links to rank pages… Over the years we’ve made links less important.”
I am quoting Patrick Stox who is quoting what he heard Gary say on stage at the event. Here is Patrick’s post where Gary did a rare reply:
I shouldn’t have said that… I definitely shouldn’t have said that
— Gary 鯨理/경리 Illyes (so official, trust me) (@methode) April 19, 2024
Gary said this a year ago, also in 2022 and other times as well. We previously covered that Google said links would likely become even less important in the future. And even Matt Cutts, the former Googler, said something similar about eight years ago and the truth is, links are weighted a lot less than it was eight years ago and that trend continues. A couple of years ago, Google said links are not the most important Google search ranking factor.
Of course, many SEOs think Google lies about this.
Judith Lewis interviewed Gary Illyes at the SERP Conf this past Friday.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Core Update Flux, AdSense Ad Intent, California Link Tax & More
For the original iTunes version, click here.
The Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out, almost 6 weeks now, and we saw two shifts of ranking volatility, both mid-week and the weekend before. Google’s Danny Sullivan went on the defensive on search quality and forum listings in the search results. Google’s site reputation abuse spam policy will be fought both algorithmically and through manual actions. Google responded to The Verge mocking its search rankings over best printer. Google Search Console has a new unused ownership tokens page. Some sites may see the Google Indexing API work for a limited time on unsupported content types. And having two sites won’t result in your sites search ranking decline. BingBot now fully supports Brotli compression and will test Zstd compression soon. Google Search is testing thumbs-up and down buttons for product carousels. Google is testing new sitelinks designs. Google Notes on Search may not go away in May. Google Maps no longer supports draft reviews. Google Maps released a bunch of new maps, directions, travel and EV features. Google Ads Demand Gen campaigns now support AI image generation. Google Ads is testing a similar product carousel. Google Ads reminds advertisers that ad customizers are going away. Google Ads is testing a new horizontal ad card format. Google AdSense has these new ad intent formats. Google AdSense publishers are reporting lower RPM earnings since mid-February. Google threatens to drop links to California news publishers amongst link tax bill. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.
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