SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: October 26, 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.
A new zero click Google study puts it only at 25%, not the whopping 65% figure from previous studies. Google and Microsoft both announced disappointing earnings, while ad revenue grew, for Google Ads it grew much slower. Google says link wheels are against its guidelines. Big is testing a full size search bar in the bottom right footer of the search results. And Google Ads has a shopping carousel at the top and bottom.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- New Zero Click Google Study Puts Zero Clicks At 25%, Not 65%
Marcus Tober at Semrush, a respected search marketing platform, published a new zero-click study that puts zero clicks across Google on average at 25% of all searches or 26% on desktop and 17% on mobile searches. No matter how you look at it, it is well under the Sparktoro study putting zero clicks on Google at 65%. - Google Ads Revenue Up Only 4.2% & Microsoft Bing Ads Revenues Up 16%
Both Google (Alphabet) and Microsoft (Bing) have announced earnings last night and both companies are down over 5% in pre-marketing trading after the news. Google’s ad revenue was up only 4.2%, while Microsoft’s search ad revenue, mostly from Bing, seemed to be up way more, at 16% – year over year. - Google: Link Wheels Are Against Google’s Guidelines & Are Link Schemes
Google’s John Mueller said that link wheels are against Google’s webmaster guidelines, I mean search essentials, because Google would consider them link schemes and thus spam. - Google Shopping Ads Overlay Carousel Testing Top & Bottom
Google is testing showing the overlay feature for its shopping ads, when you click the “view more” both at the top and the bottom. Here are GIFs showing how the overlay either pins itself to the top or pins itself to the bottom. - Bing Full Size Search Box In Bottom Right Of Search Results
Microsoft Bing is showing the search box in the bottom right corner, when you scroll down the search results page and your browser window is wide enough to fit it. Otherwise, Bing will show a floating magnifying glass to click on and activate your search box. - Samba Dancers At Google Ireland
Google Dublin, Ireland had some sort of event where they had Samba dancers come out and perform. Below are more photos I found on Instagram of this event.
Other Great Search Threads:
- A sitemap does not force crawling, it’s a signal, and if we get useful information from it, we can use it appropriately., John Mueller on Twitter
- I know you’re joking, but to be clear (I work for Google Search), no human being types that in after a quake happens. It’s all automated. I’m guessing a feed that we received might have had a typo in it — and, Danny Sullivan on Twitter
- I’d ignore them. Google ignores them too., John Mueller on Twitter
- I’d recommend sticking to our recommendations — we’ve compiled these over many years, and they’re known to be valid. Alt-attributes on images are a good practice regardless of SEO., John Mueller on Twitter
- If anyone from the webspam team manually looked at them, they’d ignore them too. Manual actions are more about issues that our systems can’t handle on their own., John Mueller on Twitter
- No, I don’t think that’s possible, sorry. (Also “indexing” not “indexation” :-)) What would you do with those metrics? I’m curious if there’s something important missing., John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
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, 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 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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SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 19, 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 is testing more ad formats for its search ads. BingBot is testing new compression methods. Google said it is unlikely your rankings would drop just because you have two or more sites. Google says the indexing API might work for unsupported formats. Google said hyphenated domains are not bad by themselves. And I posted the weekly SEO video recap.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
-
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Core Update Flux, AdSense Ad Intent, California Link Tax & More
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… -
Google Tests More Google Ad Card Formats
Google is testing another ad format, another card like format, for its search ads. We previously saw the vertical and tall ad cards, then the carousel horizontal card format and now here are just plain horizontal ad cards. -
Google: It’s Unlikely Your Rankings Dropped Because You Have Two Websites
Google was asked if having two websites and Google finding out about them would cause the websites to drop in rankings. John Mueller from Google said that is “not likely,” adding that many people have several websites and that is fine. -
Google: Indexing API May Work For Unsupported Content But…
Gary Illyes from Google said in the recent Google SEO office hours the Google Indexing API may work for unsupported content formats, but that you shouldn’t be “surprised if suddenly it stopped working for unsupported verticals overnight.” -
Google: Are Hyphenated Domains Are Bad For Google Ranking?
The topic of using hyphens in domain names is one of the oldest SEO topics we have in this space. Heck, in 2004, SEOs said there was a specific Google ranking algorithm that filtered out domains with hyphens in them (Google did not by the way). -
Bingbot To Test Zstd Compression After Fully Gaining Full Brotli Compression
Fabrice Canel from Microsoft announced that BingBot now fully supports Brotli compression and will soon be testing zstd Zstandard compression, a lossless data compression, for its crawler. -
Google Cloud Socks
Google loves to print socks for its various swag and here are two variations of socks from the Google Cloud team. I like the white socks because they look more retro but here are nicer versions as well.
Other Great Search Threads:
- From a practical POV, you can specify your prices using structured data on the page, with a merchant center feed (which many ecommerce systems can make for you) or manually in merchant center., John Mueller on X
- I passed this on. I don’t think there’s anything special going on here, but the feedback on this being confusing is good to pass on., John Mueller on X
- If you have older reports that are still helpful, you’ll just need to click the View “button” and access ones you want to remain active., AdsLiaison on X
- The way I see this is more that there are things which can be recognized & ignored, but a site might still be appropriate to show (I don’t know this site/query). Folks get bad SEO advice, and if that can be neutralized granularly without broader effects, , John Mueller on X
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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