SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: December 22, 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.
Just an update for you, the Google search results are still very turbulent, I take a look back at the past few weeks. Google said word count per section is simply not a thing. Google says you can, if you want, use a single robots.txt file for all your international sites. Bing sill be switching to the new BingBot user agent for 100% of all crawls soon. And Google spoke about making Mastodon more search engine friendly.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Google Helpful Content Update & Link Spam Update Still Making SERP Turbulence
As you know, the December 2022 helpful content update and the link spam update are rolling out now. In fact, it seems like the helpful content update needs more time to do its thing. Taking a look at the past few weeks, the Google Search results, it has been pretty volatile. - Google: Our Search Algorithm Doesn’t Look At Words Per Section
Google’s John Mueller said on Mastodon that the Google Search ranking algorithm does not look at words per section or the word count in different sections of your page. - Google: You Can Use A Single Robots.txt For All Your International Sites
Gary Illyes from Google said on LinkedIn that if you want to you can use a single robots.txt file for all your international sites. He added that he is not saying this is a good idea, but rather, technically, you can implement your robots.txt this way. - Bing Will Fully Switch To The New BingBot User Agent In Early January
Since April, Bing has been slowly testing a new BingBot user agent, slowly rolling it out to more percentages of crawls over the year. Fabrice Canel from Microsoft said while the new BingBot is still only doing 50% of all crawls, it will move to 100% of all crawls in early January. - Google Comments On Making Mastodon More Search Engine Friendly
There is an interesting thread on Mastodon where Danny Sullivan and John Mueller, both of who work at Google, talk about making Mastodon more search-engine friendly. The thread was started by Gabe Rivera of Techmeme, when he wanted a way to search Mastodon. - Google Developer Groups Shades
Here is a box of cheap promotional sunglasses or glasses with the GDG logo on them. This is for a Google Developer Groups event of some sort.
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
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 Hanukkah Decorations Are Live For 2023

Hanukkah (aka Chanukah) starts this coming Thursday night, December 7th. Google has added its Hanukkah decorations to the Google Search results interface to celebrate. Google does this every year and I expect to see the same rollout in the coming weeks for Christmas and Kawanzaa but for now, since Chanukah is in the coming days, we have the Hanukkah decorations live at Google Search.
Here is a screenshot of the Chanukah decorations as they look like on the mobile search results.
You can see it yourself by searching on Google for [chanukah], [hanukkah], but not yet [חֲנוּכָּה] or other spelling variations yet but it should soon. It looks better on mobile than it does on desktop results.
To see the past, the 2023 decorations, 2021 decorations, 2020 Chanukah decorations, 2019 Google holiday decorations, the 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and so on.
Happy Chanukah, everyone!
Forum discussion at X.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Pay Accepted Icons In Google Search Results

Google seems to be testing a Google Pay Accepted label or icon in the Google search results. This label has the super G logo followed by the words “Pay accepted” words next to search result snippets that support Google Pay and notate such in their structured data.
This was first spotted by Khushal Bherwani who shared some screenshots of this on X – here is one:
Here are some more screenshots:
Here is test and without test window for same query. pic.twitter.com/n9cYWBOsro
— Khushal Bherwani (@b4k_khushal) October 20, 2023
Brodie Clark also posted some screenshots after on X:
In continuation from the test from October, Google is now testing out a new Google Pay label associated with organic results. Last month, Google was testing Pay Accepted text, with this month changing it to Pay encrypted checkout. More details: https://t.co/MvFNoPmMDR pic.twitter.com/WDVVc4RbTO
— SERPs Up 🌊 (@SERPalerts) November 30, 2023
I tried to replicate this but I came up short.
This is not the first time Google had similar icons like this in its search results.
Forum discussion at X.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Discover Showing Older Content Since Follow Feature Arrived

Typically, Google Discover shows content that is less than a day old, but it can show content that is weeks, months, or even years old. However, typically, Google will show more recent content in the Discover feed. Well, that may have changed with the new Google follow feature.
Glenn Gabe, who is a very active Google Discover user, noticed that since the Follow feature rolled out, he has been seeing content that is weeks and months old way more often than before the follow feature rolled out. Glenn wrote on X that “this could also be playing a role. i.e. Google isn’t providing as much recent content, but instead, focusing on providing targeted content based on the topics you are following.”
It makes sense that if you follow a specific topic and if Google Discover only shows the most authoritative types of content, it might be hard for Google to find new content on that topic. So it does make sense that Google may show older content more often for that specific topic you follow.
Here are screenshots Glenn shared:
Have you noticed this in your Discover feed?
Forum discussion at X.
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