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Daily Search Forum Recap: December 7, 2022

Published

2 years ago

December 8, 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 rolling out an updated Google helpful content update/system, I cover everything we are seeing about this update. Google launched the topics search bar refinement feature it has been testing for a while. Google added a disclaimer to the appointment provider links in the local panel. Google Chrome added three new search shortcuts. And 40% of SEOs think link building is as effective as it was years ago.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

December 2022 Google Helpful Content Update Rolling Out With Global Impact

Google has officially confirmed the launch of the second release of the Google helpful content update/system. It started lightly on December 5th but became noticeable, according to Google, on December 6th, which is why Google did not announce it until the 6th. This update adds new signals, most notably making it work for all languages globally – it is not just looking at English content anymore.

Google Launches +Topic Search Bar Refinements After Several Months Of Testing

Back in July we reported that Google was testing a new more dynamic search bar refinement option that adds keywords to the filters at the top under the search bar. Then Google demoed that feature at Search On and this week, Google is now rolling out the feature.

Poll: 40% Of SEOs Say Link Building Is As Effective As It Always Was

We have heard a lot from Google recently that links are just not as significant of a ranking factor in Google Search as they used to be. But 40% of SEOs still feel link building is as effective now compared to a few years ago. 60% of SEOs think it is less effective compared to a few years ago.

Google Local Panel Adds Disclaimer To Appointment Providers Links

Google has added a disclaimer to the appointment provider links that you find in the Google Search local panel and in the Google Maps business listings. The disclaimer partially reads under the “about these providers,” adding “providers are listed in random order.”

Search Chrome Tabs, Bookmarks & History

Google announced three new ways to search in Chrome – including search your tabs, your bookmarks and your history. You can search with three new site search shortcuts directly built into the Chrome address bar, with @tabs, @bookmarks and @history.

Google Dublin Office Tower Viewer

We saw a tower viewer, those binoculars at the top of buildings, from the Google Brazil office. But did you know the Google Dublin office has one as well? Here is a photo on Instagram I found of this

Other Great Search Threads:

This is bad. Heads-up to check your Bing listing. It looks like Bing pulls in your Facebook reviews, but then if they’re spam and you delete them from FB, they will live on forever on your Bing listing. Now I gotta figure out, Darren Shaw on Twitter

If you disallow crawling of a page that has a noindex, Google won’t see that noindex. Also, robotstxt shouldn’t be used as a tool for canonicalization., Gary Illyes on Mastodon

Sitemap.xml – Should Images (CDN Urls) be in the main sitemap? : TechSEO, Reddit

Do you like manga? Google has published manga to illustrate How Search Works. It’s only available in Japanese at the moment, Kenichi Suzuki on Twitter

GA4 alert “Partial data shown for date range” Ok, I’ve never seen this alert before. GA4 surprise me every day. Did you find other alerts?, Matteo Zambon on Twitter

The story of Googlebot and the cats …, John Mueller on Mastodon

Dear SEO Industry, We Need to Talk | LinkedIn, Myriam Jessier

Search Engine Land Stories:

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