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 said it does not count links on the domain name level, it is counted on the URL level. Google said it does not give full weight to all links. Google will be adding performance max data to Google Data Studio. Google has consolidated information about how SafeSearch works in one document. Google Merchant Center free listings now supports auto-tagging.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Google: We Don’t Count Links On Domain Level
  
  Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter that Google Search does not count links on a domain level. John is basically saying that each link counts for itself and that each URL counts for itself, the links don’t add up to some overall authority metric that Google might use on the domain level.




• Google: We Do Not Give Full Weight To All Links
  
  Google’s John Mueller said that not all links are given full weight and does not pass the full signals it can potentially pass. Instead, Google might not pass any weight from the link or might pass partial weight from the link.
• Google Help Doc Goes Deeper On SafeSearch With Troubleshooting Section
  
  Google has put together a new help document on SafeSearch where it merged a bunch of content into a single page around this topic. It also added content around how SafeSearch works and a new section for troubleshooting that adds some details.
• Google Ads Performance Max Data To Come To Data Studio In Very Near Future
  
  Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, said that in the “very near future” the Google Ads team will be adding support to have Performance Max data to Google Data Studio. Obviously with Smart Shopping campaigns and Local Campaigns being replaced by Performance Max campaigns in the future, this is important for advertisers.
• Google Merchant Center Adds Auto-Tagging To Free Listings
  
  Google Merchant Center announced that auto-tagging is now available for free listings on Google Shopping. “Auto-tagging for free listings is now available in your Merchant Center account,” the search company wrote.




• GooglePlex Camel Statue?
  
  Pete from Google posted a photo of him standing near a statue of some sorts of a camel. This is tagged to be at the GooglePlex, the main Google headquarters in California. Maybe it is a new art proj

Other Great Search Threads:

• What is something ancient that only an SEO veteran can remember?, Bill Hartzer on Twitter
• 404 Error Under “Reduce Unused CSS”, Google Search Central Community
• Despite an official rollout last month, Google looks like they may be backtracking. The full-width map pack (left) launched on Dec 12th, although I’m now sometimes seeing the old layout appear (right). Goodbye to the full-width d, Brodie Clark on Twitter
• GSC API reponse with bad characters (ASCII 0), blocking BigQuery import, Google Search Central Community
• Scraped, spun, rewritten, automatically generated content has been around since the start of search engines — it’s nothing new., John Mueller on Twitter
• Y’all are going to need to step up the game – the dashboard says less than 50% of the SEO questions were answered correctly. https://t.co/DUFJTKsUcE, John Mueller on Twitter
• Complex systems can get weird :). Since we prioritize important URLs, reducing the crawl rate will generally just drop unimportant URLs from crawling, while still keeping the good stuff fresh in our index., John Mueller on Twitter
• The DMCA is a legal process, so I’d get real legal advice (I’m not a lawyer). Regarding our tools, I can’t tell from your screenshots, but it helps to ma, 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

Other Search

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