SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: February 1, 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 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
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.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Search Console Verification Does Not Impact Your Ranking In Google Search

Gary Illyes of Google said in the Google SEO office-hours from yesterday that verifying your website in Google Search Console won’t impact your Google Search indexing or ranking whatsoever.
Gary said, “Having your site verified in Search Console or changing the verification code and method has no effect on indexing or ranking whatsoever.”
John Mueller of Google previously said that Search Console verification doesn’t help with crawling either.
Gary added later that Search Console gives you data and analytics that can help you make improvements to your site to help you rank better in Google Search potentially. “You can use the data that Search Console gives you to improve your site and thus potentially do better in Search with your site, but otherwise has no effect on search whatsoever,” he added.
Here is the video embed at the 15:27 mark:
Forum discussion at Twitter.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Say Most Common Reason For Blocking Googlebot Are Firewalls or CDNs Issues

Gary Illyes from Google posted a new PSA on LinkedIn saying that the most common reason a site unexpectedly blocks Googlebot from crawling is due to a misconfiguration of a firewall or CDN.
Gary wrote, “check what traffic your firewalls and CDN are blocking.” “By far the most common issue in my inbox is related to firewalls or CDNs blocking googlebot traffic. If I reach out to the blocking site, in the vast majority of the cases the blockage is unintended.”
So what can you do? Gary said, “I’ve said this before, but want to emphasize it again: make a habit of checking your block rules. We publish our IP ranges so it should be very easy to run an automation that checks the block rules against the googlebot subnets.”
Gary linked to this help document for more details.
In short, do what you can to test to see if your site is accessible to Googlebot. You can use the URL inspection tool in Google Search Console, as one method. Also, confirm with your CDN or firewall company that they are allowing Googlebot and ask them to prove it.
Forum discussion at on LinkedIn.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Search Testing More Card Box Like Buttons In Search

Google is testing more card and box-like elements in the search results. We covered this with the product results interface a few weeks back but now we are seeing them for other elements.
Here are screenshots shared with me of these designs:
Via @b4k_khushal:
Via @mblumenthal via @b4k_khushal:
I kind of like them but I might be wrong. 🙂
Forum discussion at Twitter.
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