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Daily Search Forum Recap: February 17, 2022

Published

12 months ago

February 18, 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.

It has been weirdly calm with the Google search rankings over the past few weeks but we are now seeing possible signs of an upcoming Google update. Google is testing placing the site name twice in the search result snippet, well – kind of. Google launched a new business calls API for you to integrate into your CRM. Google is processing those manual actions for Google Discover and Google News pretty quickly. Google has a few weird user interface bugs, although they are not all Google’s fault. Google said again that 15% of all its queries are new.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Is Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update Coming Soon?

Over the past couple of weeks, the Google search rankings have been pretty stable and calm. It actually has been unusually calm that some SEOs are getting nervous. I recently saw some super early signs of an update brewing. Is this the calm before the storm?

Google Quickly Processing Discover & Google News Manual Actions

A couple of weeks ago we reported that Google was sending out its first batch of manual actions (Google penalties) to news publications for Google News and Google Discover policy violations. Well, I am happy to report that Google is processing and even removing some of those manual actions already.

Google Business Profiles New Business Calls API

Google has launched a new API to retrieve call history data from your Google Business Profiles, you know, when people click call this business from Google Search and Google Maps. They named it the “My Business Business Calls API” – shouldn’t it be named the “Google Business Profiles Business Calls API” instead?

Not New: 15% Of Search Queries On Google Are Still New

Here is a not new piece of data, 15% of the searches Google sees each day are new. Google shared this stat, again, on Twitter the other day saying “Fun fact: 15% of all Google searches have never been searched before.”

Some Recent Weird Google Search Interface Bugs

Over the past couple of days, I’ve seen a few recent complaints about weird interface bugs in Google Search. To be honest, I know some of these are browser extension related and thus not a Google bug, but an extension changing the Google Search interface. But I found them interesting and wanted to share them – in case you see them yourself.

Google Tests Double Site Name & URL In Search Snippets

Google is testing showing the site name and URL twice in the search result snippets in Google mobile search. So not only do you see the name of the site or the URL with the favcion from the site, but you are also seeing it doubled up with the site name on top of it, with the URL and the favicon.

Dooglers First Day At Google

Here is a photo I found on Instagram taken from the main Google headquarters in Mountain View, California – the GooglePlex. It is of a dog, a Doogler, its first day at the Google office.

Other Great Search Threads:

How would Google rank the following domains: web-design.com, web.design, web-design.net? Assume people google “web design”., Reddit

Google is doing more testing of the Suggested Clips feature on the back of a string of tests from Dec 2021. Here’s 2 different new variations that show the suggested clip text at the top left of the video & also on the marke, Brodie Clark on Twitter

Google Plans to Build a Privacy Sandbox on Android, WebmasterWorld

If a site wants it included in a snippet, but doesn’t show it on the page, that seems like a loss for the site. Attracting users who won’t find what they’re looking for seems like a recipe for getting users, John Mueller on Twitter

If you do a search for Passover the Google pagination bar on desktop and mobile is made up of the Seder plate, Barry Schwartz on Twitter

Performance Max campaigns are the hot new thing. They will replace Smart Shopping in 2022, so we need to pay attention to what’s changing. We’ve been doing a lot of testing in the last few months and it’s been quite a ri, Dennis Moons on Twitter

This would be ignored anyway, as the href leads to the current page. Unless, of course, that isn’t the exact code that Googlebot actually sees., Martin Splitt on Twitter

If you’re passionate about Web Performance, and you want to help developers around the world improve, my team on Chrome is hiring! ⚡ Please reach out if you’re interested or if you know someone who would be great. US/Eu, Phil Walton on Twitter

That’s up to you 🙂 – URLs can work with non-latin characters too. Sometimes 3rd party tools struggle with non-latin characters, but for search any valid URL is fine. (Personally, I’d just avoid spaces in URLs for p, John Mueller on Twitter

Search Engine Land Stories:

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.

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SEARCHENGINES

Google Search Testing New Video Layout In Search

Published

2 hours ago

February 8, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Google may be testing a new layout for videos it displays in the Google Search results. Google is testing a new format for how the videos show in the Google Search results.

This new format shows a larger video in the listings, as opposed to a smaller thumbnail image with more details. This was spotted by Khushal Bherwani on Twitter who shared the new and old screenshots.

New video format:

Old video format:

Google has been testing and displaying larger video thumbnails for some time, as an FYI.

I am not sure which one I like more, I would have to pick I guess the smaller thumbnail?

Forum discussion at Twitter.

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Microsoft Bing Event Today – Expecting ChatGPT Search Integration

Published

8 hours ago

February 8, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

I am currently in Seattle and headed to the Microsoft Campus in Redmond for an in-person press event. I decided to go, assuming it would be related to ChatGPT and Bing but Microsoft would not tell me what it was about, nor would Microsoft let us say we are going to the event. Then yesterday at 2pm, when the news broke about Google Bard (story will be here), Microsoft said we can talk about the event.

So the news is out there that there is a event, see Techmeme. The email Microsoft sent says, “Microsoft has some exciting news coming in February and we’d like to invite you to an in-person experience at the Microsoft Campus in Redmond.”

“We can’t share a lot more at this stage, but you won’t want to miss it. This invitation is for you only, but if you’re unable to attend please let us know and we’ll see if we can consider another of your teammates,” Microsoft added.

Then after the Google news came out, Microsoft sent an email saying, “In light of recent announcements, you may now acknowledge your participation in tomorrow’s briefing in Redmond, leveraging the language in the briefing invitation.”

So yea, this press event seems to be about the Bing ChatGPT solution. I am very much looking forward to seeing what Microsoft Bing has to show here and I’ll be sharing the news here, on Search Engine Land and likely will be tweeting a ton @rustybrick. So make sure to follow me on Twitter to see the latest from Bing on this news.

And we have this photo of Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft with Sam Altman of OpenAI together last night:

hello from redmond! excited for the event tomorrow pic.twitter.com/b7TUr0ti42

— Sam Altman (@sama) February 6, 2023

I am expecting this to look a lot like the Bing ChatGPT interface leaks we covered earlier. Here are those screenshots:

Here is the home page screenshot that widens and enlarges the search box and says “Ask me anything”:

Here is his screenshot of the results, the answers being returned:

And here is the GIF he made of this:

Brain buzzing with all the search news and announcements this week! SEOs cannot sleep. What a time to be alive! The future is bright 🚀

— Fabrice Canel (@facan) February 7, 2023

More to come soon.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

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SEARCHENGINES

Google Search People Cards Visible In US

Published

14 hours ago

February 8, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Back in 2020, Google Search introduced a feature named people cards. It was only available in India but now it seems like it might be expanding, as I can now see it in the United States.

Brian Freiesleben’s card, which he created when it was first announced by spoofing his location to be in India, is now showing up as a people card for searchers in the United States. Personally, I was able to bring it up on my mobile device in New York.

Here is a screenshot he shared of this on Twitter:

He said, “I found my name now triggers a ‘people card’. This was introduced in Google India back in 2020. I spoofed my location back then to create the card and now (finally) it’s appearing.”

Glenn Gabe was able to replicate it as well:

Thanks!

Man, I have tried to kill that flickr page so many times…it pops back like a weed every time. This is new motivation to try to unlock that account and delete it haha.

— Brian Freiesleben (@type_SEO) February 3, 2023

Forum discussion at Twitter.

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