SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: February 21, 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 again, there is no E-A-T score but E-A-T like signals are in the search ranking algorithm. Google said using the Indexing API for purposes it is not designed for won’t help you but also won’t hurt you. Google said when it comes to pagination, maybe you should show newer content first. Google said the performance of your web stories in search does not relate to the overall performance of your site in search. Google Ads said standard shopping campaigns will continue for the foreseeable future. Also, I posted the final part of my vlog with Brian Wallace on infographics.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Google: No EAT Score But EAT Is Important & Indirectly In The Search Ranking Algorithm
It has been some time since I covered the topic of E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness) here. But John Mueller of Google was asked this on Friday at the 10:30 mark. John said that while there is no E-A-T score that Google uses, E-A-T is important and is in the search ranking algorithm in an indirect way. - Google: Using The Indexing API Not For Jobs Or Livestreams Won’t Hurt Or Help
As you know, Google has an indexing API to expedite indexing of two content types. It is only designed to work for job postings and live streaming content – that is all. John Mueller of Google was asked if it can hurt if you try to use it for other content types outside of job postings and live stream content and he said no. - Google On Pagination & The Value Of Showing Newer Content First
In this next question, Google’s John Mueller was asked about the downside of having newer content published at the end of your pagination set. In short, Google might not value that much the newer content when it is found deeper in your pagination set, but please keep reading. - Google: Web Stories Performance Not Indicative Of Overall Site Performance In Search
Google’s John Mueller said that the performance of your Web Stories in Google Search is not related to the overall ranking performance of your site in general in Google Search. He also added a side not that in general, Web Stories are hard to optimize for SEO because Web Stories typically have very little textual content. - Google: Standard Shopping Campaigns Will Continued To Be Supported
Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, confirmed on Twitter that “standard Shopping campaigns will be supported for the foreseeable future,” she said. This comes after some Google Ads reps are reportedly saying that standard Shopping campaigns will be going away soon. - Vlog #160: Brain Wallace On Promoting Infographics & What SEOs Are Missing
In part one we spoke about how Brian Wallace of NowSourcing got into infographics, how it is not just about links but much more and some cool scores he had with them. In part two… - Casino Poker Table At Google Germany Office
The Google office in Germany has a professional looking casino style poker table. I am not sure why an office needs a poker table but maybe it is used when betting on which web pages will rank higher
Other Great Search Threads:
- With Google saying that they ignore ‘spammy’ links pointing to your website, in general, do you ignore them too or go down the disavow route to be on the safe side? I am not including an ‘it depends’ option as I, Sarah McDowell on Twitter
- Good one, thank you @jdevalk. When our JavaScript Rendering stack is discovering the correct links, we should not indeed extract these JavaScript-only links from the static html. We will get it fixed and remove the, (20) Fabrice Canel on Twitter
- Hi All, Correct, sitelinks won’t pull from other campaigns., AdsLiaison on Twitter
- I tried to find something non-snarky and failed. My assumption is if you’re doing email outreach like this, you will fall on your face and get nothing. It’s a waste of time to do in bulk, and anything you “get”, John Mueller on Twitter
- Temperature shown in Fahrenheit in google discover even tho all is set to Celsius, Google Search Community
- Which is more powerful Google algorithm?, Reddit
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Other Search
Feedback:
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SEARCHENGINES
Google Layoffs, DOJ Sues Google, Search Console Content Ideas & Google Optimize Going Away, Yahoo Search Comeback

As I mentioned briefly last week, Google announced mass layoffs last week, and I discuss what I know so far about it. There are also reports that Google is pushing advertisers to use third-party resellers and not their internal staff. The DOJ sued Google again to break up its ad business. Microsoft announced its earnings, showing how Bing’s search ad growth continues to slow. Bing also may have had a search ranking algorithm update. Google Search Console content ideas beta feature may go away in March. Google Search Console Insights has an achievements section. Google confirmed a bug with some preferred languages in Google Search, and they blame mobile-first indexing. Google Ads had an outage on Monday morning that caused huge headaches. Google has no preferences between connected structured data and not connected structured data. Google will parse the image elements even when those elements are enclosed within other elements. Google published a new case study after 18 months, this one from Vimeo on video SEO. Google said generating tons of fake URLs on a site won’t cause SEO issues. Google Business Profiles now supports cars for sale inventory for US dealerships. Bing is testing infinite scroll. Google is testing two justifications in the local results. Google is also testing a new trusted store badge. Bing has a new menu for image search that uses a drop-down and adds explore and collect. Account-level negative keywords are now available on Google Ads. Google will sunset Google Optimize on September 30th. And it seems like Yahoo Search may be making a comeback to Search – that would be exciting. And if you want to help sponsor those vlogs, go to patreon.com/barryschwartz. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.
SPONSOR: This week’s video recap is sponsored by Duda, the Professional Website Builder You Can Call Your Own.
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SEARCHENGINES
New Google Trusted Store Badge Test

Google is testing a new design for the trusted store badge in the paid shopping results. The Google Trusted Stores program to all U.S. merchants back in 2012, along with that came a badge in the search results to make those listings stand out.
FYI – here is how to qualify for this trusted store badge.
Brian Freiesleben spotted this new badge the other day and posted a screenshot on Twitter – here is that screenshot:
Curently, the badge looks more like this version from last year:
And the original one looked like this:
Brian said on Twitter, “Would love to see Google add this to organic products from trusted merchants as well, but not sure if that’s likely.”
Looks like Google is testing out a new badge for advertisers that are trusted merchants.
Would love to see Google add this to organic products from trusted merchants as well, but not sure if that’s likely 😉
Second screenshot is what appears after clicking the badge. pic.twitter.com/3lXIU9m04d
— Brian Freiesleben (@type_SEO) January 25, 2023
Forum discussion at Twitter.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Search Console Content Ideas Going Away March 28th

Last December, we caught Google testing an experimental feature named content ideas in Google Search Console. Well, yesterday, Google sent more invites to this feature but noted the feature is only available until March 28, 2023 and then it goes away.
Both Robin Dirksen on Twitter and Deepak Ness on Twitter shared screenshots of this feature but the new part is the March 28th date.
The email they received about this feature reads, “Note: This feature be available only until March 28, 2023, and only to select properties.” Then when you access the feature, there is a notice in the interface that says, “New! Get inspiration for new content (available until March 28).”
Here are those screenshots (click to enlarge):
We know this seems like the Question Hub feature and that Google Question Hub shut down this month. So maybe this content ideas feature is also shutting down but not until the end of March?
Here are more tweets with this:
Just received an email from Google Search Console about “Content ideas”
For me, it will be available till March 28 (2023) – what will happen after that is unknown (for now) pic.twitter.com/hjVtrStJXP
— Robin Dirksen (@robindirksen1) January 25, 2023
Here’s it: pic.twitter.com/thAvEgI95t
— DeepakNess (@DeepakNesss) January 25, 2023
Hmmm… This is interesting Introducing “Content ideas”: Get inspiration for new content from Google – has this been reported on yet @rustybrick ? pic.twitter.com/aUOt3sYoTJ
— @[email protected] (@ChuckPrice518) January 25, 2023
“content ideas” GSC feature (US based) company/website.@rustybrick reported it in December but looked to be exclusive to India/Pakistan.https://t.co/Pg0sQIEXAT pic.twitter.com/iGoQhfAzYe
— Nick LeRoy (@NickLeRoy) January 25, 2023
I do wonder if Google is only testing it until then and maybe will bring it to more users later or if Google is completely killing it off on March 28th?
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