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 released a document that shares that the decade old DMCA / Pirate update can reduce traffic to a site on average by 89% and Google made some improvements to it around redirects. Google said the URL inspection tool referring page is not an important piece of information. Google Shopping added short title attributes. Google Shopping search seems not to use exclusion words. Microsoft Bing is testing colorized search ads and organic results.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Google Strengthens The Pirate (DMCA) Penalty Algorithm
  
  Google sent a document to the U.S. Copyright Office that explains how Google’s DMCA update (aka the Pirate update) has been strengthened by (1) catching redirect schemes and (2) a site hit by this demotion on average sees a 89% drop in Google search traffic.




• Google: URL Inspection Tool Referring Page Not Really Important
  
  Google’s John Mueller said the URLs listed in the “referring page” section of the URL Inspection Tool is not really important. It is just a technical thing showing which URL(s) Google first discovered the page. It has not quality indication and not something to be concerned with, according to John.
• Google Shopping Adds Short Title Attribute
  
  Google Merchant Center has added support to Google shopping feeds for a short title attribute. You can use the short title [short_title] attribute to briefly and clearly identify the product you’re selling, Google said.
• Google Shopping Search Might Not Support Excluding Keywords
  
  Google Search has long supported excluding words from your search by adding a minus sign before the word in the search box. But there are numerous complaints that this does not work in Google’s Shopping search results.
• Bing Colorized Backgrounds For Search Ads & More
  
  Microsoft is testing or rolling out colorized background patterns for search ads, shopping search ads. Frank Sandtmann, a German based SEO, notified me of this, he saw it in the Bing Image search results but I see them in the main Bing web search results.




• Google Chrome T-Rex Dinosaur Beanie Winter Hat
  
  Who doesn’t love the Chrome T-Rex dinosaur game? Well, now you can get it on a Google beanie winter hat, if you can find it. This was some swag shared on Twitter the other day.

Other Great Search Threads:

• I’m starting to believe the only people who count words are teachers and SEOs. Search engines definitely don’t count words., John Mueller on Twitter
• A MEGA video segment from @johnmu about how, and why, crawling could be impacted. Covers server issues, crawl rate, response time, Core Web Vitals, moving to a new CDN or hosting provider, specifying a crawl rate in GSC, repor, Glenn Gabe on Twitter
• Don’t get hung up on the / vs non-/, just think of it as a redirected URL getting another address. Ideally redirect directly to the final location from any URL that’s getting traffic (and update your links). Don’, John Mueller on Twitter
• So here are some nuggets for you. For $200k we sponsored: – 72 videos – 108 podcast episodes – 138 newsletter issues – 11 standalone projects and events – 9 blog articles – 7 SMM campaigns Total unique partnerships signed: 60, Tim Soulo on Twitter
• Sucks to be Wired with this broken mobile SERP listing I’m seeing. Their listing is completely botched (and I checked across devices, in Chrome and Safari). Query was “bluetooth speaker”. Just sent feedback via Chrome. https://t.co, Glenn Gabe on Twitter
• There was a Google Merchant Center feed issue that was resolved this morning, Barry Schwartz on Twitter

Search Engine Land Stories:

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

Industry & Business

Links & Content Marketing

Local & Maps

Mobile & Voice

SEO

PPC

Search Features

Feedback:

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