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 confirmed some sort of issue with crawling Shopify websites, but said it is not really an issue and nothing for you to do about. Google may have pushed a search algorithm update this weekend again but the industry chatter simply does not yet support it. Google is showing more product rich results even for pages without product structured data. Google says only update the date on articles if they have been significantly changed or updated. Google is testing a new black bar panel in search that does not seem to function properly. And I posted another vlog for you to listen to.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Google Fixes Shopify Crawling Issue, Calling It A Temporary Drop In Calculation
  
  Last week, we saw reports that some Shopify sites were showing massive declines in crawling activity from Google’s Googlebot. John Mueller of Google responded this morning that this was “temporary drop in how we calculate how much we can crawl” adding these sites are in a “good state” and there is nothing to worry about.
• Some Google Algorithm Tracking Tools Are Reporting An Update But Results Are Mixed
  
  Over the past couple of days, some of the Google search algorithm tracking tools were reporting large swings in volatility in the search results – thus signaling a possible Google search update. But the chatter amongst the SEO industry during that time has been super quiet, showing no signs of an update.




• Google Shows More Product Rich Results For Pages Without Structured Data
  
  Starting in mid-December, Google seemed to start showing more product rich results in the search results for many snippets even if those pages did not have product structured data on them. Brodie Clark first posted about it on January 12th (which we covered in our newsletter the day after) and Lily Ray and her co-worker, and so does Glenn Gabe posted screenshots of Google Search Console’s performance report showing the uptick in mid-December.





• Google: Update Dates On Articles When You Significantly Change Existing Content
  
  Google’s John Mueller said it only makes sense to update the date on a piece of content or article when you either “write something new or significantly change something existing.” He said this on Twitter and it goes along with previous advice John has given before.
• Google Rolls Out Black Bar Knowledge Panels With Links That Don’t Work?
  
  Yesterday, Brian Freiesleben and Khushal Bherwani both noticed a new design for some of the knowledge and local panels on the mobile search results. Google is showing a more sleek black bar for some of these panels. I personally can replicate it and noticed the links within the black bar do not work.
• Vlog #158: Brian Wallace On Measuring The Success Of Infographics
  
  
  
  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…




• Massive Super G Logo Signage At New GooglePlex Office
  
  Here is Peter the Greeter on his birthday, happy birthday Peter!, standing in front of a massive super G logo sign at the new GooglePlex campus.

Other Great Search Threads:

• Fun fact: we also found that placing certain shades of green and red next to each other created an unpleasant color vibration, so we introduced a very subtle gradient to the main icon to mitigate that, making the icon more acce, Elvin on Twitter
• Making a website is no easy task! @JohnMu @g33konaut & @methode chat about Steve, their theoretical #searchengine. They discuss guidelines & practices that affect website ranking. → https://t.co/Xvd, Google Search Central on Twitter
• I am passing this on to the team. For Performance Max & SSC, one thought for now is to use a conv. value rule to set a lower value for those customers (& bid to value). That couldn, AdsLiaison on Twitter
• I don’t see the inclusion of “Googlebot” in the user-agent changing in the near future. I think we’d like to keep it directly visible, even if everything else moved to client hints., John Mueller on Twitter
• To give a less sarcastic answer, there is no word count that works best for SEO. You do not do SEO by counting words. Create something awesome for your users, regardless of the number of words., John Mueller on Twitter
• Heads-up. I’m seeing more traffic from Google Lens coinciding w/Chrome adding “Search image with Google Lens” to the contextual menu (starting with Chrome 96.0.4 on 12/13). Not a ton of traffic, but a noticeable increase on 12/, Glenn Gabe 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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