SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 18, 2023
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 Posts insights analytics is no longer; it is gone. Google Search is testing related products as a standalone section. Google says having a website with the same name as another is okay with them (but you may have legal issues with that). Google is testing round map pins with photos.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Google: Google Quality Updates Can Impact Crawling & Indexing
Google’s John Mueller said again that its quality updates, like core updates and the others in the family, can not just impact the ranking of a page in Google Search but also how Google crawls and if Google decides to index that page. - Google: Having A Website With The Same Name As Another Site Is Fine For Search
Google’s John Mueller was asked about if it is okay with Google Search to have a website with the same name as another site on the internet. John said he could not give legal advice around copyright issues but he said when it comes to Google Search and SEO, it is fine. - Google Discontinues Google Posts Insights
Google Posts insights is no longer working, it has been discontinued according to the Google Business Profiles API documentation for the deprecation schedule. - Google Search “Related Products”
Google has a “related products” section in its search results. This seems similar to the similar products concept, but it looks like the other query expansion options for Google Search results. - Google Maps Tests Business Photo In Round Map Pin
Google is testing displaying a round map pin that has a business photo in the pin itself. This is supposedly working on some Google Maps devices when you request directions. - Singapore Google Product Expert Summit
Here is a photo the Google Search Central team shard on Twitter about a month ago of Daniel Waisberg and some Google product experts, including Kenichi Suzuki, smiling at the event.
Other Great Search Threads:
- December 2022 Update, What if I Change to a Subdomain?, WebmasterWorld
- Google Warns Over “Any Method” Used to Auto Generate Lots of Content For Rankings, WebmasterWorld
- People do it different ways, it … depends on your situation. I’d check out the documentation we have for international sites, I think we mention the variations there., John Mueller on Twitter
- Unfortunately, I think you’ll find that there is no such thing as objective, “pure”, exact data when it comes to the Internet, especially once you compare different source, John Mueller on Twitter
- Are you adding datestamps to your URLs? That can make the number of URLs increase dramatically, and will make it significantly harder to crawl & index your content (and to recognize when things change)., John Mueller on Twitter
- I don’t think there’s a particular reason, but I also struggle to understand how it’s useful to have. Wouldn’t things like keyword planner be more relevant, since sites usually focus more on their target audience?, John Mueller on Mastodon
- I’d look into the difference between lab and field data – there’s a lot of information on that on https://t.co/gfDl8FXFlW, including ways you can measure it on your own., John Mueller on Twitter
- I’m hanging out with the Google Search Console team for a few days. What’s on your mind that you’d like to see in Search Console, or see more of there?, 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:
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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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