SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 6, 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’s crawl stats report does not show where Googlebot is crawling from. Core web vitals do not influence Google Discover visibility. Microsoft Bing is testing animated zoomable sitelinks. Google Business Profiles is reportedly sending out fewer postcard verifications. Google spoke about using ChatGPT AI for title tag generation. And I posted my weekly SEO video recap – check it out and subscribe.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Still Rolling Out Updates, Start & End Dates Are Confusing, Bing To Add ChatGPT, SEO Is Bad & More
Welcome to the first video recap of 2023, where I start with the January 2023 Google webmaster report. I then explain how the Google helpful content and link spam updates are still rolling out and, more so, still causing volatility… - Google Crawl Stats Report Doesn’t Show Location Of Googlebot Crawl
As you know, Google can now crawl from locations outside of the United States. We know this is rare, it is used in specific situations. But if you want to know if Google is crawling your site from outside of the US, then you need to check your log files. - Google’s John Mueller On Using AI & ChatGPT For Title Tag Ideas
Google’s John Mueller said on Mastodon that using AI or ChatGPT blindly for title tag generation is not a great idea. But he did add that if you are running out of ideas and need some inspiration, you can leverage the tools for some ideas. - Report: Google Business Profiles Offering Fewer Postcard Verifications
There are reports in the Local Search Forum that in the past few weeks or so, Google has been offering fewer verification methods via postcards than other verification methods, compared to the past. - Microsoft Bing Tests Zoomable Sitelinks
Microsoft Bing is at it again, this time testing a sitelink interface that zooms in and expands as you hover your mouse cursor over the link. It is pretty cool to see this zoomable sitelink interface. - Google: Core Web Vitals Not A Google Discover Requirement
Do you need outstanding core web vital scores to be included in Google Discover? The answer is no, at least John Mueller of Google said “we don’t have that connection documented anywhere.” - Google Striped Socks
I am not a big sock person, just ask Mordy or Jason, but the stripes make this sock. Here is some Google swag that includes these fashionable Google colored stripes on them.
Other Great Search Threads:
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Other Search
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.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
SEARCHENGINES
Google Cotton Candy Machine

Here is a cotton candy machine that was at the Google office for a YouTube Live event a few months back. I don’t think this machine lives there, I suspect Google rented it for the event, but I am not sure.
We did see some Googlers eating cotton candy a year ago… Just saying…
This was posted on Instagram.
This post is part of our daily Search Photo of the Day column, where we find fun and interesting photos related to the search industry and share them with our readers.
SEARCHENGINES
SEOs Trust YMYL Content Less If It Is AI-Generated

Lily Ray ran a Twitter poll asking SEOs if they trust content in the YMYL, your money or your life, category more, less or the same if it was written by AI. The vast majority of responses said they trust AI-generated content less than human-generated content.
Lily asked, “If a site offering Your Money, Your Life information/advice (health, finance, etc) indicates that the content was partially written using AI, does this make you trust the content:”
About 74% of the over 1,000 votes said AI-generated content would be trusted less, 22% said there is no difference – they would trust it the same and 4% said it would be trusted more.
Here is the poll with the “See answers” option:
I know itโs hard not to be biased as an SEO professional, but try anyway. ๐
If a site offering Your Money, Your Life information/advice (health, finance, etc) indicates that the content was partially written using AI, does this make you trust the content:
โ Lily Ray ๐ (@lilyraynyc) January 15, 2023
Forum discussion at Twitter.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Ads Now Supports Account-Level Negative Keywords

We knew it was coming, Google Ads now supports negative keywords for brand safety at the account level. Google has just added account-level negative keywords to Google Ads and the PPC community is happy about it.
I spotted this first via Melissa Mackey on Twitter who credits @NilsRooijmanSEA with the find on LinkedIn. Melissa wrote, “Account-level negative keywords are here! This is big.”
The Google help document on negative keywords has a new section that reads, “Account-level negative keywords.”
When you create your account-level list of negative keywords, it will automatically apply to all search and shopping inventory in relevant campaign types. This allows you to create a single, global, account-level list that applies negative keywords across all relevant inventory in your account.
You can create a single, account-level list of negative keywords in your Google Ads account settings. In your โAccount Settings,โ youโll find the โNegative keywordsโ section. When you click on this section, you can begin creating your negative keywords list.
You can create your list by defining which search terms are considered negative for your brand. You can then enter this all at once in the โNegative keywordsโ section of your โAccount Settingsโ in your Google Ads account. You can also specify whether you want to exclude these based on broad, exact, or phrase match. A limit of 1,000 negative keywords can be excluded for each account. Learn more about account-level negative keywords.
Here is a screenshot of this setting, where Nils Rooijmans explained, “Google is rolling out this feature in most of my accounts right now.”
11 months ago, Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison said, Ginny Marvin responded to this saying “There are no current plans for a keyword tab in PMax. There are, however, plans to support negative keywords for brand safety at the account level.”
And now we got them.
Yay!!! pic.twitter.com/9uzIERjaY9
โ dan richardson (@njsdanrich) January 26, 2023
Bit more history:
Ginny mentioned the beta would start 6 months ago fwiw. Longish cycle from planning -> beta -> release https://t.co/eeUnFPjspr
It was spotted on Google’s roadmaps for Q4, seems to have been delayed a touch
โ Mike Ryan (@mikeryanretail) January 27, 2023
And some reaction on this:
The people asked for Performance Max negative keywords. We got account-level instead.
We typically want to exclude keywords from SOME campaigns, not ALL (for branded queries).
โ ๐ผ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฐ๐๐ (@MenachemAni) January 27, 2023
Donโt get me wrong, there is definitely utility in account-level negative keywords.
Just not what we were hoping for as it relates to PMX.
โ ๐ผ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฐ๐๐ (@MenachemAni) January 27, 2023
Forum discussion at Twitter and LinkedIn.
Update: The Google Ads Liaison has now posted about this on Twitter:
1/3 Some have noticed Account level negative keywords are starting to roll out globally. From Account Settings, you can add keywords to exclude traffic from all Search and Shopping campaigns, and the Search and Shopping portion of PMax for brand safety: https://t.co/B0VBApPVCm
โ AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) January 27, 2023
3/3 And a reminder of existing brand suitability controls include inventory types, digital content labels, placement exclusions and negative keywords at the campaign level.
โ AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) January 27, 2023
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