SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: June 24, 2024
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 Business Profiles is testing using AI Overviews for local panel business descriptions. Google added carousel beta guidance on how to makeup multiple pages on category pages. Google spoke on when you should fix 404s and when you should not. Google Ads to bring Automatically Created Assets to the ad level. Google Perspectives is showing Instagram posts.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
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Google Using AI Overviews On Business Profiles Local Listings
Google is now using AI Overviews to write descriptions for the local panels shown in Google Search on Google Business Profiles. This is weird because Google Business Profiles lets you use AI to write business descriptions if you want to (at least they tested this). -
Google: When You Should Fix Pages 404 Status Codes
Google has always said that having pages that serve a 404 status code is normal; most sites have them, and when a page does not exist on your site, and someone tries to access it, a 404 is the proper response. But Gary Illyes from Google is now sharing some cases when you should fix pages returning a 404 status code. -
Google Ads To Bring Automatically Created Assets To Ad Level?
There are reports that a change is coming to Google Ads ACA, Automatically Created Assets, that will bring this feature to the ad level. Anthony Higman said on X, “they are now adding them in at the ad level, to “fill the gaps in RSA’s” and they will be using generative AI to do it.” -
Google Perspectives Can Show Instagram Posts
Google is now showing Instagram posts within its Perspectives feature in the Google Search results. This started a week ago or so, and I received a number of posts about this since. -
Google Structured Data Carousel Guidance On How To Markup Multiple Items On Category Pages
Google has added a new bullet point in the structured data carousels (beta) help documentation around how to mark up categories with many items with that structured data. This is based on examples pages such as paginated content or infinite scroll. -
Google Red Fiat Car & Street Sign At WordCamp Booth
Google had a booth at the WordCamp conference a couple of weeks ago and Danny Sullivan sat at the booth answering Search questions. He snapped this photo of the red Beetle car and Google street sign at that booth and shared it on X.
Other Great Search Threads:
- Google clarified the product level return policy markup takes precedents over the organization level return policy (no surprise there) story updated at, Barry Schwartz on X
- Hi Anu, More details from the HC article linked above: Starting the week of July 1, 2024: You will not have access to any current or historical Universal Analytics data and most users will lose access t, (19) AdsLiaison on X
- Regarding the June spam update, this might be the first drop I’m seeing, but could be unrelated (and a manual action instead). Huge drop after increasing since the March core update started rolling out. Sistrix shows the drop as yes, Glenn Gabe on X
- Should I Validate my Fixes on Search Console?, Reddit
- Shopify rolled out AI tools for merchants in 2023, but that doesn’t mean merchants will use them correctly. 🙂 Here’s the snippet for this ecommerce site’s homepage. I wonder how many people are seeing that description and wondering, Glenn Gabe on X
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:
Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.
SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: September 26, 2024
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 Search ranking volatility remains heated but it spiked more again in the past 24-hours. Google updated its web search spam policies. Google AI Overviews don’t really show up for branded queries, but they may in some rare cases. Google Search has this recently viewed movies activity card. Google Search tests “states in the news” and “backstory” top stories sections in Google Search.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
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Google Search Ranking Movement Heated, Volatility Continues 9/25
Google Search still has not calmed its ranking shifts, volatility and movement. The search results remain incredibly volatile with rankings and traffic changing again in a big way over the past day or so. I know I sound like a broken record but even some of the tools are adjusting their volatility thresholds to counter the new higher volatility in the search results. -
Google Updates Web Search Spam Policies
Google has refreshed and updated its web search policies documentation. The big change is Google added more language around the site reputation abuse policy, while expanding, simplifying and clarifying other sections of its search policies. -
Google AI Overviews For Branded & Navigational Queries???
Google AI Overviews generally do not show up for branded or navigational queries. So if you are searching for a brand or company, generally, Google has not shown an AI Overview. -
Google Recently Viewed Movies Activity Card
Google now can show movies you recently viewed as an “activity card.” I am not sure if this is based on a movie you actually went to see in the theatres, watched online or just based on you clicking on movie listings within Google Search. -
Google Search: States In The News
Google Search has this newish news or top stories carousel format that Google titled “States in the news.” It shows you news or top stories from news publishers related to the query by U.S. state. -
Google Search Backstory Top Stories Section
Google Search has this news or top stories section titled “Backstory.” It comes up from political queries, maybe other news queries. -
Sundar Pichai’s Google Soccer Jersey
Here is a photo from that event where Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, was kicking a soccer ball. This photo shows him holding a custom made Google soccer jersey.
Other Great Search Threads:
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
- Early sign-ups to EU’s AI Pact include Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI — but Apple and Meta are missing, TechCrunch
- Exclusive: OpenAI to remove non-profit control and give Sam Altman equity, sources say, Reuters
- Google CEO Sundar Pichai Says Antitrust Trials Could Drag On for Many Years, Bloomberg
- Google files Brussels complaint against Microsoft cloud business, Financial Times (Sub)
- OpenAI CTO Mira Murati announces she’s leaving the company, CNBC
- OpenAI’s chief research officer has left, TechCrunch
- The AI platform shift and the opportunity ahead, Google Blog
- Why Mark Zuckerberg thinks AR glasses will replace your phone, The Verge
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Search Features
Other Search
Feedback:
Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Noindex Bug With JavaScript Pages
Google is reportedly working on fixing a bug with not being able to properly respond to a noindex directive on some JavaScript generated pages. This is happening for some React apps using Single Page Applications (SPAs) that have the noindex directive on them but Google is not picking it up and thus indexing pages that should not be indexed.
This issue was spotted by Mark Williams-Cook, the Director at Candour and Founder of AlsoAsked, a popular SEO tool. He posted about the issue on LinkedIn and said, “Here’s a screenshot of over 9,000 “noindex” pages being indexed. Adding ‘noindex’ via JS can be a solution, but it’s absolutely not reliable.”
Here is that screenshot from Google Search Console’s indexing report:
He later shared that Google is now aware of the issue and is working on fixing it. “I spoke to Googlers about this and it is a bug they are working on fixing,” he wrote.
Mark went on to explain that this is an example of a React app that has a meta “noindex” added via JavaScript, but the pages are nevertheless getting indexed.
Martin Splitt from Google did speak in the past about noindex meta and JavaScript pages and sometimes, Google does have a hard to processing them. But these days, Google shouldn’t be challenged by them. I guess in this case, Google was?
Again, I suspect in this case, Google fetched and rendered the page prior to the JavaScript executing the noindex meta data. So Googlebot didn’t see the noindex directive yet. This can happen, it is rare, but this can happen and obviously did happen. Google has warned about this before, including using JavaScript to generate structured data in some cases.
Mark’s solution was to use CloudFlare to serve the noindex directive prior to the JavaScript executing its own meta data (which is served in the HTTP header), but that was only after he found out Google was not picking up on the first solution he had. Mark wrote, “With some Single Page Applications (SPAs), it can be difficult to have control over what is shown before the JS is executed. In this instance, I managed to get the pages to set a “noindex” before JS was rendered by using Cloudflare Transform rules.”
So if you noticed this issue as well, hopefully Google will patch it up and if not, look for an alternative solution – like Mark did.
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Site Command For Image Search Not Fully Working?
It seems that Google made a change, intentionally or unintentionally, to the site command within Google Image Search. When you do a basic site command, without appending keywords to the query, then Google will return no image results.
Here is a screenshot:
I spotted this via Kunjal Chawhan on X over the weekend and pined Google about it but I did not hear back as of yet.
I did notice that when you append a query to the end of the site command, it does return results:
I suspect this is a bug but what do I know…
Forum discussion at X.
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