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Daily Search Forum Recap: March 18, 2022
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 won’t be making Google Analytics 4 a search ranking boost. Google said migrating a domain to a new domain, when the original domain has quality issues, will result in the new domain having quality issues in Google Search. Google may bring back SMS messaging in Google Business Profiles. Google is testing “on these lists” in the local panels. Google launched full panel movie reviews. Plus, I posted the weekly search video recap on YouTube and your favorite podcast player.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Quality: Site With Quality Issues Switched Domains, Saw Temporary Google Ranking Boost & Dropped Again
On last Friday’s hangout with Google’s John Mueller, Ankit Dalal, an SEO, asked about a site he is working on and what the issue it has with rankings. In short, the site was not ranking well, so they migrated the site to a new domain and the rankings climbed for a three-day period, then after that, the rankings went back down to where the original domain was ranking. - Google: Google Analytics 4 Won’t Be A Search Ranking Boost
Sometimes when Google wants to encourage site owners to take action, they might give us a ranking boost for implementing it. They did it for HTTPS, mobile friendly design, page experience and many more. But when it comes to encouraging folks to switching to Google Analytics 4, Google’s John Mueller said there won’t be any ranking boost in doing so. - SMS Messaging Support Returns To Google Business Profiles?
When Google first launched messaging within Google Business Profiles (formerly Google My Business), it was done through SMS, text messaging. Then Google removed the SMS portion and just added it to both the mobile app and the web interface. Now, Google might be bringing it back as SMS messaging. - Google Tests On These Lists In Local Listing
Google seems to be testing a feature in a local listing for a venue that says which lists, if any, these venues are on. Often you see websites that have lists of topics like, ten best places to take your kids in a specific location and things like that. Well, now those might show up in the local panel under a section named “on these lists.” - Google Search Movie Reviews Panel Goes Full Width
Rajan Patel, the VP of Engineering at Google, confirmed with me that Google has rolled out full width movie reviews. So when you search for a movie name and add on “review” to your query, Google will show a full width review panel in web search. - Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Algorithm Weirdness, Google Analytics 3 Going Away, Google Local Review Bugs & More
This week, I covered a possible Google update that ticked off a week ago, but it was weird, the tools didn’t pick up on it. Google announced it is sunsetting Google Analytics Universal Analytics in 2023 and you will need to start using Google Analytics 4… - New Mysterious Google Product Found On Swag
Satyajeet Salgar, Director, Product Management at YouTube and Google, shared a photo of a new piece of swag that was on his desk at Google. He said he is not sure what this logo is but it is a new pro
Other Great Search Threads:
- I don’t know. I suspect you can find anecdotes either way there, but it’s not by design. It’s not that we’d say “do X in title, Y in h1, and Z in h2” — we try to work with the pages as they come. Anecdotes can st, John Mueller on Twitter
- I’m not a fan of forced migrations (you know who else needs to migrate to GA4? Search Console)… sometimes the product team needs to make tough decisions. It’s annoying, but a part of the cost of, John Mueller on Twitter
- Just another reminder that if you publish how-to content, spend the extra 10 minutes & add how-to markup. You can’t beat the SERP treatment w/a carousel of images for each step that link directly to that step in your post. On, Glenn Gabe on Twitter
- Thoughts on this test? Favicons ranging in different sizing on mobile (note the change for @sengineland) + repeating the domain name, including a variation using bolding. Variation #2 was first spotted last month, but looks like, Brodie Clark on Twitter
- After 16 years, you’ve probably seen ups & downs, plus updates that you didn’t consider to be “up” dates. Things change, and sometimes they don’t change in the way you want them to change., John Mueller on Twitter
- Today’s ridiculous crawling issue. Yandex and Bing both spidering tons of URLs with random ved= parameters. Not sure where these are originating. Anyone else seeing this kind of behavior?, Joost de Valk on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
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.
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February 4th Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update

There may have been another unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update – this one also on the weekend, around February 4th, maybe kicking off on February 3rd. I am seeing signs from both chatter within the SEO community, and also, some of the tools are showing big swings around February 4th.
The previous updates we reported about was an unconfirmed update around January 26th, then on January 18th, then January 14th – you can see the full list over here.
SEO Chatter
Let’s start by looking at some of the chatter within the SEO community. There is chatter both at WebmasterWorld and here in the comments areas:
Global site traffic continued firm all day Thursday for me and ended at 140.3%. Today has started ok for a Friday.
Seeing some sharp increase in traffic as well. Tech based sites are performing really well. Around 40% increase overall. Although a good share of Chinese bot like traffic is also present.
So, my site got a lovely boost a couple of weeks ago. Keywords I hadn’t ranked for in years plus some I had never ranked for particularly well were appearing. Two weeks later and google have yanked the rug out from under me again. A keywod I was on page 1 for is now bottom of page 4. Another that I was page 1 for – page 8 now.
I’m seeing ranking hold relatively steady, but traffic has been much worse this week. The previous two weeks were unusually high though. Yesterday search was down 17% and the day before that it was flat, but traffic to my home page has dropped considerably again. Most of the decline is USA traffic
Feels like Google released another update on Saturday 4th, no?
I noticed big changes on all my websites around 4 pm GMT onwards.
Massive volatility spotted. Seeing crazy fluctuations in rankings too.
Maybe a G Update is just around the corner?
Got hammered yesterday – almost as bad as any core update.
The fluctuation that started 24-36 hours ago is increasing gradually.
Traffic was up this morning, up until 6am UK time, then zero traffic for 4 hours. 4 hours?? How is that even possible if throttling isn’t the case?
All this chatter was between February 3rd and February 5th.
Google Tracking Tools
Here are what the tracking tool are showing:
Have you seen any big swings in rankings or traffic with your site since the weekend?
Here’s the product review site that surged on 1/26 like others I saw. It reversed on 2/3… The other I shared remains up. Again, whatever Google is pushing is impacting some product review sites heavily. It’s like they creep in/out of the gray area for a short time & surge/drop: pic.twitter.com/nUd6M0JgGc
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) February 6, 2023
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Jeff Ferguson On Issues With SEO Studies & Ranking Factor Studies

In part one, we go through Jeff Ferguson’s long history in search marketing. In part two, we pick up with him starting his own agency. Then in part three we talk about the state of SEO studies.
In short, he goes off on his rant on SEO studies done on ranking factors and other areas. In short, he was not a fan of those studies and he wrote a lot about how they were done wrong. He wasn’t saying the intent was wrong, the companies that made these studies really wanted to help. But doing ranking factor studies are just too hard and really hard to prove.
Of course, it ruffled a lot of feathers in the SEO community. But he goes through more on why he did what he did and what he wanted to get out of it.
You can learn more about Jeff Ferguson at Amplitude Digital and follow him on Twitter @CountXero.
You can subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking here so you don’t miss the next vlog where I interviews. I do have a nice lineup of interviews scheduled with SEOs and SEMS, many of which you don’t want to miss – and I promise to continue to make these vlogs better over time. If you want to be interviewed, please fill out this form with your details.
Forum discussion at YouTube.
SEARCHENGINES
Apple Maps Street View Camera Backpack

Here is a photo of some guy walking around Israel with an Apple Maps street view backpack. It was captured by Hillel Fuld the other day and posted on Twitter.
Google has its own street view backpack, which is more impressive to look at.
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.
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