SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: March 4, 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.
The Google page experience update for desktop is now fully live but it didn’t seem to impact rankings, as expected. Google said it has ways to verify that the Google Shopping merchant experience scorecard metrics are legit and if they are faked, those merchants will be penalized. Google temporarily paused as from serving in Russia. Google may one day crawl from outside of the US, maybe. Google does not have a demo account for Search Console. Plus, I posted the weekly video recap.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Google Page Experience Update For Desktop Done Rolling Out
That is a wrap – the Google page experience update for desktop is now fully rolled out – as of yesterday, March 3rd. If you are counting, that is a 9-day roll out, which began on February 22nd and ended on March 3rd. - Google: We Mechanisms To Verify Merchant Experience Scorecard Metrics
A couple of weeks ago we reported that Google has a new set of ranking factors specific to the Google Shopping tab named the Shopping experience scorecard program. The concern was that merchants are asked to feed these metrics to Google and that the merchants will only feed positive scores, potentially manipulating the metrics and thus their rankings. - Google Temporarily Pauses All Ads In Serving In Russia
Last night Google announced it is temporarily pausing Google ads from serving to users located in Russia. This is due to the “ongoing war in Ukraine” according to the Google statement. - Google: Googlebot May One Day Crawl From Outside The U.S.
The other day I reported again how blocking US based users would require you to also block Googlebot, Google’s crawler. And that would be devastating to a site’s search rankings in Google. But John Mueller of Google said it is not out of the question that Google one day may decide to crawl from outside of the US. - There Is No Google Search Console Demo Account
Some folks are asking why there isn’t a demo account for Google Search Console like there is for Google Analytics. John Mueller said Daniel Waisberg and the Google Search Console team looked into it but it is “super hard, and requires constant maintenance.” That is why they have not done it yet. - Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Page Experience Desktop Update Live, Search Console Errors, IndexNow Growing, Local Map Interactive & Ads Paused In Russia
This week in search, I reported how the Google page experience update for desktop has been fully rolled out. I also posted my monthly Google webmaster recap… - Anton Shulke In Kyiv Making Bandages Out Of Bedding
Many of you may know the loved Anton Shulke from the SEM industry. Well, he is based in Kyiv, the capital city of Ukraine, and he decided to stick it out during this invasion. He is sharing a number
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.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Hanukkah Decorations Are Live For 2023

Hanukkah (aka Chanukah) starts this coming Thursday night, December 7th. Google has added its Hanukkah decorations to the Google Search results interface to celebrate. Google does this every year and I expect to see the same rollout in the coming weeks for Christmas and Kawanzaa but for now, since Chanukah is in the coming days, we have the Hanukkah decorations live at Google Search.
Here is a screenshot of the Chanukah decorations as they look like on the mobile search results.
You can see it yourself by searching on Google for [chanukah], [hanukkah], but not yet [חֲנוּכָּה] or other spelling variations yet but it should soon. It looks better on mobile than it does on desktop results.
To see the past, the 2023 decorations, 2021 decorations, 2020 Chanukah decorations, 2019 Google holiday decorations, the 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and so on.
Happy Chanukah, everyone!
Forum discussion at X.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Pay Accepted Icons In Google Search Results

Google seems to be testing a Google Pay Accepted label or icon in the Google search results. This label has the super G logo followed by the words “Pay accepted” words next to search result snippets that support Google Pay and notate such in their structured data.
This was first spotted by Khushal Bherwani who shared some screenshots of this on X – here is one:
Here are some more screenshots:
Here is test and without test window for same query. pic.twitter.com/n9cYWBOsro
— Khushal Bherwani (@b4k_khushal) October 20, 2023
Brodie Clark also posted some screenshots after on X:
In continuation from the test from October, Google is now testing out a new Google Pay label associated with organic results. Last month, Google was testing Pay Accepted text, with this month changing it to Pay encrypted checkout. More details: https://t.co/MvFNoPmMDR pic.twitter.com/WDVVc4RbTO
— SERPs Up 🌊 (@SERPalerts) November 30, 2023
I tried to replicate this but I came up short.
This is not the first time Google had similar icons like this in its search results.
Forum discussion at X.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Discover Showing Older Content Since Follow Feature Arrived

Typically, Google Discover shows content that is less than a day old, but it can show content that is weeks, months, or even years old. However, typically, Google will show more recent content in the Discover feed. Well, that may have changed with the new Google follow feature.
Glenn Gabe, who is a very active Google Discover user, noticed that since the Follow feature rolled out, he has been seeing content that is weeks and months old way more often than before the follow feature rolled out. Glenn wrote on X that “this could also be playing a role. i.e. Google isn’t providing as much recent content, but instead, focusing on providing targeted content based on the topics you are following.”
It makes sense that if you follow a specific topic and if Google Discover only shows the most authoritative types of content, it might be hard for Google to find new content on that topic. So it does make sense that Google may show older content more often for that specific topic you follow.
Here are screenshots Glenn shared:
Have you noticed this in your Discover feed?
Forum discussion at X.
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