SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: March 7, 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 may have pushed out another unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update on Friday, May 4th. Google made the SafeSearch filter classification system faster. Google Cloud is having issues with getting its translated pages indexed. Google says indexing issues can be spam related but probably not adult related. Google Shopping added a filter to buy from smaller stores. Google search has revamped the search results for the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. And I posted part two of my vlog with Taylor Kurtz on the topics of AMP, Apple Search and video SEO.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On March 4th – Unconfirmed
This past Friday, March 4, 2022, I noticed that the chatter within the SEO community started to heat up and then the day later, the automated search engine tracking tools started to show volatility. There may have been a Google search ranking algorithm update on March 4th. - Google SafeSearch Filter Can Now Update Faster
Historically, the Google SafeSearch filter, i.e. the filter that weeds out adult content from the search results, was very slow in removing the SafeSearch label for a site or specific portion of the site. John Mueller of Google said this Friday that Google’s team took efforts to make this faster. - Google Cloud Translated Pages Not Indexed By Google Search
Google Cloud’s web site is having issues being indexed in Google Search, specifically the translated pages. Last week, I reported about a webmaster asking about issues with translated content not being indexed by Google. It turned out that this was someone from the Google Cloud team asking John Mueller of Google for help. - Google: Indexing Issues Can Be Old Spam Related But Likely Not Adult Content Related
Having issues with Google indexing your web pages? Google’s John Mueller said while Google may not index pages that are spammy, it will index pages that are adult oriented. John said if your domain had old spammy content on it and you took it over and removed the spam, you can still see your new page not being indexed as fast. But if the site had old adult content, you probably would not see indexing issues related to adult content. - Google Shopping Filter By “Smaller Stores”
Google Shopping has a filter to show you products sold in “smaller stores.” I believe Google announced this back during the Google Marketing Live event last year but now it seems to be live where you can filter products in Google Shopping by stores that are classified as smaller. - Google Search Results For Russian Invasion Of Ukraine
If you do a search for variations of Russia and Ukraine keywords together, Google will show you a search result page that seems to be tailored specific to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The search results not only include web results and news and videos, but it also has a section on the right for the estimated losses, photos and some more factual data around when it started and where it is taking place. - Vlog #162: Taylor Kurtz On Google AMP & Apple Search & Video SEO
Taylor Kurtz (@realtaylorkurtz) is the Founder of Crush the Rankings and he stopped by my office to talk SEO. In part one, we spoke about his background in search, the gratitude he has in the industry and getting up early to work. In part two we speak about AMP… - Scootering In The Google Washington DC Office
Here is a video I found on Instagram from the Google office in Washington D.C. where this Googler is scootering around the office. I made the video into a partial GIF, you can see the full video on In
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
Generative Summaries For Search Results

Google has a published patent named “Generative summaries for search results” which is believed to be the patent behind the Search Generative Experience launch we saw earlier this year. This patent was filed on March 20, 2023 and approved on September 26, 2023 under the patent ID US11769017B1.
Juan Gonzalez Villa posted a thread on X breaking it down, which I will embed below so you can read it.
The abstract reads:
At least selectively utilizing a large language model (LLM) in generating a natural language (NL) based summary to be rendered in response to a query. In some implementations, in generating the NL based summary additional content is processed using the LLM. The additional content is in addition to query content of the query itself and, in generating the NL based summary, can be processed using the LLM and along with the query content—or even independent of the query content. Processing the additional content can, for example, mitigate occurrences of the NL based summary including inaccuracies and/or can mitigate occurrences of the NL based summary being over-specified and/or under-specified.
Here are Juan’s posts:
Before we start: there are currently no other patents assigned to Google mentioning generative AI techniques and search.
There might be other patents on the same topic still pending, but I believe this document is highly relevant to Google SGE as it works right now. pic.twitter.com/L4Ly5Ows2c
— Juan González Villa (@seostratega) November 29, 2023
1. Receiving a query associated with a client device. The query can be explicitly entered by a user or automatically generated based on context.
2. Selecting a set of search result documents (SRDs) that are responsive to the query and related or recent queries.
— Juan González Villa (@seostratega) November 29, 2023
4. Processing the SRD content snippets using an LLM to generate LLM output. An optional summarization prompt can also be included.
5. Generating a natural language summary using the LLM output. This leverages robustness of the LLM while constraining it to the SRD content.
— Juan González Villa (@seostratega) November 29, 2023
This checks out with something stated in the document “An Overview of SGE”, made public by Google around SGE’s launch, although we didn’t have any more details.
The patent now provides plenty of detail around how and why several models are available and can be used: pic.twitter.com/U035N35Bxl
— Juan González Villa (@seostratega) November 29, 2023
3. The selection can be based on:
• Processing the query with a classifier to predict best model(s)
• Detecting certain terms in the query to indicate suitable model(s)
• Considering search result types/content to determine appropriate model(s)— Juan González Villa (@seostratega) November 29, 2023
So by dynamically selecting from multiple candidate generative models, the invention aims to optimize accuracy and efficiency by choosing the most suited model(s) for any given query.
The patent also provide some details on how the links to sources work:
— Juan González Villa (@seostratega) November 29, 2023
1. “A portion, of a visually rendered NL summary, that is supported by a first SRD can be selectable (and optionally underlined, highlighted, and/or otherwise annotated).
A selection of the portion can result in navigating to a link corresponding to the first SRD.”
— Juan González Villa (@seostratega) November 29, 2023
3. The links can be general links to the SRDs or specific anchor links to the portions that provide the verification.
4. The linkified portions can be determined based on comparing the summary content to SRD content using encoder models to identify verified portions. pic.twitter.com/zlJFFO2c6Q
— Juan González Villa (@seostratega) November 29, 2023
Here’s how confidence works, according to the patent:
1. Confidence measures can be generated for portions of the summary or for the summary as a whole.
The confidence measures are then used to determine which confidence annotation from a set of candidates should be applied.
— Juan González Villa (@seostratega) November 29, 2023
3. A textual “high confidence”, “medium confidence”, or “low confidence” annotation can be annotated for the NL based summary as a whole.
Each of the portions of the NL based summary can be annotated with a corresponding color that reflects a degree of confidence in that portion
— Juan González Villa (@seostratega) November 29, 2023
Thanks for reading so far.
Here’s the link to the patent: https://t.co/AtGMiWqzG9
Now, I’ll explain how I found out about this patent, and another interesting thing:
What Google SGE and Featured Snippets have in common… 🤓⤵
— Juan González Villa (@seostratega) November 29, 2023
According to his own career summary, he worked in SGE at Google between Nov 2022 and Sep 2023. He is now a Google Fellow, the highest rung on the ladder for Google engineers, which they reach thanks to “consistently outstanding accomplishments”. pic.twitter.com/aZmpfkajmI
— Juan González Villa (@seostratega) November 29, 2023
Their careers afterwards were very similar: they both went to Apple, where they worked in Search and Siri, and came back to Google at the end of 2022 to work in SGE.
So… how did I find the patent? I decided to look for patents by any of these two engineers and there it was. 💡 pic.twitter.com/1uUPi9myoj
— Juan González Villa (@seostratega) November 29, 2023
Their careers afterwards were very similar: they both went to Apple, where they worked in Search and Siri, and came back to Google at the end of 2022 to work in SGE.
So… how did I find the patent? I decided to look for patents by any of these two engineers and there it was. 💡 pic.twitter.com/1uUPi9myoj
— Juan González Villa (@seostratega) November 29, 2023
If you enjoyed this thread, any feedback, likes and/or RTs are appreciated.
Also, here’s a post version of this thread:https://t.co/JSt9qNcVTr
— Juan González Villa (@seostratega) November 29, 2023
Nice write up Juan!
Forum discussion at X.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility Today

I am seeing some signs of some big Google Search ranking volatility and shuffling today. The November core update just finished, so Google would say it is not the core update but the November reviews update is still rolling out. Or maybe this new ranking volatility is unrelated to any confirmed update – I don’t know.
Many of the tracking tools spike this morning, which means they are seeing some big ranking volatility this morning. I am also seeing some increased chatter within the SEO community but it is early, so it is limited.
Let’s start with the tools today.
Google Search Volatility Tracking Tools
Cognitive SEO (seems stalled):
Mozcast (normally updates later today):
So most of the tools are showing big changes in the Google Search results.
SEO Chatter
Here is the chatter I am seeing within the SEO community from this site and WebmasterWorld:
Very slow today…
Some wild Ride traffic-wise started the last hours.
I am getting bursts of traffic for a short period of time that makes the gained
traffic while the core update is running return again.
Appears like a fight of Google core algorithm and other ongoing algorithms is going on
and from time to time, some algorithm fires and activates and takes over
and returns the traffic, while other times, another algorithm takes control and smashes the traffic back to low and renders the Google core algorithm useless.
It’s heavy volatile.
and just as the update finished, the results are shuffled again. It’s so disgusting at this point.
I feel like the “December” update has already begun…
Our UK traffic and conversions plummeted within hours of the update finishing.
Yeah we took a big downturn last week, but thought it was Google Manipulation for Black Friday.
But since the update finished, it feels like our sites are offline, especially today.
What are you all seeing?
Is this the end of the reviews update or something new?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
SEARCHENGINES
Google November 2023 Core Update Fully Rolled Out

After just under 26 days, the Google November 2023 core update is finally done rolling out. It took almost two weeks longer to roll out than the average core update and rolled out during the huge shopping days on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, also overlapping the November 2023 reviews update. So it was a big deal.
Google posted the update was done at 11:32 am ET on November 28, 2023, after it started rolling out on November 2, 2023 at 3:09 PM ET.
This is the longest documented core update rollout, the previous longest core update rollout went to the August 2023 core update took 16 days, this one was 10 days longer. It wasn’t as long as most SEOs thought it would take, but it was the longest rollout of a core update. It was not the longest update in general, the December 2022 helpful content update took 38 days to roll out but it was the longest core update roll out in history.
As a reminder, the October 2023 core update started on October 5, 2023 and completed on October 19, 2023, completing two weeks prior to this November core update rolled out.
Here are the posts on the release times:
The roll-out of the November core update is now complete.https://t.co/geIJA2Bg8g
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) November 28, 2023
Documented Volatility For November 2023 Core Update
This update kicked off quickly and was super volatile early on. The chatter within the SEO community was pretty heated throughout – even during the Thanksgiving holiday break. The tools themselves seemed to calm down, even with the reviews update rolling out the following week.
There was some additional chatter in the past 24 hours about massive volatility but the tools are not picking that up and the chatter was not that insane.
The tools themselves shows volatility from November 2nd through November 17th or so. More on that later.
Google November 2023 Core Update Quick Facts:
Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:
- Name: Google November 2023 Broad Core Update
- Launched: November 2, 2023 at around 3 pm ET
- Rollout: Finished on November 28, 2023 at around 11:30 am ET
- Targets: It looks at all types of content
- Penalty: It is not a penalty, it promotes or rewards great web pages
- Global: This is a global update impacting all regions, in all languages.
- Impact: Google would not tell me what percentage of queries or searches were impacted by this update but so far, this seems to be a typical core update that reaches wide and the impact is fast.
- Discover: Core updates impact Google Discover and other features, also feature snippets and more.
- Recover: If you were hit by this, then you will need to look at your content and see if you can do better with Google’s core update advice.
- Refreshes: Google will do periodic refreshes to this algorithm but may not communicate those updates in the future. Maybe this is what we saw the past couple of weeks or all those unconfirmed Google updates.
Overlapping Updates: November Core & November Reviews Updates
Unlike with the October core update, we had the October 2023 spam update roll out, where Google said if you are not spamming then you weren’t hit by the spam update, you were hit by the core update.
With a reviews update and a core update, that is a bit harder for Google to say. They are similar updates that can impact similar sites. So there was for sure some confusion between the two. It would be hard to know for sure if your site was hit by the November core update versus the November reviews update unless your site got hit in the first batch of the core update volatility before the reviews update touched down.
Google Tracking Tools On November 2023 Core Update:
Here is what the tools showed over the past month or so with this core and reviews update rollout:
Cognitive SEO (seems stalled):
Previous Broad Core Updates
Here is a list of the most recent core updates we’ve seen since Google started to confirm them. Previously we nicknamed them Phantom updates or unconfirmed updates.
- November 2023 Core Update: November 2, 2023 through November 28, 2023
- October 2023 Core Update: October 5, 2023 through October 19, 2023
- August 2023 Core Update: August 22, 2023 through September 7, 2023
- March 2023 Core Update: March 15, 2023 through March 28, 2023
- September 2022 Core Update: September 12, 2022 through September 26, 2022
- May 2022 Core Update: May 25, 2022 through June 9, 2022
- November 2021 Core Update: November 17, 2021 through November 30, 2021
- July 2021 Core Update: July 1, 2021 through July 12, 2021
- June 2021 Core Update: June 2, 2021 through June 12, 2021
- December 2020 Core Update: December 3, 2020 through December 16, 2020
- May 2020 Core Update: May 4, 2020 through May 18, 2020
- January 2020 Core Update: January 13, 2020 through mostly January 17, 2020
- September 2019 Core Update: September 24, 2019
- Google June 2019 Core Update: June 3, 2019 through June 8, 2019
How did you all do? Hope it wasn’t too bad?
Forum discussion at X and WebmasterWorld.
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