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Daily Search Forum Recap: May 14, 2024

Published

2 months ago

May 14, 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 I/O was today, will have a number of stories tomorrow covering the search announcements including AI Overviews going live. Google confirmed it did massive deindexing last February. Google said “buckle up” 6 months ago, claiming a lot of search quality issues would be resolved. Now, Google is saying it has more to work on and took in the feedback. Google may resurface the idea of an automated action viewer to see if an algorithm is negatively impacting the site. Google teased a video Gemini assistant feature 40 minutes before the OpenAI announcement. Google Ads suspended account limitation changes are coming soon.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google Search Confirms Deindexing Vast Amounts Of URLs In February 2024

Gary Illyes from Google confirmed that Google has “suddenly” dedindexed a “vast amount of URLs” from the Google Search index this past February. He said this was done because Google’s “perception of the site has changed.”

Google’s Buckle Up Comment On Search 6 Months Later

Six months ago, I covered the famous (non) “buckle up” comments about the changes coming to Google Search over the next several months. Well, Andy Simpson posted a recording of Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, who said these comments and I thought it would be good to listen to them now – 6 months later.

Google: We Read Your Feedback On Search Quality & Changes To Come

Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, said yesterday on X that he has read the feedback from the community related to the March 2024 core update and the general feedback about search quality over the past few months. He said there are places where Google can do better, but it won’t happen overnight.

Google Automated Action Viewer In Search Console Might Happen?

For over a decade now, I’ve been talking about Google adding an automated action viewer to Google Search Console to accompany the manual action viewer. This would provide a way to see if a Google Search ranking algorithm negatively impacts your site’s performance.

Google Tried To Steal OpenAI’s Thunder 45 Minutes Prior To OpenAI’s GPT-4o Announcement

About 45 minutes before OpenAI’s announcement of GPT-4o, Google posted on X a demo of new Gemini capabilities where you show Google Gemini something on your camera via a live video feed and Google will answer your questions about it. Then OpenAI shortly after demoed its GPT-4o assistant features that blew everyone’s minds away.

Google Ads To Change Functionality For Suspended Accounts

Google announced and emailed advertisers that they are changing the functionality of Google Ads accounts that are suspended. These changes go into effect in June 2024 and will limited what suspended accounts can do in Google Ads.

Googler Makes May 4th Food?

I have no idea what this is but it caught my eye. It is from the Google Chicago office where this Googler snapped a photo of what looks like lightsabers made of some sort of food.

Other Great Search Threads:

Benefit from custom events that are tailored to your business and help you better understand the behavior of users on your website. You can also create custom dimensions to use for additional reporting., Google Analytics on X

I’d recommend posting in the help forums, with the details like the URLs, the queries, the changes you’ve made over time. Without details, there’s not much anyone can do, sorry., John Mueller on X

It seems to work for me with “dataState”: “all” – does that work for you?, John Mueller on X

Massive Demand Gen Update towards more control!, Thomas Eccel on X

Our new model: GPT-4o, is our best model ever. it is smart, it is fast,it is natively multimodal (!), and…, Sam Altman on X

That looks like traditional spam, I’ll pass it on. It doesn’t help that @Delta uses robots.txt to block crawling of the official page :-/., John Mueller on X

For my first-ever LinkedIn post, I thought I’d share a sneak peek of the Shoreline Amphitheatre stage, as we put some finishing touches on our keynote for Google I/O tomorrow. Can’t wait to see those seats filled with developers from around the world , Sundar Pichai on LinkedIn

I’d try with dataState=all – which gets the fresher data too. I think it’s catching up though., John Mueller on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

Feedback:

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Daily Search Forum Recap: July 1, 2024

Published

15 hours ago

July 2, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

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.

After the Google June spam update completed, we had even more Google Search ranking volatility over the weekend. Bing has a new Bing Webmaster Guideline for prompt injection. Some are seeing small increases for sites hit by the Google helpful content update. Google explained why soft 404s are bad. Google Maps added troubleshooting and FAQs for missing and removing reviews. Google Search is testing a top quality store badge near the site name.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google Search Ranking Volatility Over June 28th & 29th Weekend

On the heels of the completion of the June 2024 spam update this Thursday, June 27th, I am now seeing signs of an unconfirmed Google Search ranking algorithm update and volatility. It seems more heated than the week of this spam update rollout but less weak than you’d see with a Google core update.

Some Sites Hit By Google Helpful Content Update Seeing Small Lifts

There are reports that some sites hit by the Google September 2023 Helpful Content Update are seeing small, somewhat tiny, lifts over the past week or so. Again, based on what we’ve been tracking, we have yet to see any recoveries but we are all hopeful we will see significant recoveries for some of those sites with the next core update.

Prompt Injection Added To Bing Webmaster Guidelines

Bing added a new guideline to its Bing Webmaster Guidelines named Prompt Injection. A prompt injection is a type of cyberattack against large language models (LLMs). Hackers disguise malicious inputs as legitimate prompts, manipulating generative AI systems (GenAI) into leaking sensitive data, spreading misinformation, or worse, according to IBM.

Google Explains Why Soft 404s Are Bad

Gary Illyes from Google explained two reasons why soft 404 errors are bad. Soft 404s are when a page returns a 200 status okay, but Google thinks that page should return a 404 page not found error. According to Gary, soft 404s are bad because they (1) limit crawl budget and (2) the pages won’t likely show up in Google Search.

Google Posts Reviews Troubleshooting & FAQs For Missing and Remove Reviews

A Google community manager, Alistair D., posted a Reviews troubleshooting and FAQs document in the Google Business Profiles forums. It goes through why reviews go missing, why reviews are removed and how to troubleshoot those issues with the Google Business Profiles tools.

Google Search Tests Top Quality Store Badge Near Site Name

Google is testing placing the top quality store badge and icon next to the site name area in the Google mobile search results. This brings up that icon from the bottom portion of the snippet to the very top of the snippet.

Mechanical Bull Riding At Google

Google had an employee appreciation day event of some sort and here is a photo of one Googler riding a mechanical bull. I posted the embed of the video he posted on Instagram of the event.

Other Great Search Threads:

Search Engine Land Stories:

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June 28th & 29th Weekend Google Search Ranking Volatility

Published

2 days ago

June 30, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

On the heels of the completion of the June 2024 spam update this Thursday, June 27th, I am now seeing signs of an unconfirmed Google Search ranking algorithm update and volatility. It seems more heated than the week of this spam update rollout but less weak than you’d see with a Google core update.

The volatility began on Friday, June 28th and continues through this weekend.

I am seeing both higher levels of chatter within the weekend since Friday and also some of the tools are showing a spike in volatility within the Google Search rankings.

Here is what I am seeing.

Google Rank Tracking Volatility Tools

Here is what the tools are showing, notice since Friday, the spike in volatility many of the tools are showing. Again, this was a day after the spam update was officially completed. Some tools are not showing this, as you can see:

Advanced Web Rankings:

BROKEN NOW

So something seems heated with these tracking tools over the weekend.

SEO Chatter

Here is some of the SEO chatter I spotted since Friday around Google ranking movement both at WebmasterWorld and the comments on this site:

Traffic is not great today. The “not-update” update is causing some damage.

Yesterday was drop in traffic in all of my sites. Coinciding with semrush spike.

The same. By now, traffic is more or less stable during updates but collapses after the end of an update.

Some of my competitor’s sites have returned to the SERP but aren’t receiving traffic.

Seeing some pages reappear tonight that have been deindexed for months.

Update finishes and Semrush send me notification to say sensors are high again (as high as 9.1 in Japan, and 7 to 8 in lots of other places). Is this now the normal weekend thing, and if it is, what exactly is shuffling?

My e-commerce traffic was nuked on Friday specifically. Previous updates hurt but I haven’t seen it this bad before. I will wait it out like previous algo changes.

My traffic died. After the update, my website went from 7 thousand active users every 30 minutes, to just 20…

What are you all seeing happen since the update completed last Thursday?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: June 28, 2024

Published

4 days ago

June 28, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

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 June 2024 spam update is now completely rolled out, I have all the details. Google posted an interview with Elizabeth Tucker on how Google measures search quality. Google expanded Product Studio to more countries and added file uploads and new themes. Menu items and popular times may be Google local ranking factors. Google Ads now supports a special WordPress conversion code method. Bing’s people also ask can be generated using AI. And I posted the weekly SEO video recap.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google June 2024 Spam Update Finished Rolling Out

Google has completed the rollout of the June 2024 spam update after a seven-day and one-hour period. This update started on June 20, 2024, and was completed on June 27, 2024. This was a broad spam update, not a link spam update, and it did not automate the site reputation abuse policy.

How Google Measures Search Quality – Interview With Elizabeth Tucker

Elizabeth Tucker, Director, Product Management at Google Search was a guest on Google’s Search Off the Record podcast where Lizzi Sassman and John Mueller of Google asked her about search quality, how Google measures it, and so much more. I will post my notes below but the two things that stood out to me are:

Report: Menu Items & Popular Times Are Google Local Ranking Signal

There is a new report out that says menu items and how busy you are during Google Maps popular times are both ranking factors and signals for Google’s local ranking system. Claudia Tomina posted the details on her blog and told me she tested this across numerous businesses.

Bing People Also Ask Now May Include AI Generated Content

Microsoft may now include AI generated content within the Bing Search people also ask sections. Bing is labeling some of the people also ask boxes with the disclaimer, “Includes Al generated content.”

Google Product Studio Expands To More Counties, Adds File Uploads & New Themes

Google Product Studio, which is part of Google Merchant Center Next, now works in the UK, India, and Japan. Google also added file upload support to Product Studio and additional seasonal-themed templates.

New Google Ads WordPress Conversion Google Tag Code

Google seems to be rolling out new WordPress specific conversion code for Google Ads. This seems like a Google Tag code with easier set up for WordPress sites.

Google Super Mario Game Room

Here is a photo of one of the rooms at the Google office, the GooglePlex, where they have a room for gaming. The theme of the room is Super Mario Brothers. Look at the desk, the walls, etc.

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google June Spam Update Done, Continuous Scroll Gone, AI Overview Links Improving, Google Ads Query Matching Update & More

This week, Google completed the rollout of the June 2024 spam update over a 7-day period. Google has dropped its continuous scroll interface for the search results. Google is testing placing link cards at the top of the AI…