Daily Search Forum Recap: October 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.

A new video from a famous YouTuber talks about why Google is falling apart, it got over 1 million views in a couple of days. Google is testing replacing the full logo with the Super G logo at the top of the search results. Google Ads has a gross profit optimization campaign setting. Google is testing “top links” in the search results. And Bing “unshipped” 27 features, which ones to be exact, I don’t know.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• 
  Why Google Search Is Broken Video Gets Millions Of Views
  
  
  Arun Maini, a famous YouTuber known for his Mrwhosetheboss channel, posted a scathing video named “Why Google Search is Falling Apart. The video goes through three reasons why Google Search is failing: (1) the results page, (2) SEO, and (3) AI changes.
• 
  Google Ads Adds Gross Profit Optimization Campaign Setting
  
  
  Google Ads is rolling out a new campaign setting named Gross profit optimization. The gross profit is calculated by Google by applying the gross profit margins you set up in the gross profit optimization goal to the value of each conversion.
• 
  Google Search Tests Top Links Title For Sitelinks?
  
  
  Google is testing showing the term “top links” or “top links from…” in its search results snippets, that seem to give a title to the sitelinks shown under search result snippets. This is shown both on organic free search results and the search ads, Google Ads, in Google Search.
• 
  Microsoft Unshipped 27 Bing Features
  
  
  Did you know that Bing removed dozens of features? 27 Bing featured were “unshipped” according to the new CEO of Bing, Mustafa Suleyman, said on X. He wrote, “Simplicity is one of the core principles I am focused on. I am so proud that the Bing team has unshipped 27 features. Being brave enough to undo complexity is important.”
• 
  Google Search Tests Replacing Google Logo With Super G Logo
  
  
  Google is testing swapping out the normal spelled-out Google logo with the Super G (that is what Google calls it) logo at the top of the Google Search results page. I find it weird but I guess it can work?





• 
  Baby In The Google Bike Basket
  
  
  Here is a photo from the GooglePlex that caught my eye. It is of a newborn baby sitting in the basket of a Google Bike. Yep, a baby in a Google bike. The baby looks calm and collected.

Other Great Search Threads:

• Google refers to Google Ads as “GAds”… also, beginning on November 13, 2024, reporting data collected by Google Ads will be available for 11 years, Greg on X
• Update: A couple of us Google Brain / DeepMind researchers have left to work on something new. Some observations: * Off-the shelf AI libraries (e.g. RAG and agents) do not work well enough for high-quality products. * In-house research, Peter J. Liu on X
• AI Overviews showing for many queries now in Canada. I don’t see any of the tools reporting this uptick but I am getting them for a ton of my searches today. cc my fellow Canucks. Have you been noticing this?, Darcy Burk on X
• So after having a discussion today, one thing @searchmartin helped test/prove is that most AI engines will “search” specific websites for content, but they aren’t rendering javascript. This could/will be an issue for many sites who rely, Ryan Jones on X
• Starting to see examples of #AIO results in 🇨🇦 for the first time. Not sure if this already known or not., Manny Diaz on X
• Very interesting to see APNews Buyline surge back a bit over the past few days. They first dropped heavily in July and flatlined since then… until 10/9 when the spike. I do see they now block the Buyline directory via robots.txt, but a, 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

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