SEARCHENGINES
December 2022 Google Helpful Content Update Taking Longer Than Expected

Google’s Search Liason, Danny Sullivan, said that the Google December 2022 helpful content update would take longer to roll out than originally expected. The update started to roll out on December 5th and was expected to finish earlier this week.
Google wrote on Twitter, “We are not” done yet rolling out the helpful content update. “While normally this update takes up to two weeks to complete, this one is going to take longer,” Google added.
Here is that tweet:
We are not. While normally this update takes up to two weeks to complete, this one is going to take longer. We will post to our page when it is done.
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) December 20, 2022
John Mueller of Google added on Mastodon, “Sometimes things are a bit slow to roll out, it usually doesn’t mean anything special.” “Perhaps Googlebot is tied up crawling all those holiday cookies,” he joked.
As a reminder, the Google helpful content update looks to weed out content written for the purpose of ranking in search engines that do not help or inform people. Google said this update will “tackle content that seems to have been primarily created for ranking well in search engines.” The update will “help make sure that unoriginal, low-quality content doesn’t rank highly in Search,” Google added. So if you are writing content to drive search engine visibility and traffic, you might be hit by this type of update, and non-English sites are no longer safe from this update.
So far, it has been hard to pinpoint any specific ranking changes specific to the helpful content update. Maybe we will see some sort of big shuffle or volatility towards the tail-end of the update. Keep in mind, Google is also rolling out December 2022 link spam update, where we think we are seeing an impact.
As soon as it is over, Google will inform us, and I will post more over here, Search Engine Land and on social.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
SEARCHENGINES
Google Search Testing More Card Box Like Buttons In Search

Google is testing more card and box-like elements in the search results. We covered this with the product results interface a few weeks back but now we are seeing them for other elements.
Here are screenshots shared with me of these designs:
Via @b4k_khushal:
Via @mblumenthal via @b4k_khushal:
I kind of like them but I might be wrong. 🙂
Forum discussion at Twitter.
SEARCHENGINES
Microsoft Bing Search Features & Tests

Here is another batch of Microsoft Bing Search tests and features that were caught out in the wild that I wanted to share with you. They include sorting, filtering, carousels, animations, related content and maybe even some bugs?
(1) Sorting results by more parameters:
Bing test search filter to sort results by time period at the bottom of the search result.
You may already seen this at the top of the search result.@MSBing_Dev @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/Wc1AzUxHuV— Shameem Adhikarath (@shemiadhikarath) January 20, 2023
(2) Related videos under the video results:
Bing is testing related video searches under Bing Videos on SERP.
cc: @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/H26BiomGzU
— Shameem Adhikarath (@shemiadhikarath) January 24, 2023
(3) Dynamic and animated carousel information box of sorts, life cycle feature:
↗️ Cool feature by bing in desktop serp.
↗️ Life Cycle Visual thread. pic.twitter.com/0qCe8XYULp
— Khushal Bherwani (@b4k_khushal) January 19, 2023
Check the After and Before Screenshot- pic.twitter.com/aE1qJUp2Ol
— Anuj thaker (@Anuj_Thaker03) January 23, 2023
(4) See this location:
See this Location snippet at the top of the result. You can see the Bing location panel on the right side also.@MSBing_Dev @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/sIeJayYZ3W
— Shameem Adhikarath (@shemiadhikarath) January 20, 2023
(5) I am not sure what this is about:
Anyone else notice the @bing mouse logger script running on their search results? @facan it seems to be running and collecting data even if you don’t accept Microsoft’s privacy policy… @BingWMC is the data going to you? pic.twitter.com/3zuPeMnQIS
— @[email protected] (@davidiwanow) January 7, 2023
(6) Left side product refinement filters:
🆕 Bing test Refined By filter at left side of product section. pic.twitter.com/hz66CRmlVG
— Khushal Bherwani (@b4k_khushal) January 18, 2023
(7) Want more deals feature:
🆕Bing suggest online stores by adding this store carousal – “Want more deals? Browse these stores” pic.twitter.com/6eU9gSKkgW
— Khushal Bherwani (@b4k_khushal) January 23, 2023
(8) “Top Headlines” in Bing at the sitelink on the desktop search:
↗️ In Google, “Latest from xyz” is replicated as “Top Headlines” in Bing at the sitelink on the desktop search.
↗️ Here is snap from Google and Bing serp. pic.twitter.com/vzeUJYmnFb
— Khushal Bherwani (@b4k_khushal) January 30, 2023
(9) Bing is testing a different style for sitelinks on their – via Frank Sandtmann on Mastodon:
(10) Interesting character image on that search bar when you try to use a different search engine. I am not sure if it is new:
Bing is testing “search here” tabs on SERP. I have seen this first time. have you seen this.
For referance screenshots- pic.twitter.com/RAGQQR5GNd
— Anuj thaker (@Anuj_Thaker03) January 30, 2023
This is in addition to the other items we recently posted about Bing.
Forum discussion at Twitter threads above.
SEARCHENGINES
The Return Of Yahoo Search

Last week I reported that Yahoo Search posted on Twitter that it will be making search cool again. As I posted on Search Engine Land yesterday, we got more evidence that Yahoo is really moving forward with improving its search service.
Last night, Jim Lanzone, the CEO of Yahoo (more about him below), responded to Greg Sterling and myself about Yahoo getting into search:
Greg, I think you and Barry know – there are always new ways around the mountain. No reason to go straight at it. But we’re excited to start exploring again…and will be patient figuring it all out.
— Jim Lanzone (@jlanzone) January 31, 2023
So yes, we got that tweet that I covered last week, followed by a number of other tweets:
Just popping in to remind everyone that we did search before it was cool.
BRB making it cool again.
— Yahoo Search (@YahooSearch) January 20, 2023
But we got a lot more – we have a job listing for a Principal Product Manager, Yahoo Search. The job listing says, “We’re looking for a Product Manager for Search at Yahoo. We are looking for folks that are interested in pushing beyond the status quo to change the way folks interact and use search.”
Jim Lanzone, who was the CEO of Ask.com and worked for several years for Ask.com (previously Ask Jeeves), who is now the CEO at Yahoo. He is a search guy, originally, and I do suspect he will want to do big things again with search. Under Jim, Ask released some incredibly innovative features, like Ask 3D – which Google kind of ripped off with its Universal Search – as some say… So I think, Yahoo Search, under Jim Lanzone might be an interesting Yahoo Search to look at.
As I also said on Search Engine Land, Brian Provost, SVP & GM, Yahoo posted on LinkedIn about this job listing and wrote, “There’s going to be so much innovation in Search in the coming years and there aren’t many places where you can immediately have an impact this big. Would love to hear from you if you have a passion for Search and building product experiences.”
This is exciting – I suspect it will take a year or so to see anything – but I am looking forward to it.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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