SEARCHENGINES
Google Changes Format Of SEO Office Hours

Google’s John Mueller said there has been a change to the SEO office-hours format he hosts often on Google Meet and YouTube. The change is that Google will only record and post the video of questions submitted ahead of time, live questions will not be recorded and shared in the recorded version.
He also seems to be not answering all questions anymore, instead he is pushing many more questions directly to the Google Search Central Help Forums.
John said “so for this session, I want to try something slightly different,” adding that he may try “variations” of this over time to see what works best. John explained that he wants to “focus the recorded session on the submitted questions,” so the first 30 minutes he recorded and didn’t take any live questions, instead he just answered the pre-submitted questions.
He told those who joined live, they can ask their questions but after the first part of the ~30 minute session, he said they will have “to be a little bit patient” and will have to wait to ask their questions live until the “submitted questions are done and the recording is complete.” He did say that you can ask “clarifying questions along the way if anything comes up that seems confusing or is a little bit unclear.” No one in this recorded ended up doing that, instead it was just John reading off those questions and answering what he could.
Why the change? He said two fold (1) makes it easier for us to digest and (2) helps him and Googlers “kind of prepare for these sessions.”
He added that the questions that are submitted that are “too specific or that lead too far off topic from from the submitted questions,” he “would strongly recommend going to the help forums.”
Here is the video so you can watch that part at the beginning:
I do assume this will lead to less nuggets of information from his videos that I cover here, which is sad but I guess that is what Google is trying to avoid – well, trying to avoid confusion from those nuggets of information.
Some are liking the new format:
Thanks, Koray!
— 🦙 johnmu.xml (personal) 🦙 (@JohnMu) May 2, 2022
Forum discussion at YouTube Community.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
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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