SEARCHENGINES
Google Helpful Content Update & Link Spam Update Delayed Rollout Because Of Holidays

Google officially confirmed that the helpful content update needs more time to roll out, but now the link spam update is also past the two-week mark, and it is not done rolling out yet either. John Mueller of Google said these updates may take longer to complete due to the “holidays” and “for safety reasons.”
John Mueller wrote on Mastodon when asked about the status, “Sometimes things take longer, for good or for bad. We try to reduce the amount of change in our systems over the holidays for safety reasons, and that sometimes means things that started before take a bit longer to complete.”
Technically, this does make sense. If the main engineers responsible for these system updates are away or on limited access, changing anything with them might trigger an issue. I am surprised they pushed this out when there was a chance that it would run into the holidays and not be able to confirm the updates were done until after the holidays fully. But I guess maybe things came up, and it ran into the holidays, so they decided to slow things down. I am not sure, and I am really just guessing.
We saw some big turbulence days before Christmas and then things clamed down a lot. The truth is, the Google volatility is much calmer still than the previous couple of weeks.
I would have thought these updates completed themselves. Like they start to roll out and over time, it just finishes themselves. So I kind of would not be surprised if Google tells us at some point it is finished, but it finished earlier than when they confirmed it was finished. But again, this is me taking some guesses on how I think these rollouts work.
Does Google need to press a button to finish or complete the rollout? What do you think?
Meanwhile, I keep checking to see if the rollouts are done.
The December 2022 link spam update is now over two weeks since it started and the December 2022 helpful content update is now three weeks and two days since it first started. Both are over the two-week mark.
It looks like we will have to wait a bit more…
Just a reminder, Google said last year that there is no reason to work on algorithm and SEO issues over the holidays…
Forum discussion at Mastodon.
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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