SEARCHENGINES
Google Said Expect To See Changes In Search Around Third Party Content

Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, said that while Google has updated its guidance around blocking third-party content, more is to come. Google said we should see things improve over time related to issues around third-party hosted content, sometimes referred to as parasite SEO.
As a reminder, when the September 2023 Google helpful content update came out, Google added new information to its documentation around this update. One thing specific to this documentation change was around hosted third-party content. That feature was just a documentation change, there was no change to search related to third party hosted content.
Well, Now Danny Sullivan said updating the documentation is “not the only action we’re taking,” he wrote on X. He added, “I hope and expect everyone will see things improve over time.”
“I’m also glad to see publishers following our guidance, as seems to be the case here. That contributes to improving,” he added.
Here are those tweets in context:
It is our problem to rank content well. We added guidance about blocking third party content as part of addressing this issue. It’s not the only action we’re taking. I hope and expect everyone will see things improve over time. I’m also glad to see publishers following our…
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) November 13, 2023
Click through to scroll up through the whole conversation on X.
As a reminder, Google added this section, as noted above,”If you host third-party content on your main site or in your subdomains, understand that such content may be included in site-wide signals we generate, such as the helpfulness of content. For this reason, if that content is largely independent of the main site’s purpose or produced without close supervision or the involvement of the primary site, we recommend that it should be blocked from being indexed by Google.”
So I guess we can see Google cracking down on this soonish?
Forum discussion at X.
Update: Maybe it has begun?
As an example, here’s a parasite SEO situation where the directory containing sponsored content TANKED with the Nov 2023 core update. But, the site overall is totally fine. So again, seems like Google wants to be granular with impacting the parasite SEO situation. Again, stay… pic.twitter.com/SXQzKG1vtW
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) November 14, 2023
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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