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Google Says Links With UTM Parameters Are Not By Default Paid Links

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Google Says Links With UTM Parameters Are Not By Default Paid Links

John Mueller of Google has to say on Twitter that just because a link has UTM parameters on them, it doesn’t make it a paid link. He said “links with UTM parameters are just links.” “They’re definitely not considered paid links,” he added. In fact, we covered this topic not long ago saying URL parameters don’t make a link unnatural.

Here is that tweet:

It is pretty wild to think that links with UTM parameters are paid links, I don’t even know where that would come from. Of course, if you want, you can click through to the tweet and find the source that said this. But again, simply adding UTM parameters to a link and URL does not make that link a paid link in Google’s eyes.

What is a UTM parameter? It stands for Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) parameters, Urchin was the company Google acquired in 2005 that became what we know as Google Analytics. UTM are parameters you add on to your URL to help you track the referral of that click. So on my email newsletters I have ?utm_source=search_engine_roundtable&utm_campaign=ser_newsletter_2022-02-08&utm_medium=email appended to the end of the URL. It basically tells me the source of the click in from the Search Engine Roundtable, from the specific February 08, 2022 newsletter and from an email source. UTM parameters are used everywhere and not only for paid purposes, often they are used for unpaid purposes.

It is not always recommended to use UTM parameters on internal links because it can send mix signals – but many do use UTMs on internal links anyway.

So no, adding UTM parameters to a URL does not make that URL a paid link by default.

Forum discussion at Twitter.




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Google Pay Accepted Icons In Google Search Results

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Woman Checking Out Store Google Logo

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:

G Pay Accepted Google Search

Here are some more screenshots:

Brodie Clark also posted some screenshots after on X:

Google Pay Accepted Google Search

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.



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Google Discover Showing Older Content Since Follow Feature Arrived

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Dog Astronut Google Logo

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:

Google Discover Old Stories Follow

Google Discover Old Stories Follow2

Have you noticed this in your Discover feed?

Forum discussion at X.



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Google Core Update Done Followed By Intense Search Volatility, New Structured Data, Google Ads Head Steps Down & 20 Years Covering Search

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Google Core Update Done Followed By Intense Search Volatility, New Structured Data, Google Ads Head Steps Down & 20 Years Covering Search

Google’s November 2023 core update finally finished rolling out this week, and it was the longest core update rollout. Then, a day later, we saw more intense Google search ranking volatility and chatter. Google added new organization structured data and also added a new profile page and discussion forum structured data, both with Search Console and Rich Results test support. Google’s crawl rate setting is going away soon. Google Search Console went down a couple of times this week. Google spoke about the SEO value of bringing back 404 pages for links. Did you see the Google patent for what appears to be SGE? Microsoft is working to bring GPT-4 Turbo to Copilot and Bing Chat. Google Ads won’t allow personalized ads for consumer finance topics in February 2024. Google Local Service Ads has new impression metrics. Google Ads released its Ads API schedule for 2024. Google is testing Gray accepted labels in the search results. Google is testing line separators between sitelinks. Google is testing an interview label for news results. Google local photos is testing hearts and other emotion reactions. Google is testing removing the cache link from the search result listings. Google’s head of search ads, Jerry Dischler, is stepping down after 15 years. And I’ve been covering the search industry and search for 20 years now. And if you want to help sponsor those vlogs, go to patreon.com/barryschwartz. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Sponsored by BruceClay, who has been doing search marketing optimization since 1996 and also has an amazing SEO training platform.

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