SEARCHENGINES
Google Search Ranking Fluctuations, Helpful Content & Link Spam Update Delayed, Link Talk & Budget Cuts

This is the last video of the year, and we have more Google search ranking fluctuations and volatility to talk about. Google said the December 2022 helpful content and link spam updates are delayed in being completed because of the holidays. Christmas weekend was much calmer for the Google search results. Google said using “here” for anchor link text is bad. Google said you should not nofollow links to your social media profile. Google said links on YouTube wouldn’t help you with SEO. Google said having unique text, infographics, and video does not make your content good, accurate, or helpful. Google is fixing a bug with search not caching and serving signed exchanges. Google provided SEO advice around the LastPass security breach. Google is testing a price history chart in search. Google Ads will allow some cannabis ads in some regions. SEOs are not concerned with ChatGPT threatening their jobs. Some marketers are worried about SEO and PPC budgets being cut during the recession. John Mueller of Google was once again supporting SEOs during Christmas. And I posted the top contributors for the Search Engine Roundtable in 2022. Have a happy new year, all! 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.
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Source: www.seroundtable.com
SEARCHENGINES
SEOs Trust YMYL Content Less If It Is AI-Generated

Lily Ray ran a Twitter poll asking SEOs if they trust content in the YMYL, your money or your life, category more, less or the same if it was written by AI. The vast majority of responses said they trust AI-generated content less than human-generated content.
Lily asked, “If a site offering Your Money, Your Life information/advice (health, finance, etc) indicates that the content was partially written using AI, does this make you trust the content:”
About 74% of the over 1,000 votes said AI-generated content would be trusted less, 22% said there is no difference – they would trust it the same and 4% said it would be trusted more.
Here is the poll with the “See answers” option:
I know it’s hard not to be biased as an SEO professional, but try anyway. 😅
If a site offering Your Money, Your Life information/advice (health, finance, etc) indicates that the content was partially written using AI, does this make you trust the content:
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) January 15, 2023
Forum discussion at Twitter.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Ads Now Supports Account-Level Negative Keywords

We knew it was coming, Google Ads now supports negative keywords for brand safety at the account level. Google has just added account-level negative keywords to Google Ads and the PPC community is happy about it.
I spotted this first via Melissa Mackey on Twitter who credits @NilsRooijmanSEA with the find on LinkedIn. Melissa wrote, “Account-level negative keywords are here! This is big.”
The Google help document on negative keywords has a new section that reads, “Account-level negative keywords.”
When you create your account-level list of negative keywords, it will automatically apply to all search and shopping inventory in relevant campaign types. This allows you to create a single, global, account-level list that applies negative keywords across all relevant inventory in your account.
You can create a single, account-level list of negative keywords in your Google Ads account settings. In your “Account Settings,” you’ll find the “Negative keywords” section. When you click on this section, you can begin creating your negative keywords list.
You can create your list by defining which search terms are considered negative for your brand. You can then enter this all at once in the “Negative keywords” section of your “Account Settings” in your Google Ads account. You can also specify whether you want to exclude these based on broad, exact, or phrase match. A limit of 1,000 negative keywords can be excluded for each account. Learn more about account-level negative keywords.
Here is a screenshot of this setting, where Nils Rooijmans explained, “Google is rolling out this feature in most of my accounts right now.”
11 months ago, Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison said, Ginny Marvin responded to this saying “There are no current plans for a keyword tab in PMax. There are, however, plans to support negative keywords for brand safety at the account level.”
And now we got them.
Yay!!! pic.twitter.com/9uzIERjaY9
— dan richardson (@njsdanrich) January 26, 2023
Bit more history:
Ginny mentioned the beta would start 6 months ago fwiw. Longish cycle from planning -> beta -> release https://t.co/eeUnFPjspr
It was spotted on Google’s roadmaps for Q4, seems to have been delayed a touch
— Mike Ryan (@mikeryanretail) January 27, 2023
And some reaction on this:
The people asked for Performance Max negative keywords. We got account-level instead.
We typically want to exclude keywords from SOME campaigns, not ALL (for branded queries).
— 𝙼𝚎𝚗𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚖 𝙰𝚗𝚒 (@MenachemAni) January 27, 2023
Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely utility in account-level negative keywords.
Just not what we were hoping for as it relates to PMX.
— 𝙼𝚎𝚗𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚖 𝙰𝚗𝚒 (@MenachemAni) January 27, 2023
Forum discussion at Twitter and LinkedIn.
Update: The Google Ads Liaison has now posted about this on Twitter:
1/3 Some have noticed Account level negative keywords are starting to roll out globally. From Account Settings, you can add keywords to exclude traffic from all Search and Shopping campaigns, and the Search and Shopping portion of PMax for brand safety: https://t.co/B0VBApPVCm
— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) January 27, 2023
3/3 And a reminder of existing brand suitability controls include inventory types, digital content labels, placement exclusions and negative keywords at the campaign level.
— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) January 27, 2023
SEARCHENGINES
Google Says Google Search Handles marquee Tags Appropriately

Gary Illyes, from the Google Search Relations team, said on LinkedIn that Google Search handles the marquee HTML tag “appropriately.” What does it mean by appropriately? That is Gary for you.
I assume it means Google can read the text within the marquee HTML tag.
The marquee HTML element is used to insert a scrolling area of text. You can control what happens when the text reaches the edges of its content area using its attributes.
Google even has this long standing marquee tag new easter egg that looks like this:
Here are some funny comments in the LinkedIn thread:
Again, Gary wrote, “Please note that, after digging through some ancient code, I can confidently confirm Google handles marquee tags appropriately. You’re welcome, internet.”
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
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