Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Saturday night, Google had a major search bug with its Google Android app. I posted a bunch of resources around the US vs Google monopoly trial. Google updated its crawler documentation in a big way. Google posted new local review restrictions and enforcements. Google is asking how you will use Gemini and AI for SEO. Google is testing a recent posts carousel in Google Search.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• 
  Google Search App Stopped Working Saturday Night
  
  
  The Google Search App stopped working last night (Saturday night) for a few hours. Google was quick to fix it in the middle of the night but by then, hundreds, if not, thousands of complaints flooded the support forums and social media.
• 
  Google Updates Google Crawlers & Fetchers Docs With Affects & Snippets
  
  
  Google has completely reorganized its crawlers and user-triggered fetchers documentation. It used to be all on one page and now it is in several pages. Most of the changes were just moving content around but Google did add sections for what product each crawler affects, and added a robots.txt snippet for each crawler to demonstrate how to use the user agent tokens.
• 
  Google Reviews Restrictions For Business Profile Policy Violations
  
  
  Google has posted a new document about the way Google may apply restrictions to your Google Business Profiles over review or other policy violations. In the document, Google wrote that it takes “take fake and/or incentivized reviews and ratings on businesses very seriously.”
• 
  Google US DOJ Trial Exhibit Files, Documents & Responses
  
  
  As many of you know, Google is now in court over its monopoly ruling by the Department of Justice before the court rules on the remedy for such a ruling. The ruling may not come for a year or so, and Google will be in court for some time.
• 
  Google Search Tests Recent Posts Carousel
  
  
  Google Search is testing a new recent posts carousel in the desktop and mobile search results. This carousel can show YouTube videos, TikTok videos, Reddit or other “hidden gems” of sorts.
• 
  Google Asks On Social If You Will Use Gemini AI For SEO
  
  
  In one of the more disassociated social posts Google has made in a while, Google’s Small Business account posted a poll asking if you will use Gemini, Google’s AI models, to help with your SEO, to help boost your search rankings.
• 
  Sheds Inside The Google
  
  
  Google likes to put outdoor things, inside its office. Here are outdoor sheds that are inside the Google London office. It seems they are uses as coat rooms, called cloakrooms?

Other Great Search Threads:

• I found out today what happens when google deletes a vertical you’re using | NAP, Categories, Dashboard Data, Local Search Forum
• The Digital Advertising Alliance has new standards for CTV, using its “Ad Choices” opt-out framework. Ad Choices has been a near-total failure and it’s effectively a fiction. Most consumers don’t understand AdChoices (the DAA, Greg Sterling on X
• This is a friendly reminder to make sure automatic asset creation is turned off for Google search ad campagins, Nate Louis on X
• This is not new. A social security number or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) may be required to complete verification. This information will be deleted and will not be stored after comple, AdsLiaison on X
• Heads-up: There’s been a lot of chatter about crazy swings in rankings AFTER the August core update. I am now picking up some wild reversals, surges, and drops post-August core update. And a lot of that seems tied to the tremors I re, Glenn Gabe on X
• More about forums, hidden gems, and recent adjustments: Here’s another example of a forum that surged with the hidden gems update in the fall of 2023, but has seen adjustments in the spring of 2024 (right after the March core update ende, Glenn Gabe on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

Other Great Search Stories:

Industry & Business

• DOJ vs. Google, Day Four: Behind The Scenes On The Fraught Rollout Of Unified Pricing Rules, AdExchanger
• EU break-up order to Google unlikely for now, sources say, Reuters
• Header Bidding Was Decimated, Top Trade Desk Exec Testifies at Google Trial, AdWeek
• How Google altered a deal with publishers who couldn’t say no, The Verge
• Microsoft’s Hypocrisy on AI, The Atlantic
• Democratic Senators Urge US DOJ To Investigate Google’s AI Overviews, Hall Analysis
• Even Facebook Couldn’t Compete With Google, Bloomberg
• Sam Altman told OpenAI staff the company’s non-profit corporate structure will change next year, Fortune
• Data centers strain power grids. Should tech firms pay for upgrades?, Washington Post
• Google Dodged Jury in Antitrust Trial With a Check, Business Insider
• Google sheds its nice guy poise as the legal heat dials up, Digiday

Links & Content Marketing

Local & Maps

Mobile & Voice

SEO

PPC

Search Features

Other Search

Feedback:

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The Google Search App stopped working last night for a few hours. Google was quick to fix it in the middle of the night but by then, hundreds, if not, thousands of complaints flooded the support forums and social media.

This impacted a “large number of users searching on the Google app on Android,” Google confirmed. When they loaded the Google Search App or any of its widgets, a message would pop up that says “Google keeps stopping.”

Here is one of many screenshots I saw in the Google Search Support forums:

The issue started at about midnight last night and lasted for a few hours until it was resolved.

You can see the non stop complaints in the Google Search Support forums about the issue if you scroll down to that time frame. There is also this massive Reddit thread with complaints.

9to5Google was the only other site reporting on this issue, as far as I can tell.

Google wrote:

There’s an ongoing issue with serving in Google Search that’s affecting a large number of users searching on the Google app on Android. We’re working on identifying the root cause. Next update will be within 12 hours.

That was given a timestamp at 2:07 AM ET but I believe the issue started a couple of hours prior.

Google said the issue was fully resolved at 4:11 AM ET.

If you noticed a dip in your Android traffic from Google between that time, this may be why.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help and Reddit.

For the original iTunes version, click here.

Well over a week after the Google August 2024 core update finished, we still have a ton of volatility. Apple Visual Intelligence was demoed at the Apple event this week, it is neat. I covered a bunch of statements on Navboost over the years from Googlers and others. Google replaced the cache link with a link to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Google added a spam warning to the Indexing API documentation. A new report shows that about half of the links in the AI Overviews are from the top traditional search results. Google is showing AI Overviews for commercial shopping queries again. Google is testing a new interface for AI Overviews. Google said Exif data is not used for rankings. Google Search now supports a new ineligible region property. Bing may use ProductGroup markup in the future. Bing also treats 308 redirects like 301 redirects. Google Ads is sunsetting eCPC in March 2025. Google Ads is testing a new ad label design. Google Ads introduced confidential matching for privacy reasons. Google is emailing LSA advertisers about verification requirements. There has been an increase in complaints from advertisers about fraud in the Google Ads Search Partner Network. Google Business Profiles emails about broken appointment links. Google Maps shows business photos in reviews. Bing is testing Facebook and Yelp icons in the reviews in the local pack. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

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