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Moz Returns To The Google Search Results After Fraudulent DMCA Takedown

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Yesterday afternoon Moz’s home page was removed from the Google Search results after Google processed a fraudulent (or mistaken) DMCA takedown request. Moz is now back, within 12 hours from when Google learned about the issue – but there is no response from Google on how this could have happened as of yet.

To be fair, I forgot to email Google last night but I did email this morning and I will let you know if I hear back.

So what happened? As I covered last night at Search Engine Land, a search for [moz] did not show Moz’s home page in the search results, it showed the Moz blog first:

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Where did the Moz home page go? Well, it was excluded by an approved DMCA request for supposedly distributing “modified, cracked and unauthorized versions” of the Dr. Driving app,” the DMCA takedown request wrote. Moz.com was included on line 122 of the list of 185 URLs allegedly doing this.

If you went to the footer of the Google Search results for the query on Moz, it had these details and links:

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Cyrus was the first to spot this last night and shortly after, Danny Sullivan from Google responded that he passed it along:

As of this morning, at around 3am ET, Moz returned to the Google search results:

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Yea – this is scary. How can a DMCA takedown request actually lead to the removal of a reputable company’s home page from Google Search? What would happen if this happened to a smaller brand that does not notice their home page being removed for days or weeks? Would Google be able to respond as fast to smaller company’s who have this issue? I just want to know what went wrong here and how Google can prevent it in the future. This has been a concern for well over a decade and it came true for Moz.

Of course, sites go missing from Google here and there. Search Engine Land was thought, mistakenly, to be hacked and was removed for a period of time. It happened to Digg when it was penalized by accident. It happens to others as well… Sometimes it is the site’s own fault, like with LinkedIn and I get that but when it is Google’s fault?

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Source: www.seroundtable.com

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SEARCHENGINES

Google Search Console Was Down Today

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Google Robot Hurt Tired

Google Search Console seems to be down right now. If you try to access it, you will get a 500 server error. I suspect Search Console will be back up shortly but right now, if it is down for you, you are not alone.

Update: At 8:52 am ET Google Search Console is back, the tool was offline for about 50 minutes.

Google’s Daniel Waisberg is 100% aware of the issue. He responded to some posts about the issue, saying, “we’re working on it.” John Mueller from Google is also reposting Daniel’s posts on X.

Here is what it looked like when you tried to access it while it was down:

Gsc 500 Error Down

Search Console went down at about 8 am ET and returned at 8:52 am ET.

Here are the posts on X from Daniel Waisberg of Google on this issue:

Who knows, maybe we will have a new Search Console feature when it returns?

Here are some of the complaints:

Update: At 8:52 am ET Google Search Console is back, the tool was offline for about 50 minutes.



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Google Testing New Flight Prices Rich Result?

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Woman Booking Flight Airport Google Logo

Google may be testing a new type of rich result for flight prices. This test shows a section under the flight search snippet that contains the dates, trip details and price.

This was spotted by Antoine Eripret who was able to trigger this numerous times, over numerous days, while in Spain. Here is his screenshot he posted on X:

Google Flight Prices Rich Result Test

He also posted this video of this in action for me:

Google Flight Prices Rich Result Test

Recently Google told us not to put flight prices in titles because those prices change too quickly. Maybe Google is testing updating those prices in more real time through the use of structured data and is thus more confident to show them as rich results and not title elements?

I don’t think Google officially supports flight schema but maybe they will soon?

Forum discussion at X.



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Google Merchant Center Automatically Creating Promotions

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Google Robot Clothing Store

Google Merchant Center has been automatically creating and applying promotions to some of your products over the Black Friday holiday season. The truth is, Google has been doing this for some time, but more are noticing this now because there are a lot of discounts going around this season.

In fact, the new Merchant Center does a lot of things for you, automatically.

Rachel Lowell posted about this on X and shared this screenshot that shows “Your promotions are live on Google.” “Google found promotions on your website. You can remove this connection at any time,” Google added.

Google Merchant Center Auto Promotions

Greg Finn suggested, “If you’ve got BFCM sales setup – double, triple check those promos.”

Forum discussion at X.



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