SEARCHENGINES
New Google Search Engine, Magi, April Reviews Update, Page Experience, Helpful Content, FAQs & Generative AI Ads

What a busy week, we had Google confirm it is working on an all-new search engine that uses AI and Bard. There is no ETA for when that will go live, but in the coming months, we will see more minor updates to Google Search to embed AI throughout; this is code-named Magi. Google’s April 2023 reviews update saw some tremors this week, and it is probably almost done rolling out. Google has changed its guidance for what is considered helpful content, adding a section for page experience. Meanwhile, Google removed a bunch of old “retired” ranking systems from its help documentation. Google is dropping the page experience report, the mobile usability report, and the mobile-friendly test from Google Search Console. FAQ-rich results are showing up a lot less often in the mobile results. Google launched the Reader Revenue Manager in Google’s publisher center and a new Subscribed content report in Search Console for paywalled content. Google expanded its shipping and return search snippet details and added a new Search Console report for them. Google’s Gary Illyes spoke about what to do if your site drops for a single keyword. Google said do not let Google index your internal search result pages, especially if they return no results. GoogleOther is a new Googlebot that Google launched this week. Google Bard drafts are more diverse, and Bing Chat has nicer math formula formatting. Bing Chat will soon be able to process book-sized documents. I posted numerous polls on search marketers’ use of generative AI, like ChatGPT, Bing Chat, and Google Bard. There is a bug with the Google Business Profile Manager listings. Google showed off generative AI within Google Ads performance max. Google Ads is looking to surface more search term data to advertisers. Google AdSense has this lingering zero-clicks bug. Google Search is testing color swatches for product grids and pricing overlays for product image thumbnails in the search snippets. 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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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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