SEARCHENGINES
Product Reviews Update, Search Console, Local & More

Here is the large Google webmaster report for April 2022 – catching you all up on what you may have missed in the past month related to Google search and SEO topics. We had a confirmed Google algorithm update, the July 2022 product reviews update that kicked in Friday and the tools just picked up on this morning. We had a large indexing outage, several unconfirmed updates and Google made their own algorithm update landing page.
Google has updated its search quality raters guidelines last week, which is always big news in the SEO world. Google Search Console updated its help documentation around anonymized queries. Google Search Console Insights now works with Google Analytics 4 and you can verify your properties again using DNS CNAME. Also, that new video indexing report is now rolling out, slowly and to some.
We also covered tons of SEO topics and user interface changes such as people also ask disappearing and returning, things to know going away on desktop, the new perspectives and so much more.
Google announced a bunch of Merchant Center changes and on the local side, the Google My Business app stopped working. Plus Google is testing new AR prototypes and they announced earnings.
There is just so much more but the chatter in the ongoing WebmasterWorld thread is super light right now.
Here are the more important stories I pulled out for you all:
Google Algorithm Updates:
- July 2022 Google Product Reviews Update Rolling Out – Everything We See So Far
- July 2022 Google Product Reviews Update Kicked In Friday Afternoon
- Tracking Tools Now Picking Up On The July 2022 Google Product Reviews Update Volatility?
- Google Search Algorithm Update On July 16th Or Was It Related To The Indexing Issue
- Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On July 10th – Not Confirmed
- Google Search Ranking Update Volatility July 5th & July 7th
Other Important Google News:
- Google Search Indexing Issue On July 15th – Google Not Indexing New Content
- Google Updates Search Quality Raters Guidelines On July 28th
- Google Creates A Landing Page With Major Ranking Updates Timeline
Google Search Console:
- Google Search Console Anonymizes Tons Of Queries; Updates Help Doc After Ahrefs Study
- Google Search Console Insights Finally Supports Google Analytics 4
- New Verification Of Google Search Console Via DNS CNAME
- Google Search Console Video Index Report Rolling Out Very Slowly
- Possible Bug With Google Search Console Performance Report For Videos On Desktop
Google SEO:
- Google: Age Verification Requirement May Prevent Site From Surfacing In Google Discover
- Google Super Basic Video On SEO
- Unique IP Addresses Do Not Give You A Google Ranking Advantage, Google Says Again
- Google Signed Exchanges For Desktop, Top Stories and News Now Live
- Google: Search Query Pages Are Equivalent To Low Effort Category Pages
Google User Interface:
- Google Discover Stories With TikTok, Facebook, YouTube For Destination Queries
- Google Now Test Interactive Card Knowledge Panel Box Layout
- Google Search Tests Rich Cards Layout With Net Worth, News, Videos & More
- Google People Also Ask Back To Normal Levels
- Huge Drop In Google People Also Ask
- RankRanger: Google Things To Know No Longer Showing In Desktop Search
- Google’s Top Ranked SERP Feature Leads To Critic Reviews & Product Review Articles On Mobile
- Google’s Interesting Finds SERP Feature Goes Missing From The Search Results – Maybe It Wasn’t Interesting To Users Anymore
- Google Perspectives Search Results
- Google Highly Rated By Users Search Carousel
- Google Tests List View Top Stories With News Taking Over Web Results
- Google Tests Explore More Search Refinement For Product Queries
- Google Search Displays Return Period In Search Results Snippets
- Google Tests Search Bar With Refinements Mixed With Vertical Navigation
- Google Hotel Listings New Featured In Section
- Google Popular Products Section Gains Videos
- Google Product Results Carousel With Highlights
- Google Products Carousel Displays Product Reviews Under Appears On These Lists
- Google Product Results Tests Customer Favorites, Most Mentions Of & More Labels
- Google Search Trending Topics News Box On Mobile
- Google Search Updates Suicide Prevention Box With New Options
- Google Search Tests Get There, Weather & Map Cards
- Google Search Timer & Stopwatch Stop Ticking
Google Merchant Center:
- Google Merchant Center Now Allows Login Required & Restricted Purchase Free Listings
- Google Merchant Center Website Needs Improvement Policy Update: No Longer Disapproved
- Google Merchant Center Adds Auto-Tagging For All Free Listings Across All Of Google
Google Business Profiles & Local:
- Google My Business App No Longer Available
- Google Taking Action On Recent One-Star Review Scams & Blackmail Threats
- Google Business Profiles Messaging FAQs For Automated Responses To Customers
- Google Business Profile Tests Expandable Menu In Web Search
- Google Pushing Business Profile Verification Over Video
- Google Business Profile Toggle To Hide Address To Customers
- Google Maps May Remove Selfies, Blurry Or Poor Quality Images
- Google Tests “Reviews Aren’t Verified” Label
- Google Posts Now Expire After 6 Months
- Google Maps To Add Aerial Views, More Biking Details & More
Other Misc Google:
- Google Analytics 4 Now Supports UTM Term, UTM Content, Conversion & Bounce Rate Metrics
- Google Tests New AR Prototypes – Watch Out Google Glass
- Google Ads Revenue Up 13.5% & Microsoft Bing Ads Revenues Up 15% But Slowed Growth
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
SEARCHENGINES
Google Cotton Candy Machine

Here is a cotton candy machine that was at the Google office for a YouTube Live event a few months back. I don’t think this machine lives there, I suspect Google rented it for the event, but I am not sure.
We did see some Googlers eating cotton candy a year ago… Just saying…
This was posted on Instagram.
This post is part of our daily Search Photo of the Day column, where we find fun and interesting photos related to the search industry and share them with our readers.
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 itโs hard not to be biased as an SEO professional, but try anyway. ๐
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:
โ Lily Ray ๐ (@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 โAccount Settings,โ youโll find the โNegative keywordsโ 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 โNegative keywordsโ section of your โAccount Settingsโ 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
โ 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
โ 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).
โ ๐ผ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฐ๐๐ (@MenachemAni) January 27, 2023
Donโt get me wrong, there is definitely utility in account-level negative keywords.
Just not what we were hoping for as it relates to PMX.
โ ๐ผ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฐ๐๐ (@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
โ 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.
โ AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) January 27, 2023
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