SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: November 14, 2022
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.
Yep, we had another weekend and another unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update. Google is dropping reviews from local business listings over a dumb bug. Google is also showing the number of reviews a reviewer left by business category. Google Ads is bribing advertisers to turn on automated apply recommendations for $100. Apple is at least four years from launching its own search engine.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Another Weekend Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update – November 11th – 12th
It seems as if I see more volatility signals on the weekends with Google Search than I do during the weekdays. We may have had another Google search ranking algorithm update, unconfirmed, this weekend, around November 11th and 12th. - Google Business Reviews Going Missing After Suggested Edits (Scary Bug)
Google Business Profiles and business listings reviews are going missing, dropping out completely, again, but this time it seems to be related to automated suggested edits occurring on some business profiles. - Google Ads Paying Advertisers $100 To Enroll In Automatically Applies Recommendations
Google Ads is sending emails out to some advertisers offering to pay them $100 in Google Ads credits for enrolling in automatically applied recommendations. The response from the PPC community is almost all against doing this for any amount of money, let alone $100. - Google Local Reviews Shows Number Of Reviews From Reviewer By Category
Last week I reported on how Google Local reviews can display how many reviews a specific reviewer left in a specific city. Well, Google is also doing this by category, how many reviews a specific reviewer left for the business category type. - Apple Search Engine Four Years Away, At Least
The Information wrote a piece that says Apple is at least four years or more away from building its own search engine – Apple Search. We have been talking about Apple’s quiet efforts in building its own search engine for many years now and to see they are reportedly this far away, is a bit sad. - Vlog #197: Rick Mariano On Helping Clients Succeed Digitally Online & Hiring with Employee Retention
In part one with Rick Mariano we spoke about helping build LocalEdge to provide high volume digital marketing services at a low cost and then in part two we spoke more about using automation and the human touch… - Google’s Greatest Talent Show Dancer
We’ve seen Google hold its own talent show, the Google’s Greatest Talent competition. But here is another photo of that event from some time in the past. I found this photo on Instagram and the dance
Other Great Search Threads:
- The search developer documentation there is comprehensive regarding the types that are shown differently or that have specific functions. You can include all possible structured data on pages, but it doesn’t mean that it’ll do anything specific., John Mueller on Mastodon
- Hreflang + some kind of smart banner (I like robotted JS banners that recognize location / language settings & point at the best version for the user). Don’t IP-redirect. Also cc @akent99, John Mueller on Twitter
- Hreflang doesn’t change indexing – it changes which URLs are shown (and with mobile-first indexing the indexed URLs would be the mobile ones). Maybe it’s working as expected, but looks c, John Mueller on Twitter
- I don’t think Google is going to be buying things from your website, so I’d focus more on which works best for users. (Unrelated, a mobile-friendly menu shouldn’t negatively affect your sit, John Mueller on Twitter
- This could happen if there’s some kind of JS or server-side interstitial / redirect. From guessing your site, it looks like you have both an age-gate as well as a geo-redirect, my guess is it, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Other Search
Feedback:
Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, you can follow us on Facebook and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
SEARCHENGINES
Google Needs Very Few Links To Rank Pages; Links Are Less Important
Gary Illyes from Google spoke at the SERP Conf on Friday and he said what he said numerous times before, that Google values links a lot less today than it did in the past. He added that Google Search “needs very few links to rank pages.”
Gary reportedly said, “We need very few links to rank pages… Over the years we’ve made links less important.”
I am quoting Patrick Stox who is quoting what he heard Gary say on stage at the event. Here is Patrick’s post where Gary did a rare reply:
I shouldn’t have said that… I definitely shouldn’t have said that
— Gary 鯨理/경리 Illyes (so official, trust me) (@methode) April 19, 2024
Gary said this a year ago, also in 2022 and other times as well. We previously covered that Google said links would likely become even less important in the future. And even Matt Cutts, the former Googler, said something similar about eight years ago and the truth is, links are weighted a lot less than it was eight years ago and that trend continues. A couple of years ago, Google said links are not the most important Google search ranking factor.
Of course, many SEOs think Google lies about this.
Judith Lewis interviewed Gary Illyes at the SERP Conf this past Friday.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Core Update Flux, AdSense Ad Intent, California Link Tax & More
For the original iTunes version, click here.
The Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out, almost 6 weeks now, and we saw two shifts of ranking volatility, both mid-week and the weekend before. Google’s Danny Sullivan went on the defensive on search quality and forum listings in the search results. Google’s site reputation abuse spam policy will be fought both algorithmically and through manual actions. Google responded to The Verge mocking its search rankings over best printer. Google Search Console has a new unused ownership tokens page. Some sites may see the Google Indexing API work for a limited time on unsupported content types. And having two sites won’t result in your sites search ranking decline. BingBot now fully supports Brotli compression and will test Zstd compression soon. Google Search is testing thumbs-up and down buttons for product carousels. Google is testing new sitelinks designs. Google Notes on Search may not go away in May. Google Maps no longer supports draft reviews. Google Maps released a bunch of new maps, directions, travel and EV features. Google Ads Demand Gen campaigns now support AI image generation. Google Ads is testing a similar product carousel. Google Ads reminds advertisers that ad customizers are going away. Google Ads is testing a new horizontal ad card format. Google AdSense has these new ad intent formats. Google AdSense publishers are reporting lower RPM earnings since mid-February. Google threatens to drop links to California news publishers amongst link tax bill. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.
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SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 19, 2024
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.
Google is testing more ad formats for its search ads. BingBot is testing new compression methods. Google said it is unlikely your rankings would drop just because you have two or more sites. Google says the indexing API might work for unsupported formats. Google said hyphenated domains are not bad by themselves. And I posted the weekly SEO video recap.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
-
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Core Update Flux, AdSense Ad Intent, California Link Tax & More
The Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out, almost 6 weeks now, and we saw two shifts of ranking volatility, both mid-week and the weekend before. Google’s Danny Sullivan went on the defensive on search quality and forum listings… -
Google Tests More Google Ad Card Formats
Google is testing another ad format, another card like format, for its search ads. We previously saw the vertical and tall ad cards, then the carousel horizontal card format and now here are just plain horizontal ad cards. -
Google: It’s Unlikely Your Rankings Dropped Because You Have Two Websites
Google was asked if having two websites and Google finding out about them would cause the websites to drop in rankings. John Mueller from Google said that is “not likely,” adding that many people have several websites and that is fine. -
Google: Indexing API May Work For Unsupported Content But…
Gary Illyes from Google said in the recent Google SEO office hours the Google Indexing API may work for unsupported content formats, but that you shouldn’t be “surprised if suddenly it stopped working for unsupported verticals overnight.” -
Google: Are Hyphenated Domains Are Bad For Google Ranking?
The topic of using hyphens in domain names is one of the oldest SEO topics we have in this space. Heck, in 2004, SEOs said there was a specific Google ranking algorithm that filtered out domains with hyphens in them (Google did not by the way). -
Bingbot To Test Zstd Compression After Fully Gaining Full Brotli Compression
Fabrice Canel from Microsoft announced that BingBot now fully supports Brotli compression and will soon be testing zstd Zstandard compression, a lossless data compression, for its crawler. -
Google Cloud Socks
Google loves to print socks for its various swag and here are two variations of socks from the Google Cloud team. I like the white socks because they look more retro but here are nicer versions as well.
Other Great Search Threads:
- From a practical POV, you can specify your prices using structured data on the page, with a merchant center feed (which many ecommerce systems can make for you) or manually in merchant center., John Mueller on X
- I passed this on. I don’t think there’s anything special going on here, but the feedback on this being confusing is good to pass on., John Mueller on X
- If you have older reports that are still helpful, you’ll just need to click the View “button” and access ones you want to remain active., AdsLiaison on X
- The way I see this is more that there are things which can be recognized & ignored, but a site might still be appropriate to show (I don’t know this site/query). Folks get bad SEO advice, and if that can be neutralized granularly without broader effects, , John Mueller on X
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Search Features
Other Search
Feedback:
Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.
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