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
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 25, 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.
The Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out and the SEO chatter is super heated despite the tools calming. Google Ads API version 16.1 is now out. Google’s John Mueller says splitting and merging sites takes longer than normal site moves for Google to process. Google updated its favicon documentation. And a scathing report on how Google executive Prabhakar Raghavan killed Google Search.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
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Google March Core Update Stilling Rolling Out & Heated SEO Chatter Continue
Over the past few days, while I was offline, the SEO chatter around the Google search ranking volatility continued to be super heated. The Google tracking tools seemed to calm down a bit, but the chatter is still very heated. This is all while the Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out 51 days later. -
Report: How Prabhakar Raghavan Killed Google Search
Ed Zitron wrote a piece named The Man Who Killed Google Search. It goes through in detail how Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s former head of ads – led a coup so that he could run Google Search, and how an email chain from 2019 began a cascade of events that would lead to him running it into the ground, he said. -
Google Favicon Documentation Adds Rel Attribute Value Definitions
Google has updated its favicon documentation for Google Search to add definitions for each supported rel attribute value in the Google Search favicon documentation. -
Google Ads API Version 16.1 Now Available
Google released version 16.1 of the Google Ads API yesterday. The update includes query assets for Demand Gen, more location service details, more support warnings, Target ROAS bid simulation and more. -
Google: Splitting & Merging Sites Takes Longer Than Normal Site Migrations
Want to scare an SEO? Just tell them they need to manage a site migration. Want to make an SEO faint? Tell them they need to manage to split a site into two or more sites while merging content on those sites. John Mueller from Google said it takes Google longer to process site splits and merges than normal site migrations. -
Google Chefs In Dublin
Here is a photo I found on Instagram of a bunch of chefs at the Google office in Dublin. I am not sure if this was for some event or if Googlers were doing some sort of cooking class but it was a photo that caught my eye.
Other Great Search Threads:
- Interested in AI assistants within YouTube? -> The new experimental “Ask AI” feature in YouTube is pretty cool. Just tap the button and ask any question about the video you’re watching. Note, AI can’t control the video player as of n, Glenn Gabe on X
- What skeleton do you have in your closet?, WebmasterWorld
- Googlebot will crawl from one location (often the US), and if you redirect it based on its location, Googlebot would only see (and index) that country version. It’s better to use something like a banner., John Mueller on X
- I don’t know your sites, but even if the content’s the same, they’re essentially different sites (especially with ccTLDs), so it would be normal for a migration to affect them differently (and this seems to be quite a way back in the meantime)., John Mueller on X
- Search engines recrawl URLs at different rates, sometimes it’s multiple times a day, sometimes it’s once every few months. The verified removal tool is fastest, the public removal tool takes a few days because it needs to verify the URL properly., John Mueller on X
- You are now a Google Search Engineer. How do you fix organic search?, Gareth Boyd on X
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
- PPC for Retail: Biggest Trends, Challenges, & Strategies for Success, WordStream
- Unlocking Success with Performance Max Campaigns, Location3 Media
- Discovering and Diagnosing a Google AdSense Rendering Bug, Merj
- Google delays third-party cookie demise yet again, Digiday
- How to Find and Use Competitor Keywords, Ahrefs
- Q&A: Promoting your app or game with Apple Search Ads, Apple Developer
- Updates to Healthcare and Medicines Policy (May 2024), Google Advertising Policies Help
- Windows 11 Start menu ads are now rolling out to everyone, The Verge
Search Features
Other Search
Feedback:
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SEARCHENGINES
Google Won’t Change The 301 Signals For Ranking & SEO
Gary Illyes from Google said on stage at the SERP conference last week that there is no way that Google would change how the 301 redirect signal works for SEO or search rankings. Gary added that it’s a very reliable signal.
Nikola Minkov quoted Gary Illyes as saying, “It is a very reliable signal, and there is no way we could change that signal,” when asked if a 301 redirect not working is a myth. Honestly, I am not sure the context of this question, as it is not clear from the post on X, but here it is:
More from @methode:
– 301 redirect not working is a myth. “It is a very reliable signal, and there is no way we could change that signal”.#SERPConf2024#SERPConf2024International— Nikola Minkov (@n_minkov) April 19, 2024
We’ve covered 301 redirects here countless times – but I never saw a myth that Google does not use 301 redirects as a signal for canonicalization or for passing signals from an old URL to the redirected URL.
Forum discussion at X.
Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Again Says Ignore Link Spam Especially To 404 Pages
I am not sure how many times Google has said that you do not need to disavow spammy links, that you can ignore link spam attacks and that links pointing to pages that 404/410 are links that do not count – but John Mueller from Google said it again.
In a thread on X, John Mueller from Google wrote, “if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped.” “They do nothing,” he added, “If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link.”
John then added, “I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.”
Asking if it would hurt to disavow, after responding with the messages above, John wrote:
It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).
Earlier this year we had tons of SEOs notice spammy links to 404 error pages, John said ignore them. In 2021, Google said links to 404 pages do not count, Google also said that in 2012 and many other times.
Plus, outside of links to 404 pages, Google has said to ignore spammy links, time and time again – even the toxic links – ignore them. The messaging around this changed in 2016 when Penguin 4.0 was released and Google began devaluing links over demoting them.
Here are those new posts in context:
I’d say add both. Lol
— Jeremy Rivera (@JeremyRiveraSEO) April 11, 2024
Sure. But also, save yourself the work completely :-).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024
Re-reading your initial post – if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped. They do nothing. If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link. I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024
… but still… is this a dumb idea?
— Rebekah Edwards (@rebekah_creates) April 11, 2024
It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024
And in general, Google says it ignores spammy links, so you should too (not new) but this post from John Mueller is:
I would just ignore them, Google ignores them too. Sometimes they’re just more visible in tools, but that doesn’t mean they’re a problem.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 18, 2024
And then also on Mastodon wrote about a similar situation, “Google has 2 decades of practice of ignoring spammy links. There’s no need to do anything for those links.”
Forum discussion at X.
Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.
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