Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

As you know, the Google November 2024 core update started rolling out Monday, November 11, at 3:30 pm ET. So far, some sites are seeing really big movements, like massive…

Google’s John Mueller cautioned about relying on and overusing Google Trends for content ideas and generating content for your website. John said that it is “easy to go overboard with…

Google has announced an expansion of anchor ads named collapsible anchors. Collapsible anchors automatically enlarge the ad height on mobile devices for better viewability. Your users can collapse them to…

Google is testing using a larger but thinner font for the search results snippets. I am not sure which one I like better, one looks like a normal font, and…

Microsoft seems to be testing a new section in the Bing Search results titled “content from.” This shows more links to popular sections from that site, based on the user’s…

Google is testing more of those expandable sections in the mobile search results. We have seen them for ads/sponsored listings and other topics but now also for short videos, articles…

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

This week, Google sent an email to some Google Ads advertisers warning that they may lose access to use Customer Match with their ads cause harm to users or create…

Google will be changing how it handles the first-party cookie controls on AdSense sites. Google said, “We’re making some changes to how first-party cookies are managed in your AdSense account…

A couple of months ago, we reported how Google Search will label if an image was AI-generated, edited by photo editing software or taken with a camera by working with…

Google has added a new promotion type to Google Merchant Center named “Sale events.” Sale events are a type data that you can submit on Google and are shown on…

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 released the…

Google has begun rolling out the third core update for the year, the November 2024 core update. This update started to roll out on November 11, 2024 at around 3:30…

Google’s John Mueller posted some SEO advice on how to handle version history pages, for product releases, specifications, APIs and other version history. This advice is pretty similar to how…

The meanings of words and brands can change over time. The terms can drift to different meanings. Term drift happens, although it is rare amongst words and less rare with…

A couple of weeks ago, Google announced the new features for travel search ads through integration with travel feeds. These may now be out in the wild, as we are…

Google Search has been rolling out this new expandable section in the search results titled “current sales.” I guess Google is able to figure out what is a sale and…

Google is showing both seller ratings and product ratings on a single Google Shopping Ad unit. It is a bit weird to see both ratings, and it can potentially be…

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. I posted the…

While Google has yet to confirm a Google search ranking update, we have seen tremendous volatility in the Google Search results this month. Google did however confirm it can downgrade…

Google may be testing displaying sponsored labels in different positions within the local map finder view. Some of the ads have sponsored labels on the left side, where it lists…

HARO, Help a Reporter Out, now known as the Connectively Platform is being discontinued, and shut down, on December 9th. For SEOs, it was a way to get attention and…

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…

This week in search we covered the election day Google Search ranking volatility. We also had a status update on where those helpful content update victims are currently sitting. There…

Google will stop supporting the Google Local Service Ads app starting on January 6, 2024. An email sent to advertisers said, “On January 6, 2025, we will be turning down…

Google seems to be testing the ability to have a conversation with the Google Search app, where it Google Search continues to adapt and refine the search query, as you…

Google’s Gary Illyes and John Mueller, along with Bing’s Fabrice Canel and probably other representatives from these search engines spent time in Dublin this week to attend the IETF 121…

Microsoft Bing has these AI-powered buying guide that can show up at the top right section for some e-commerce related queries. Microsoft spoke about these buying guides back in June…

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Google is testing showing AI Overviews and generative AI results directly in the people also ask section. People also ask generally are featured snippet powered but now Google is testing…

Google Search can show who wrote the review directly in the search results snippet. Google has this “reviewed by” rich result element next to some search results that names the…

Google’s John Mueller was asked about when it makes sense to host images or other content on separate subdomains or domains. John said it makes sense if Google is having…

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 search is…

I know we are coming off a heated and very nerve-wracking election day but I am noticing some big Google Search ranking volatility kicking up in the past 24-hours. It…

I’ve been wondering how the majority of sites hit by Google’s September 2023 helpful content update are doing. Glenn Gabe is tracking about 400 of them, so he provided an…

Microsoft announced its monthly Microsoft Advertising updates and while we covered some of these before, we did not cover the changes to Shopping Audience campaigns. Microsoft made a couple of…

Google has been rolling out a new Google Shopping interface, we’ve covered it numerous times, and I think it is now rolled out. But Google is now promoting the new…

Google can show a bag icon on some of the sponsored search shopping ads. This can show next to the “Shop now” text, where you can either go to the…

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 seems to…

Google may be pushing out a new Search Console feature where for the partial data, the most recent data it has, which was not yet finalized, shows up as dotted…

In April, Google moved the search results estimated count (the about X results) section to only display it after you click on the “tools” search option. Well, now, in some…

After a month or so of testing, it seems like the “sponsored” labels are rolling out across Bing’s search ads. I am now seeing them across all browsers and searches…

A couple of weeks ago, Google created a proposal on the schema Github proposing expanding and enhancing shipping data in schema.org. One of the enhancements is a new schema type…

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. There is discussion…

As many of you know, OpenAI launched Search within ChatGPT last week. And as many suspected, the relationship between Microsoft and OpenAI seems to still be strong, because it seems…

Google is testing a new feature in the AI Overviews within Google Search. There is this “highlight” button that when you click on, it lets you highlight text in the…

Google has made a small update to its crawl budget documentation page to add a best practice is to have the same links on both the mobile and desktop version…

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. We are seeing…

This week, we covered that Google told creators that a new search ranking update is coming fairly soon, but you shouldn’t expect to recover with this update. Google is now…

I am seeing a significant spike in chatter from within the SEO community about a possible Google Search ranking update and/or heavy volatility happening starting October 31st. Let’s call it…

Google added a number of AI, Gemini-powered, features to Google Maps including new search features, review summaries for place listings and a way to ask about a specific business listing…

Google is testing more local search features and sections including a section in the local finder named “Discover more places” and a local search box in web search named “Explore…

Microsoft seems to be testing a new design for its local knowledge panel or local listing for a specific brand. This new design has a more card-like interface, showing company…

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Google seems to be showing trust scores for some website entities in the knowledge panel box. It can show a trust score from APIVoid and ScamAdviser. I can replicate it…

Google can show a restaurant’s menu right at the top of the search results for a search on that restaurant’s brand name. It comes up in this “menu highlights” carousel…

Google is testing replacing the question and answer box for Google Business Profile listings with a title that reads, “Lear something specific.” At least I think it is the same…

Microsoft reported its first quarter 2025 earnings and it showed that its search and advertising revenue was up 18%. The last quarter it was up 19%, but as I noted…

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 held that Web Creator summit yesterday at the GooglePlex, where Google told victims of previous search ranking updates including the September 2023 helpful content update, that a new search…

Google / Alphabet reported its Q3 2024 earnings last night, where its ad revenue hit $65.85 billion, up 10% from last year’s quarter of $59.65 billion. Google’s revenue was up…

Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, has confirmed that a Google ad representative, a Google employee, has made unauthorized changes to a Google ad account. Marvin wrote that following up…

You thought Google was sneaky with their ad or sponsored labels. Microsoft has a history of being super sneaky with their ad labels in Bing Search. Here is a new…

Google is testing a search ad product carousel format that has these sub-categories that scroll as you swipe through the carousel of products. This format looks familiar but I cannot…

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 AI Overviews…

Google announced it is rolling out AI Overviews in Google Search to over 100 more countries, making it available to over one billion users and in all supported languages. This…

Google’s John Mueller said it again, he said on LinkedIn, “We’ve been pretty clear that Core Web Vitals are not giant factors in ranking, and I doubt you’d see a…

Google is now testing a “Frequently saved” label on the search results snippets. Previously we’ve seen you’ve visit often labels, for you labels, preferred source labels and other labels in…

Google is testing a new “all places” and “compare now” interface to see businesses and third-party comparison sites outside of Google Search. This is something Google launched in the European…

With the new Bing Webmaster Tools recommendations section, we are learning more about what Bing Search likes and dislikes. One of the things Bing does not like is when a…

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Google is now saying it has ranking systems that “aim to understand if a section of a site is independent or starkly different from the main content of the site….

Google Ads will be sunsetting call ads sometime next year and will be migrating those to responsive search ads. Google wrote, “Call ads are being upgraded to responsive search ads…

Google is now testing showing reviews within the photos carousel within a Google Business Profile listing. So when you scroll through the photos for a business, Google can also show…

Google is testing showing a carousel named mentioned products, that can be displayed under a search result snippet that shows the products mentioned in that search result. This came up…

Google Business Profiles may now ask you to verify your information about your store inventory within the Products section of your profile. Google will ask “Do you sell these products…

Google Search Console’s performance report seems to have a bug where it is showing almost zero data for today. I can replicate this across numerous Search Console properties, so maybe…

While I was offline, it seems we had two bouts of Google Search ranking volatility, one starting around Wednesday, October 23rd and 24th, and then again in the past 24…

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 said it…

This week, we had more Google search ranking volatility to report on – surprise…

Google Search likely does not use ARIA Accessible Rich Internet Applications, for ranking or even indexing purposes, according to both John Mueller and Martin Splitt at Google. ARIA is a…