Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

Now that Google is encouraging publishers to use proper lastmod dates in their sitemap files, what happens if your lastmod date is incorrect and shows the wrong date. Gary Illyes…

Google seems to be testing categorizing or organizing the search results on the search results page. This is something Google announced it would do at Google I/O and also something…

Apple held its WWDC event yesterday and while I found Craig Federighi’s helmet used for jumping out of the airplane in the Apple skydiving suit to be super entertaining, Apple…

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’s Search Liaison…

The Google Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, gave a more specific comment to specific signals and elements mentioned in the search leak, well above and beyond what is mentioned in the…

Last week we reported that Googlebot will pretty much halt crawling and indexing websites using its desktop crawler and just crawl using its smartphone crawler (which caused a lot of…

John Mueller from Google responded to a question on Reddit about the likelihood of fixing just 10 pages out of 20,000 pages on a site, how that might help that…

Google paused Google Business Profiles restatements for the locksmith industry but has now resumed those requests and is working through the backlog now. Google paused them early last week and…

Google is currently working on fixing a bug that prevents the product variant structured data from showing rating stars in the search. This bug was spotted by Jarno van Driel…

Google is once again testing showing five local results, a five-pack, instead of the typical 3 local results, a three-pack, in the search results local results section. Google tested this…

Hope you are all having a nice relaxing weekend because it seems like the Google Search rankings were super volatile again this past Saturday. I am seeing a spike in…

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

Google had some more intense search ranking volatility this week, both on June 1st and also around June 5th. Google said white-labeled coupon sites would be penalized by its site…

Google has placed a notice at the top of the Google Search Console removal tool that says, “Cache updates are no longer available.” It added that you “can still request…

Google has removed the How-to enhancement report from Google Search Console. When Google stopped showing how-to rich results in the search results, it said it would keep the reports “for…

In addition to the shop deals top bar we spotted earlier, now we are seeing reports of Google Search testing a shopping search filter bar at the top. This makes…

Google Image search is testing the ability to pinch to zoom, to expand the details on a specific image within the mobile interface. So instead or in addition to clicking…

In March 2023 Google began testing a new design for the Google Ads advertiser console. Google announced that it will start to roll out this new design to all advertisers…

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

For the past few days there has been a number of complaints about not being able to see Questions and Answers on Google Business Profile listings. While some can see…

There has been a tremendous amount of confusion around the news that Google will stop indexing sites that are completely inaccessible via a mobile phone after July 5th. Google will…

Google has updated its coupons FAQs in the original Google March core update blog post to clarify which sites would be hit by the site reputation abuse policy. Google wrote…

Google Merchant Center seems to be testing a whole slew of new analytics for the Merchant Center console. The data itself is not new but the UX is, and I…

Microsoft sent emails to some Microsoft Advertising advertisers to let them know that if they have run an import from Google Ads to their Microsoft Advertising account, going forward, Microsoft…

Google Ads has released a major version release for the Google Ads API, version 17. Version 17 includes preparation for resource usage policy changes, page size changes, batch reporting changes,…

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

I am seeing signs of yet another intense Google search ranking update and intense ranking volatility yesterday and into today, June 4th and 5th. Many of the tools are showing…

New data from BrightEdge shows that Google is showing far fewer AI Overviews than it did when it first launched them as a beta under the Search Generative Experience. Google…

Microsoft, in its monthly update, announced that it will be moving (or “upgrading” as they call it) smart shopping campaigns to Performance Max within the next couple of months. Microsoft…

Google has fixed an issue with site names not appearing for some internal pages, this has been an issue since December 2023. I checked some examples, and they are indeed…

Google News seems to be testing placing a header above news sources in the Google News follow interface, that says “how these stories are ranked.” I personally cannot replicate it,…

Google has updated its discussion forum structured data help documentation to clarify that SocialMediaPosting markup is also supported. Google did say that SocialMediaPosting should be used for sites that are…

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 fixed the…

Google said it will not index sites that are not accessible on mobile devices after July 5, 2024. “If your site’s content is not accessible at all with a mobile…

Google seems to be adding a people also ask like search refinement/expander for the popular products on Google Search. Below the popular products section there is this section that shows…

Last week, Google emailed its Google Ads and Google Analytics users with a heads-up about new privacy laws coming to some states in the United States. This involves topics around…

Just last week we reported that chat is going away from Google Business Profiles. Well, Google may be adding native SMS and WhatsApp messaging support for your Google Maps business…

The Google Search Console link report now seems to be fixed. As we reported last week, we saw a decline in links being reported by the tool, followed by a…

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 was a…

What an absolutely wild month in Google Land – between the Google Search API leak, the intense ranking volatility in May, and AI Overviews launching and all the hoopla around…

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, said on X, “you or anyone who shares constructive feedback about our results should not feel like we’d be upset with them.” He went on…

A bunch of SEOs are now experimenting with how they can show up in the Google AI Overviews, not just remove themselves from AI Overviews. Cyrus Shepard posted a “mini…

Google seems to be testing renaming Google Discover to maybe Google Home or maybe Google Browse. I mean, it is not shocking Google would renamed Discover to something else. Discover…

As a reminder, Google has reiterated that when Google receives a search spam report, it does not take direct action against the violation or violating site. Instead, Google uses that…

Google has been super volatile over the past several weeks and now I am seeing even more volatility touch down on the first day of June, this past Saturday. It…

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

This was one heck of a week with Google’s search ranking data features being leaked…

Google’s Head of Search, Liz Reid, wrote a blog post last night named “AI Overviews: About last week.” She basically said that overall the vast majority of the AI Overviews…

This morning, I was doing some news queries and noticed that, sporadically, the Google News tab was not returning results for some queries. I thought it was just me and…

Google is now showing a newish “shopping ideas” carousel within its search results. It can show up for a variety of queries and gives you a less promotional version of…

Google has added a “see also” section to some knowledge panels over the past few weeks. I think it is similar to the “people also search for” and related features…

Even after the Google search API data leak, even after it was confirmed by Google, still 10% of SEOs will continue to trust Google statements going forward. The wild thing…

Google is testing showing the first people also ask link, as opened by default. So you don’t need to click on it to reveal the snippet within the first people…

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

After over 32 hours of silence after the Google Search ranking data leak, Google has finally confirmed the leak, but urged caution around making assumptions on how Google Search ranking…

Google added a couple of new options to the spam reporting tool, including the new site reputation abuse and expired domain abuse, to the form. Again, Google announced these new…

Earlier this week, we reported on some declines in the number of links reported in the Google Search Console links report. Well, it got a lot worse this morning, and…

Google is testing shading and boxing in the people also ask details within the mobile Google Search results. So instead of just a plain snippet interface, Google is testing adding…

Google is incentivizing searchers to leave notes on Google Search and Google Discover results by offering them an “early adopter badge.” Google is showing this message in the Google Discover…

Google has added a wheelchair-accessible icon to the Business Profile listings in Google Maps of businesses that self-claim they are wheelchair-accessible. There is a little wheelchair-accessible icon next to the…

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

Over the past few days, some Google users are complaining that the Google Discover news feed is not loading. It seems many of these users are on Pixel devices but…

Google will be removing the call history reports and the Chat feature within Google Business Profiles on July 31, 2024. Google said, “We acknowledge this may be difficult news,” but…

There have been a number of complaints that when you search for a query and the site name, Google doesn’t always show results from the site you mentioned in the…

In the past couple of weeks, we had two blog posts published on the topic of the click through rates from the new Google AI Overviews to publishers compared to…

Google Business Profiles can now show you why your uploaded products were rejected by the system. I guess previously Google did not do this but now Google can show you…

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. A Google data…

While I highly doubt Google pushed an algorithmic change over Memorial Day, there was a significant spike in chatter in the SEO community and the third-party Google Search tracking tools…

John Mueller, a Google Search Analyst at Google, wrote a response to a site owner who saw their site tank in September 2023 and hired SEO, and there has been…

Google has sent some Google Ads advertisers email notices that any of their Google Ads experiments without an end date will now be assigned a default end date of August…

Last November or so, Google started to roll out the “shop deals” search bar on both desktop and mobile, this was from the shop deals banner in the middle of…

Rand Fishkin along with Mike King may have published one of the biggest data leaks outside of the Department of Justice data reveal around Google Search and its internal ranking…

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

Google has updated its help documentation page on AI Overviews to tell searchers how to show only web results in its search results (not show AI Overviews, videos, image, etc),…

Google’s John Mueller once again blasted the “concept of toxic links,” he wrote on Reddit, “The concept of toxic links is made up by SEO tools so that you pay…

I am hearing numerous reports from SEOs that the link report within Google Search Console is showing drastically fewer links than it did a month prior. I am not sure…

Google Images lets you upload an image, and then it may show you an option to “see exact matches.” This essentially will show you all the locations where the image…

Google is testing a large blue visit button on its mobile search results interface. The button is hard to miss and shows up under the sitelinks for some searchers. Again,…

Google has grayed out, muted, its logo, for Memorial Day, again this year. It also applied an American flag under the search box with the message, “Honoring those who sacrificed.”…

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

We had more Google search ranking volatility in the middle of the week after some calming for a few days. Google Ads will soon show within the Google AI Overview,…

Google has once again said that its enforcement of the site reputation abuse policy is still only being done through manual actions and not algorithmically. Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liasion,…

Google Search can now index Electronic Publication, the .epub, file type. Google added EPUB as a supported filetype to the file types indexable by Google help documentation.

Every day now, I see several screenshots on X of embarrassing and sometimes harmful AI Overviews within the Google Search results interface. I mean, we covered the one that recommends…

Google has updated the Google Analytics real-time reports to show real-time data in the last five minutes. Previously, Google only showed users in the last 30 minutes but now Google…

Google is rolling out new profile pages that shows you the reviews and notes you left across Google Search. And starting on June 24 your reviews and notes may 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. Microsoft Bing was…

Google has updated its open source robots.txt parser code on GitHub the other day. Gary Illyes from Google pushed the update yesterday morning to the repository there.

Did you know Google Ads has a referral or affiliate program. Where you can refer Google Ads a new advertiser and you will earn $250 in ad credits in Google…

Google may be testing replacing the “related searches” box with the “people also search for” box. The two are functionally not that different, from what I can tell.

The from sources across the web Google Search feature is testing showing results without image thumbnails. Google has reportedly been testing the imageless version since January of this year.

Google may be testing a special search result snippet interface for Reddit search results. In this test, Google seems to be showing the number of upvotes and the number of…

Bing Search is currently down and/or having massive latency issues. The Bing home page loads a gray dull background, the Bing search results mostly loads errors pages and if it…

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

After a few days of calm Google weather, we are now seeing a spike in volatility, fluctuations and SEO chatter around Google search ranking movement. It is somewhat early on…

Google Marketing Live was yesterday, and the Google Ad team announced a ton of new AI formats, new ad tools, and changes to the Google Ads platform that are coming…

Google and Bing are recommending that those on WordPress to upgrade to version 6.5 because 6.5 now supports lastmod dates in the sitemap files natively. In fact, Fabrice Canel from…

Google Search Console may have another data bug, maybe, this time with product snippets. If you look at your Search Performance report, then filter by search appearance for product snippets,…

Microsoft is testing a way to filter your Bing Search results based on tags. The tag filter is showing up for some searchers via a tab that you can click…

Did you know that Apple can mark a business listing within Appel Maps / Apple Business Connect, as permanently closed if that business listing is missing the business hours and…