Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

It’s the new year and why should that mean that Google Search calm down at all, in fact, it has been heated all holiday season, through New Years. I posted…

We’ve seen various flavors of the what people are saying sections in the search results before. We’ve even see Google use AI to return results within them. But it seems…

Google’s John Mueller said that simply adding country codes to your URLs won’t result in “any change at all” for regional ranking reasons. He added, changing your URLs will result…

A Redditor posted a question asking if startups in 2025 need a blog. This was posted in the SEO section of Reddit, so John Mueller replied by just saying “no.”…

Bing is now testing placing these arrow buttons, in a circle button format, next to the sitelinks. This is something Google has been testing on and off for some time…

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…

Talk about a busy month – the last 30 days has been pretty wild. We had the November 2024 core update finish in December, then we had a new December…

Google’s John Mueller was asked if the Google Search Console screenshot feature in the URL Inspection Tool is what Google Search sees. John responded saying, “For the most part, yes”…

Google seems to be testing a new local search feature that is categorized as “Places people are talking about.” It shows you local restaurants with social media information, like posts…

Every year I report on how some Google representatives are active within the SEO communities, offering SEO support and encouragement of sorts, to the SEO community. This year is no…

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. Why should New…

The Google December 2024 core update and the December 2024 spam updates are both complete, but yet, the Google search ranking volatility is still intensely heated. It feels like one…

Google has rolled out fewer confirmed search ranking updates in 2024, then it did in all the past years where Google confirmed these updates. Google rolled out seven confirmed updates…

We’ve seen top-quality store badges in the Google Search results for a long time now. But now some are seeing the badges directly on individual websites, which turns out to…

Google Search is testing a new method to get trigger an AI Overview in Google Search. You can select text with your mouse cursor and then select the “Get an…

Here are the most popular articles on the Search Engine Roundtable by number of comments. In other words, these are the articles with the highest number of comments posted in…

The Search Engine Roundtable is made up of what you, the search community, are talking about. What are you, the search community, noticing in the search results, whether it be…

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

Google is testing using Gemini to generate the Things To Know section using AI. Yes, AI-generated Things to know results in Google Search that look and feel like AI Overviews….

Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, reportedly held a meeting for its employees where he spoke about the upcoming challenges in 2025 and how important it is for Google to ship AI…

Google often shows images in the knowledge panels within the Google Search results, but when you click on them, they often load smaller in an overlay window. It seems Google…

Google is now testing titled sponsored search ads in the Google Search results with “Find related products & services.” And as you guessed it, those buttons lead to more search…

I am not sure I’d call this new, because I believe I’ve seen this numerous times before, but Google has two AI Overview rendering animations. One for when you are…

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

Google Search is testing showing a “nearby stores” section that has an embedded map with a “more options” button that leads to a local pack. This is instead of showing…

I always find it funny how I have so much to write about, day in and day out, on the topic of SEO and search marketing. I mean, fundamentally SEO…

Google is testing showing a section under the Local Service Ads for call out extensions or other extensions. This increases the visibility of these already super-visible Local Service Ads.

Microsoft is testing a squared off search bar on the Bing home page. Normally the search bar is curved around the edges but for some reason Bing wants to try…

Google has completed the rollout of the December 2024 spam update after a seven-day rollout cycle. This update started on December 19, 2024 and 12 pm ET, and was completed…

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 December 2024…

The Google December 2024 spam update seems to have burned through the Christmas holiday, with high volatility on Christmas eve and day. I saw comments from site owners and creators…

Google has relaxed its inconsistent language policy within Google Merchant Center to allow some languages between your product feed and your website language not to match. Google wrote, “we are…

Apple has issued a motion of intervention in the DOJ vs Google antitrust case, specifically in the remedies side to help Google fight the default search agreement it has with…

Every year I like to cover how I spot Googlers, like John Mueller, but yes others, working and communicating with the SEO community on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. This…

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

Google has officially rolled out AI organized results for restaurants related queries. We’ve launched a new way to get dining recs on Search. If you’re looking for something like ‘restaurants…

Google has posted a new help section for Google Merchant Center, a Merchant Center Next Glossary. This glossary defines key Merchant Center terms and links you to related articles with…

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

On Thursday, December 19th at 12 pm ET, Google began its release of the Google December 2024 spam update. It seems like that update kicked into gear the day or…

Google has offered up its remedies over its antitrust case with the Department of Justice – it was forced to, it didn’t want to. Google said it will appeal the…

Google is now showing payment options on some retailer’s knowledge panels. This comes after Google started asking for the payment options a business accepts in Google Merchant Center, although, it…

Microsoft is testing a new section in Bing Search titled “How to pick.” It helps you figure out what product you should pick, by breaking down the options and configurations.

And now we have the Kwanzaa decorations live in the Google Search results. Just search for [Kwanzaa] to see them. Google also went live with the Christmas decorations today and…

Christmas is around the corner and Google finally posted its Christmas decorations in Google Search today. We already have the Hanukkah decorations live and now we have the Christmas decorations…

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

Google has finished rolling out the December 2024 core update, it finished super fast and was incredibly volatile. The volatility started over the weekend but lasted throughout the whole update….

Google is testing a new style of sitelinks again (I cover these way too often). This one turns the sitelinks into shades / gray buttons.

Google Search will roll out an ‘AI Mode’ within Google Search that will look “nearly identical to its Gemini AI chatbot” according to some reports. We also saw sources post…

Google seems to be testing adding buttons/links to nearby hotels and restaurants directly at the top of a Google Business Profile listing. This may be related to the Digital Markets…

Microsoft has this “studies of” carousel in the Bing Search results. It can help you find content that helps you prepare for a specialized exam or course, of sorts.

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

The Google December 2024 core update quickly and brutally finished rolling out yesterday at around 2:00 PM ET. It took just over 6 days to roll out, starting on December…

There are a number of reports of Google Business Profile listings in Google Maps coming up broken. Google seems to be showing half of the listing, with flickering maps portions,…

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 search…

Mark Williams-Cook gave an unbelievable presentation at SearchNorwich named Improving your SEO with conceptual models. Lucky for you and me, this presentation was posted on YouTube for us all to…

Forbes has reportedly fired some of its freelancers for some stories over its ongoing issue with Google’s site reputation abuse policy, aka parasite SEO. The Verge wrote, “Forbes will stop…

Google is testing a much richer experience for things to do style queries. Instead of showing a calendar box, text format with image boxes, Google is testing showing this rich…

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

Jonathan Jones attended the Google Search Central Live event in Zurich last week and posted excellent and detailed notes about the event, including a bit more on the more often…

Google’s John Mueller reiterated in a big way that SEOs and site owners should not spend time disavowing “toxic” links. He said it is a “billable waste of time” to…

Google has repurposed its 2014 blog post on faceted navigation best practices (which we covered a decade ago) and created a new help document page named Managing crawling of faceted…

Google Merchant Center added a new field in the “Promotion conditions” section for “first order” discount. This seems to be for shopping ads set up in Merchant Center.

When OpenAI launched ChatGPT Search several weeks ago, it was just available to paid users. Now, anyone who logs into ChatGPT should have access to the Search the Web button…

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 December…

Google’s Daniel Waisberg confirmed that the new 24-hour date filter that is in the Google Search Console web interface is not yet supported by the Google Search Console API. Of…

Google is testing yet another design for favicons in the search result snippets. This one has these backgrounds, grayish backgrounds added behind the favicons in the search results.

Google is testing a “Research more” section in its search results that shows articles on the topic you queried. This looks like the list articles section we covered in October,…

Google is sending out emails asking business owners to add their social profiles to their Google Business Profiles. The email says, “Link your social profiles so customers can see your…

Google Search is testing adding a paper clip icon to the search bar, next to the voice search icon, next to the lens icon and the search button. This seems…

As you know, the December 2024 core update was announced on December 12, 2024 at around 10:46 am ET and Google said it would take about two weeks to complete….

Hanukkah (aka Chanukah) starts pretty late this year, compared to other years. The holiday starts Wednesday, December 25th. And Google has already added its Hanukkah decorations for his year, while…

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 surprised us…

Google surprised most of us with a new core update being announced yesterday, only a week after the November 2024 core update finished rolling out. This new December 2024 core…

Google held its Google Search Central Live event at its large Zurich office (where the Search Central team is based) and one of the things presented was that Google will…

Google Lens stopped working for all users for a short period of time yesterday morning (NY time). Google confirmed the issue at 9:46am ET on Thursday, December 12th and then…

Ginny Marvin, Google’s Ads Liaison, confirmed that campaign-level negative keywords are now in beta for Performance Max campaigns in Google Ads. She added that this will expand in 2025 to…

Several weeks ago, Google announced it would test changes to the search results for hotels in order to see how the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in Europe would impact hotels….

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…

Google announced its “new AI model” named Gemini 2.0 and with that confirmed Google has begun testing using Gemini 2.0 to power AI Overviews in Google Search. Sundar Pichai, Google’s…

Apple released a ton of new Apple Intelligence features yesterday, including what I’ve been waiting to play with – Apple Visual Intelligence. It seems, at least for now, that Apple…

After months of testing, and after Google was the first to make this move, Bing has dropped support for its cache operator and the cache link in Bing Search. Bing…

We’ve seen our share of Sitelinks tests in Google Search. Including a number of variations around expandable sitelinks. But here is a version where you can click an arrow down…

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

This morning we reported about weirdness with the Search Console performance report date picker. Well, maybe it is related to Google just rolling out a new date picker and 24-hour…