SE Roundtable

Did Google Remove The Maps Review-Gating Policy?

Chris Silver Smith noticed how Google has updated its Google Maps contributed content policy and removed a line that prohibited review-gating. The line that was removed was “don’t discourage or…

SE Roundtable

Google Ranking Updates – Off The Record

Google’s Search Off The Record podcast had Danny Sullivan, John Mueller and Martin Splitt on the topic of Google ranking updates. While most of what was talked about is not…

SE Roundtable

Google SEO Starter Guide To Be Cut In Half

Google is in the process of reworking its popular SEO starter guide, which it initially released in 2010. The starter guide is about 8,500 words right now, but it will…

SE Roundtable

Google Hanukkah Decorations Are Live For 2021

I’ve been checking for the past week, multiple times per day, and just now, Google has launched the Chanukah/Hanukkah decorations for the 2021 season. Chanukah starts this Sunday night, so…

SE Roundtable

Google Search Ranking Issue Fixed After 4+ Days

Google has confirmed it has fixed the search ranking bug that started over four days ago. The issue was first confirmed by Google on Friday morning, August 16th at around…

SE Roundtable

Yelp Sues Google Over Unfair Advantage In Local Search

Yelp has officially filed a lawsuit against Google for allegedly using its monopolistic powers to give Google an unfair advantage in local search and local search ads. “For years, Google…

SE Roundtable

Bing Chat Third-Party Plugins In The Wild

We are all expecting to see Bing Chat support third-party plugins really soon, and for now, Bing is testing it. We now see some screenshots of plugin support in Bing…

SE Roundtable

Daily Search Forum Recap: December 14, 2021

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 its…

SE Roundtable

Daily Search Forum Recap: January 27, 2023

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 Ads now…

SE Roundtable

Google People Also Ask With Read Full Answer Button

Google is testing a new option on some people also ask results, an option to click a button that says “read full answer.” Valentin Pletzer spotted this in the German…

SE Roundtable

New Yahoo Search Experience May Launch Soon

The new Yahoo Search experience may launch as soon as a few months from now. Brian Provost, the Senior VP and General Manager of Yahoo Search, said the new Yahoo…

SE Roundtable

Google Maps Tests New Sidebar Navigation

Google is testing a new thin sidebar navigation on the left side of the maps interface. The sidebar has the Google Maps pin icon, then the explore tab, then trips,…

SE Roundtable

My Takeaways From Google Search Central Live NYC 2025

Google hosts events around the world for SEOs, content creators, webmasters, site owners and marketers named Google Search Central Live. They’ve been doing it for years and I’ve attended many…

SE Roundtable

Google: No SEO Is Perfect

Google’s John Mueller said in the last Google SEO office-hours from December 2023 that there is no such thing as perfect SEO. He said, “in fact no SEO is perfect.”

SE Roundtable

Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility June 5th

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…

SE Roundtable

Google AI Overviews Come To Circle To Search

Now when you use Circle To Search in Google, Google can now return AI Overviews to those results. Google said they are “expanding AI Overviews to more kinds of visual…

SE Roundtable

New Google Travel Search Features

Google announced a bunch of new travel search features the other day across flights, hotels, destinations of interest and more. These new features aim at helping you “get inspired and…

SE Roundtable

No – Reddit It Not Blocking Google Search

Today being July 4th, I normally would avoid writing stories here but there are a lot of rumors out there that Reddit is blocking Google Search from crawling and indexing…

SE Roundtable

Google Search Tests Angled & Off-Centered Design Elements

Google is testing angled or off-centered design elements within the search results. The search box seems angled, the favicons seem twisted, the box elements throughout seem tilted – it just…

SE Roundtable

Google Search Snippet With Mentioned Products Carousel

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…

SE Roundtable

Google: Publishing Content In Bulk Is Not Spam

Google’s John Mueller said publishing content in bulk does not make the content spammy in the eyes of Google Search. He said if you publish awesome content in bulk, Google…

SE Roundtable

Daily Search Forum Recap: September 5, 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. For Labor Day…

SE Roundtable

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 17, 2023

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. FYI…

SE Roundtable

The John Mueller Meme Report 2021

Like last year, Google’s John Mueller put together a year end meme report of SEO for 2021. John said on Twitter “It’s time for the dreaded end-of-year reports. Here’s a…

SE Roundtable

Google Search Behind The Music Generative AI Section

Google seems to have added a new section to music knowledge panels named “Behind the music.” It seems that this is generated using Google’s Gemini AI and gives you a…

SE Roundtable

Daily Search Forum Recap: May 10, 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. Remember that digital…

SE Roundtable

Daily Search Forum Recap: July 8, 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. Check out the…

SE Roundtable

Daily Search Forum Recap: October 21, 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. That was fast…

SE Roundtable

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 28, 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. Google had a…

SE Roundtable

Google: Stop Over Focusing On Tiny SEO Metrics

John Mueller from Google said on Bluesky that he sees some SEOs over-focusing on the tiniest SEO metrics and that they should spend their time focusing on more important things.

SE Roundtable

Google: Good Web Sites Are Good For SEO

Google’s John Mueller stated somewhat of an obvious statement, saying basically that building a good website is often good for SEO. He said on Twitter “A lot of good accessibility…

SE Roundtable

Bing Tests Knowledge Panel Poll Tests

Microsoft Bing may be testing polls for the knowledge panels they display on the right panel. If you search for [joe biden], and scroll down the right side knowledge panel,…

SE Roundtable

Happy Fourth of July Search Industry

Wishing you all a happy Happy Fourth of July, as you can see, this site is all dressed up for the day (on desktop) and Google has their special animated…

SE Roundtable

Google Search Local Pack UX Update

Google has updated the local pack, the local results box, in the Google Search results. Now when you click on the results in the local pack, the map slides to…

SE Roundtable

Google Testing For Reference Search Box

Google is testing a new search box named “for reference” which is placed under a set of search results and contains more news articles related to the query. This seems…

SE Roundtable

Google Tests Search Results Without Descriptions Again

Google has confirmed it has been testing Google Search result listings without any descriptions, again. Google first tested this in 2015 and is now testing it again for the past…

SE Roundtable

Daily Search Forum Recap: August 5, 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…