Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

Google has done it again, it has shown ads from competitors directly above the reviews section of a Google local listing.

Google is reportedly going to be hosting an invite-only creator summit at the end of this month at the Google offices in Mountain View, California, aka, the GooglePlex. Danny Sullivan,…

Google has added the negative keywords tab to the Google Ads Keyword Planner tool. This gives advertisers more data and tools to add keywords to exclude from their Google Ads…

Google Search is testing a new section in its search results for “List articles.” Google then shows you articles that are like top ten or top whatever number list for…

Google added eight or so words between brackets to clarify that fields that aren’t explicitly listed in the robots.txt documentation aren’t supported. Why did they do this? Because sometimes Google…

Google announced two new features for Google Merchant Center (1) Video generation in Product Studio and (2) Amazon MCF integration with Merchant Center.

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

Google is testing multiple variations of the sponsored ad label in its search results. These are more subtle than the huge ad sponsored labels we saw weeks ago. Google is…

Google Shopping is testing a new AI Overview answer titled “Researched with AI – Experimental.” This seems to pull together reviews for specific products based on Google Gemini AI.

Google now supports Certification markup support for merchant listings in the product structured data documentation. Google wrote, “starting in April 2025, we’re replacing the EnergyConsumptionDetails type with the more robust…

Earlier we reported Google was testing “most popular” and “best price” labels in the product detail grid within Google Search. Now, Google is also testing a “nearby” label in that…

With Google removing the cache operator from its search service, Google has stopped supporting the noarchive directive in Google Search. The directive, the noarchive meta tag, would tell Google not…

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

We had more of the same Google ranking volatility but this time…

Google announced a bunch of new AI Search features including search ads finally rolling out to AI Overviews, the new link format rolling out, AI-organized search results, new AI shopping…

Microsoft is testing placing a Bing button on the Bing Search home page. This is both under the search box and then as you start to type, it is in…

Google Ads is testing variations of its Click-To WhatsApp Messages feature. This feature is only available in select regions, but it allows you to enable searchers to click on a…

Google is reportedly testing showing Local Service Ads (LSAs) without a photo of an attorney or attornies. Instead, Google can show a photo from its business profile or law firm…

Google is testing another variation of “from the web” sections in its search results. This one is more for local queries, where Google shows a carousel of cards snippets titled…

Google seems to be testing showing videos, videos from YouTube, in the image carousels within the knowledge panels. Generally, Google will only show images in this carousel but now Google…

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

Surprise, surprise, the heated Google Search ranking volatility has continued into October. This is the longest ongoing period of heated Google Search ranking volatility we had ever recorded according to…

Microsoft announced a new streamlined experience below Copilot’s organic response and two new capabilities, diagnostics and performance snapshot. Microsoft sent a low resolution screenshot of how the ads in the…

Google is testing replacing the “People also search for” box with a “Search instead for” box. I think this is just a title change because the functionality looks equivalent to…

Google’s John Mueller said that SEOs are in a great place because they understand how crawlers work, how the controls work, and they can help their clients decide on their…

Google is testing an ad format for Google Ads where you swipe over a carousel of images, eventually leading to a map. When you click on the map, it takes…

Fabrice Canel from Microsoft posted on X this week that BingBot turned 14 years old. Yea, 14 years of crawling the web. Fabrice wrote, “Happy 14th Birthday, BingBot! You’ve been…

This is a programming note that Thursday and Wednesday are Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and I will be offline the next two days. I will be offline on…

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

Microsoft announced it is now rolling out the Bing generative search experience and to more sets of informational queries. Also, Bing updated its Deep Search saying it is faster and…

Google has updated its developer documentation to warn about sites using JavaScript-generated Product markup and that the search company recommends putting Product markup in the initial HTML for best results.

This month may have been one of the most volatile Google Search ranking months I reported about ever. Google completed its August 2024 core update, and then we had countless…

Google is testing a dynamic map feature in Google Search that will update the map as you scroll through the location carousel. The location carousel has content like neighborhoods, things…

Microsoft seems to be testing replacing the hard to see ad label with a longer sponsored label in the Bing Search results. So instead of it saying “ad” next to…

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

We’ve covered Google Search showing the wrong date and time on search result snippets countless times on this site. Well, Bing Search can get it wrong too – at least…

Google has updated its performance reports in Google Search Console to have the filters you set, stick. Meaning, the next time you go back to the report, it should be…

Google’s John Mueller was asked about if it is still okay to use noindex and canonicals at the same time and when to use one or the other. This is…

John Mueller, a Google Search Advocate, said on Reddit, that he does not recommend you use generic server or CMS holding pages for new sites. Instead, either “keep DNS disabled…

Google Ads had an outage that started at around 3am ET on Tuesday October 1st. The issue is now mostly resolved, but many advertisers were unable to access their Google…

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…

Google will not, refused to, calm down, and the ranking volatility, the shuffling of the search results, remains constant. This weekend, probably starting on Friday, September 27th, through the whole…

Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, has been interviewed again – this time by Alyeda Solis. It is pretty similar to my interview with Google’s Search Liason, but this one…

Earlier this month, we reported that Google was testing a new Google Shopping Search interface. Well, Google may have rolled it out now. There is the new logo, with a…

Google seems to be rolling out a new bidding option for Local Service Ads named Target cost-per-lead (tCPL) bidding. Target cost-per-lead (tCPL) bidding is a semi-automated smart bid strategy. You…

Google may have hit Forbes Advisor with a manual action, downgrading its rankings over maybe the site reputation abuse policy. Lars Lofgren wrote about this marketplace, as he put it,…

About 8 weeks ago, Google announced Google Search Console Recommendations and rolled it out to a limited number of properties within the platform. Google said the roll out will be…

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

Today is the day Google would be celebrating its birthday or anniversary – September 27th. As Google posted last year, On September 27, 1998, Google Inc. was officially born.

Google Search rankings gains were lost for many, followed more more volatility this week. Google updated its web search spam policies, with a focus on site reputation abuse. Google’s cache…

Krystal Taing, a Google local product expert in the Google Business Profiles forum and Vice President at Uberall, said she is seeing a rise in re-verifications from Google Business Profiles…

Google is testing adding a new section named “About this place” to the local panel in the Google Business Profile listings within Google Search and Google Maps. This section shows…

Microsoft is testing adding more details to the short video carousel it shows in Bing Search. Now it is showing video length, descriptions, a swipe to see more and other…

Google seemed to have removed/deleted a ton of reviews from Google Business Profiles within Google Maps and Local search last week, around September 17th. This came a day or so…

Google has this setting some searchers can manage that lets them turn on or off seeing content in a language that is popular in their region. The searcher can either…

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

Google Search still has not calmed its ranking shifts, volatility and movement. The search results remain incredibly volatile with rankings and traffic changing again in a big way over the…

Google has refreshed and updated its web search policies documentation. The big change is Google added more language around the site reputation abuse policy, while expanding, simplifying and clarifying other…

Google AI Overviews generally do not show up for branded or navigational queries. So if you are searching for a brand or company, generally, Google has not shown an AI…

Google now can show movies you recently viewed as an “activity card.” I am not sure if this is based on a movie you actually went to see in the…

Google Search has this newish news or top stories carousel format that Google titled “States in the news.” It shows you news or top stories from news publishers related to…

Google Search has this news or top stories section titled “Backstory.” It comes up from political queries, maybe other news queries.

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

Google is reportedly working on fixing a bug with not being able to properly respond to a noindex directive on some JavaScript generated pages. This is happening for some React…

Google now places a notice or warning on some Google Business Profile listings within Google Maps when it thinks some of the reviews may be fake or fraudulent. We covered…

Google is now testing adding labels to the product detail side panel when you click on a product in the Google Search popular products grid. The labels spotted include a…

This morning we covered these unusual “preferred source” labels in the search results. And now we are seeing “For you” labels in the search results. Maybe they are the same…

Google may be testing a new search label named “preferred source” on the search results snippets. This is shown on organic search results, not search ads, and honestly, this seems…

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. It took 9…

A couple of weeks ago, we reported a bug with the Google Search Console search performance report and rich results report when you filtered by the “product snippets” search appearance…

It seems that Google made a change, intentionally or unintentionally, to the site command within Google Image Search. When you do a basic site command, without appending keywords to the…

Google has updated its Google Merchant Listings help documentation to add priceType property and then also give new sale pricing examples. Google said they did this to “make it easier…

Here is another Google Search treatment where Google is trying to promote small businesses. Google is testing showing a “from small business” carousel in the search results, that shows products…

There was some speculation that Google may fold the Google Product Experts program but that is not true. John Mueller from Google responded to those concerns on Mastodon and said,…

Google has now totally disabled the Google Cache from completely working. Earlier this year, Google removed the cache link from the search result snippets. Then a couple of weeks ago,…

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…

It’s like Google cannot make up its mind – with all the volatility we reported post Google August 2024 core update, a lot of that volatility means ranking changes for…

Google Ads can show a nice number of sitelinks under the ad, as sitelink extensions. But I’ve never seen Google show 10 sitelinks under a single sponsored listing. Google did…

Google is testing using its top card format for shopping and e-commerce related queries and information. This shows product results with pricing on the left, with popular stores on the…

The Information posted survey results of its 1,088 subscribers they surveyed and said that 77% said they are using traditional search engines like Google because of generative Al products. So…

Google’s John Mueller responded to questions around image SEO, specifically explaining that while the image itself and the alt text is useful, so is the page that image is embedded…

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

Another week and more Google Search ranking volatility, in fact, it has not calmed but we saw even more spikes in the middle of this week. Google Search Console may…

Google is now showing a blue map pin with a city name under some of the search result snippets. This seems to be rolling out now and seems to be…

Google is now showing reviews and menu descriptions when browsing photos on a Google Maps, Google Business Profiles listing. So when you scroll through photos, Google will show this content…

Google has added a set of new filters and a website only report in the Enhanced Conversion Coverage data page/report. This can be found in the Google Ads console under…

Microsoft may have updated its Bing Places support contact us page. The new page requires you to authenticate yourself, then pick your region, before filling out the form. The form…

Microsoft is testing new sections in the Bing Search results named searches you might like. This can show up as a box with search refinements between a set of search…

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…

To be honest, the Google Search ranking volatility has not cooled at all since the pre-launch of the Google August 2024 core update. But something happened yesterday which caused a…

I am seeing a flood of complaints in the Google Business Profiles forums where businesses are complaining that their Google Business Profiles were suspended. Supposedly, Google is mass disabling Business…

Google again has downplayed the importance of Core Web Vitals as a Google Search ranking signal. Google’s Martin Splitt said in a video yesterday, “also core web vitals aren’t as…

Google is now showing videos, I guess from YouTube but I suspect it can support other video sites, within the top insights section of the product detail results. Previously, Google…

Did you know that 96% of the links Google displays and shows in the AI Overviews link to content that has informational intent? A new study from seoClarity says this…

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 will…

Google Search will soon label images as AI-generated, edited with photo editing software or if it was taken with a camera in the image search results. This label will be…

Bing now lets you scroll within a specific search result snippet. So if you are looking at a specific search result, that specific snippet, you can scroll through, until you…

Some advertisers received an email from Google this week with the subject line, “Changes in validation logic for bid modifications.” This email was sent to Google Local Service Ads advertisers…

It looks like we are seeing another surge in the Google Search Console Search Performance report when you filter by the product snippets search appearance filter. We had this happen…

Google Ads announced a number of new features and updates to the ad platform this morning at DMEXCO in Europe. These include negative keywords coming to Performance Max campaigns, new…