Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

Google Business Profiles seems to have dropped the Q&A feature from businesses in India and some other regions, or at least, a number of them. The issue started a few…

Microsoft published its updates for September 2024 yesterday and a lot is around Performance Max updates for Microsoft Advertising. Plus, you can now add logos and call to actions to…

Google is testing a new feature, or search refinement, within the image search results that shows you “from this image.” I suspect this shows you matches of other image search…

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

It finally happened, we got a new core update, the Google August 2024 core update touched down on August 15th. It resulted in some movement with some sites hit by…

A few months ago, we posted some answers about how YouTube ranking is affected by various variables and factors – YouTube SEO questions and answers, if you will. Well, the…

Google will discontinue the Google Trends email subscription service on October 29, 2024. Google sent emails to those who had subscribed to Google Trends over email saying, “Google Trends trend…

Microsoft recently added an animation or highlight effect on its featured answers or knowledge panels at the top of its Bing Search results. When you hover your mouse over the…

Google is testing a new shape and maybe colors for the map pins they use in Google Search and Google Maps. The new shape is less of a pin/diamond shape…

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

Google Analytics, GA4, seems to be rolling out benchmarking data, similar to Universal Analytics before it. This feature lets you compare your analytics data to others in your same industry…

Google announced on Friday that they finally natively support AVIF image file types for Google Search, Google Images and anywhere Google Search uses images, such as Google News, Google Discover…

Google is testing a new design for its mobile shopping search interface. The new design has a new Google logo, a gradient background theme, new headers, various sections and labels….

Google Ads has improved its ads reporting specifically, with the product reports now showing category-level insights. You can see the performance, demand trends, and actionable recommendations for your e-commerce campaigns.

Google is testing a new design and user experience for the “you visit often” labels. This time Google is giving you a way to see multiple sites you visit often…

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…

We have been tracking the Google core update and seeing more surges and changes with those hit by the September helpful content update. I ran a survey asking how SEOs…

Earlier this week, I posted polls across numerous sites, asking SEOs how they were impacted by the last Google August 2024 core update – knowing the update is not done…

Google is now showing video reviews in the reviews of popular products section in the Google Store ratings landing area on Google Search. Got all that?

Google has this ad format, I don’t think it is new, but it is titled “Here are some in the area.” These look like a version of Local Service Ads,…

Some advertisers see Google Ads show this request dialog popup asking them to change their bid strategies. This shows in the Google Ads advertiser console, which asks the advertiser to…

Google Search is showing the shopping results but now shows “more like this” buttons under the products it shows for some carousel groupings. When you click on that “more like…

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. Yelp sued Google…

Google Search seems to be testing a new search box that is titled “from your notifications.” I assume this works for Android devices only, where Google Search can detect the…

Google emailed some local businesses saying it will begin “unifying” booking on Google Business Profiles (GBP) and Local Services Ads (LSA). Google said this will create a “more seamless experience…

We know Google has told us for many years that word count is not a thing, Google doubled down on it last year. Google’s John Mueller reiterated that over the…

Google announced what it is calling “strengthen your first-party data strategy with new tools.” These new tools are Tag Diagnostics and a new consent management setup within Google Ads, Google…

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…

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

Last week, a reader here asked if I would poll the audience to see how the last Google search algorithm update impacted them, the Google August 2024 core update. So,…

In the past couple of days, Google has issued many manual actions around Google Discover policy violations. Just to be clear, you may have seen your Google Discover traffic drop…

Google has posted a notice that the old customer reviews links in Local Service Ads will expire and the Google Business profile link will be what you should use going…

Google’s Looker Studio has lost access to the Google Ads Auction Insights fields as of August 24, 2024 for new data sources. Then after September 23, 2024 it will no…

Google Ads announced a number of updates yesterday, across new reporting, shopping tools and more ad features, including, of course, AI ad features. “To help retailers maximize success and stay…

Tons of Google Ads advertisers are noticing a new button available in the Google Ads advertiser interface named “internal tools.” There is a lock icon for the internal tools 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. Amazon Web Services…

Back in mid-June, I noticed that Google was not showing many of my images in Google Search and Discover and also some readers were pointing it out to me. So…

Google is now testing a new user experience for maps in the Google Search local panel section. Normally when you click on the map in the local knowledge panel, you…

Google has updated the first paragraph of its Organization structured data search developer documentation. Google said the update is to clarify “that some properties can influence which logo is shown,…

John Mueller from Google in the latest SEO office hours said that Google, Googlebot, does not generally try variations of URLs to see if they work. So if you have…

For many sites that have customer or client portals, including SaaS companies, the login page is the primary destination for a lot of searchers. It will help your customers bypass…

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…

This Google August 2024 core update has been shaking things up since it began to rollout. We saw some early signs of some sites hit by the September 2023 helpful…

Google has overhauled its video SEO documentation to vastly clarify the video indexing criteria and technical requirements. Plus, Google added a new watch page section to the document and expanded…

Google Search is testing new designs for the default favicons it shows in the search results. This is when Google is not showing the site’s favicon or the site does…

A negative SEO question came up in the last Google SEO office hours on the topic of sending “bad actor” fake traffic to a site, to make the destination site…

Google is a bit delayed with its appeal process for Google Business Profiles. Appeals are now taking seven days or longer, some are saying about 15 days, which is much…

Google has updated its title links search developer documentation to add that Google Search may use your og:title meta tag title for your title link in the Google Search results….

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 Analytics is…

Google’s larger search ranking bug was fixed four days after the issue was confirmed. Google’s August core update continues to roll out, some hit by the helpful content update are…

Google announced that all merchants will be migrated (or as Google put it “upgrading”) from the old Google Merchant Center to Google Merchant Center Next by September (next month). We…

There are many sad stories around sites getting hit by Google algorithm updates, such as core updates and of course the September 2023 helpful content update. But Hardbacon, a financial…

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…

Martin Splitt from Google said on the latest SEO office hours that having lots of nofollow or noindex tags or attributes on your site does not signal to Google that…

Microsoft now has these refinement cards or boxes directly in the Bing Image Search results interface. In these cards, Bing will show you a refinement option for your query with…

Google has greatly expanded and clarified its documentation around how Search Appearances work within the Google Search Console reports. Google wrote on X, “We improved our documentation on Search Appearances…

There are a ton of complaints and a lot of concern around Google Analytics missing data in the normal overview report for yesterday and today. I see it also, I…

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. Now we are…

I am starting to see some early reports from some site owners and SEOs that the gains they may have seen early on with the Google August 2024 core update,…

Do you want to get links in the new Google AI Overviews that show up in Google Search? Well, a new report says all you need to do is rank…

Martin Splitt from Google said that having unanswered comments on your site or webpages does not negatively hurt your rankings in Google Search and is not a bad SEO thing….

Google has confirmed another bug with Google Ads where it accidentally attributed traffic to a match type that should not exist anymore – smart matching. Ginny Marvin, the Google Ad…

After testing the blue verification icons and labels for ads in the Google Search results, now Google seems to be testing them on the free organic search results. Oh, 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 told us…

As you know, Google released its August 2024 core update on Thursday, August 15th, followed shortly after by a large search ranking bug hours later. SEOs and site owners are…

Google’s Martin Splitt posted a video in his SEO Made Easy series on the topic of the Google Search Console “Discovered – Currently Not Indexed” page indexing report status note….

Google core updates, such as the August 2024 core update, seem to directly impact if a site shows in the Google AI Overviews or not. Google did say quality is…

Google is testing a new search feature named “your related searches” that seems to be pinned to the sidebar of the Google Search results. It reminds me of the Chrome…

Google Search has a new design for the embedded map you see for both local pack maps and knowledge panel maps. The new map has a more subtle design, with…

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

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…

As you know, Google Ads served other advertiser’s Merchant Center shopping ads on other advertiser accounts. Google promised to issue credits after hiding the data in reports because of privacy…

Google has been placing listen buttons in the Google Search results in various locations, like knowledge panels and local packs. So it comes as no surprise to see them also…

Google Search is testing a new category of search refinements named “you may also need.” These refinements show products that may be found in a specific e-commerce store.

Google is now testing rounded outlines around some of its search result snippet features. This includes around the snippets in the local pack and also knowledge panels. I do wonder…

Recently we saw a hidden gems stores section in the Google Search results, which seemed nothing like the hidden gems algorithm from last year. And now I am seeing another…

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

As you know, Google released the August 2024 core update on Thursday and then shortly after confirmed a ranking bug impacting a large number of search results. During that time,…

Google is testing adding a dynamic blue colored background highlight color when you hover your mouse cursor over a search result snippet. The whole background just behind that specific search…

For the past several months, many sites have been complaining over and over again that their image thumbnails for their websites were not showing up in the Google Search result…

Google Search has this new feature named “mentioned in key answers.” This shows you which personalities, entities, within Google’s knowledge graph, are mentioned in the search results in Google.

John Mueller from Google did it again with his site and this time uploaded an audio file, in wav format, for his robots.txt file. You can go to it 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 released the…

It finally happened: Google released the August 2024 core update; this one should reward small and independent publishers more, should it? Google had another search ranking bug, today, this was…

The time has finally arrived; the day you all have been waiting for is here – the Google August 2024 core update started rolling out on Thursday at 11 am…

Google announced a number of new features across its AI Overviews, including the new links test we saw going live. Google also is adding new Search Labs features and is…

Google’s Gary Illyes clarified on the Search Off The Record podcast that Google technically does not follow links. Instead, Google will extract the links, collect them in a database, and…

You may have heard, the Federal Trade Commission announced that they have officially banned fake reviews and AI-generated fake reviews. But will this actually end up doing anything?

Google is highlighting review content within its search results snippets for some queries that ask for reviews. At least, Google is testing this – since I cannot replicate it.

This morning at 1:48 am ET, Google confirmed a Google Search ranking bug impacting a large number of the Google Search results. Google wrote, “There’s an ongoing issue with ranking…

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

Google is still at it, maybe it is angry again about the possibility of it being broken up by the DOJ after being ruled a monopoly. But in all seriousness,…

Google is testing showing AI Overviews for users not signed in to their Google account. Some users are seeing AI Overviews for searches when using Chrome in Incognito mode (i.e….

Google Search changed how many stories it shows for political figures recently. Now Google shows the two by two top stories grid in search for searches on Harris, Trump and…

Google has confirmed it is testing more than 10 ads (some 18) in the Google Shopping ad box. Ginny Marvin, Google’s Ads Liaison, said “This is a small experiment exploring…

Summer’s going by rather fast, but one event that’s already come and gone has been this year’s edition of Google’s PE Summit for the EMEA region. It took place 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. The US is…

US Considers a Rare Antitrust Move: Breaking Up Google, out of Bloomberg last night was the big business news from yesterday. How would Google be broken up? Well, they would…

I am hearing reports of some spammers or hackers hijacking some Google Hotel listings by marking some hotels as permanently closed and also changing the phone numbers to WhatsApp numbers….

We keep trying to understand if Google Search will change, if it will just be AI Overviews or if the change will be more drastic. Well, Google demoed Gemini Research,…