Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

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 some…

The SEO community is buzzing about some recent U.S. Department of Justice documents released that hint at some ranking concepts at Google. One slide is named “The 3 Pillars of…

Google has added a new “activities” section to some business types within Google Business Profiles. It seems to be for some sort of hotel like businesses but not all hotels…

Microsoft has published a new patent application named Web Content Reliability Classification. It seems this patent describes how to figure out a reliability score for a website or portion of…

Some may feel like all the buzz around Microsoft and Bing Chat is somewhat dwindling but according to Mikhail Parakhin, the CEO, Advertising and Web Services at Microsoft, that is…

Google has sent out an email to some advertisers using location asserts within Google Ads with “new policy requirements.” In short, it says that if your location is closed, not…

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 November 2023…

The Google November 2023 core update that started to rollout on November 2nd, Thursday afternoon, has been incredibly volatile, heated and in a very short time. We saw the fluctuations…

Here is the big Google webmaster report for November 2023 and it is a big one. We had two confirmed updates; the October 2023 core update and the October 2023…

Google Search seems to be widely testing an e-commerce-like interface where it shows products and shopping deals by category. The page is filled with the product grid interface, with a…

For over a year, we have seen Google show us a left-sidebar filter generally for shopping-related queries. Well, now Google has added a toggle on and off option to turn…

On Friday, Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, shared some internal documents showing how he complies some of the feedback from SEOs online and then prepares that feedback to share with…

Google announced late on Friday that AdSense for Search (AFS), AdSense for Shopping (AFSh), and Programmable Search Engine (ProSE) will stop serving ads over google.com and this will also mean…

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 November…

This was a fun week, being that you all ruined the internet. First up Google shocked us with a new core update…

Only two weeks after the October 2023 core update finished rolling out, we have a new core update rolling out – the November 2023 core update. This is a different…

Google has big AdSense news, which it says won’t result in a change to how much publishers get paid. Google said it is changing its AdSense revenue-share structure and will…

As a reminder, the Google helpful content system/update is a sitewide algorithm. It looks at your site as a whole when applying its ranking system to the Google Search results….

Google has released version 2.5 of the Google Ads Editor, this comes 17 weeks since version 2.4 was released in Jul 2023. The new version gains campaign level broad match,…

Google announced a new reviews update is going to roll out sometime next week and this new update will make the reviews update more real time. Thus Google will stop…

Google has announced it launched a new Ad review center for AdSense, Ad Manager, and AdMob. The new Ad review center should make it easier for you to approve ads,…

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

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 mobile first…

Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, said that you need to stop thinking, “What should I do for Google” when you are writing content. He said just think what you…

Google Bard now responds in real time, so you can watch it “type” the answer as it “thinks” up the response. So now Bard works like Bing Chat and other…

Google announced that its mobile-first indexing “trek” is now “complete.” Which is strange to me being that Google said it was done moving sites to mobile-first indexing last May but…

While Google has a clear definition of what keyword stuffing is on its spam policies page, Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, explained that it is not about the number of…

Google Merchant Center Next, its upgraded version of its Merchant Center platform, reportedly just gained integration with Google Business Profiles. Emmanuel Flossie reported, “Google Merchant Center Next now allows you…

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

Google Ads is now popping up a short survey asking you why you are pausing your ads campaign before you end up pausing it. Yes, this adds more unnecessary time…

The new Google Search, the Google Search Generative Experience, now shows AI-generated answers for recipe queries. I am told it did not show in early releases of SGE but sometime…

Google is reportedly showing its Local Service Ads more evenly. This means that previously, the same advertiser would often show up in the LSA spots in the Google Search results…

Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, said on X that just because content is old, it doesn’t mean that content is unhelpful. He said, “Just because something is older doesn’t make…

Google is expanding its testing the people also ask speaker and list icons. A nice number of people noticed these icons showing up in the Google search results within the…

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

In part one, we learned about Chris Long and his experience working with Bill Slawski. Then, in part two, we spoke about helping people with SEO on LinkedIn and using…

Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, posted that he is aware of the complaints about recipe pages being too long and hard to find the ingredients and directions. He added that…

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, defended why Google pushed out search ranking algorithm updates, saying on X, “The web changes. Content changes. People’s expectations change. That’s why we keep looking…

Google once again said that adding schema or structured data markup to your pages will not result in those pages ranking better in Google Search. Danny Sullivan, the Google Search…

This is just a reminder that Google uses machine learning to understand if content is helpful or not within the Google helpful content system. This is not new, we’ve known…

A few months ago we reported that Google Ads may disapprove some ads for using third-party click-tracking services that are not on their approved list. Google updated us and now…

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. We’re seeing signs…

Google may have had an unconfirmed Google search ranking update on October 25th and a new one this morning on the 27th. Google provided information on what it thinks is…

On the heels of the last unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update that touched down on October 25th, I am seeing signs of another tremor this morning – October 27th.

Google is now showing, in some regions, “photo-first” search results within the Google Maps search result listings. Google said this is to help search “find inspiration” a different way.

Google seems to be bolding text within the Google Search Generative Experience AI answer snapshot when that text matches part or all of the query. Google does this with the…

Google announced the beta launch of Search themes for Google Ads Performance Max campaigns. Search themes are an optional signal you can use to inform Google AI about your business…

In June, Google launched the perspectives search filter in the mobile search results. Now, Google is testing that filter within the desktop search results.

Here is an interesting announcement from Microsoft, announcing the new launch of Microsoft pubCenter – which is actually not new, it is from 2006 and had a slow painful death….

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

Google has updated its suspension notice emails from Google Business Profiles. Now when your business is suspended, Google will send an email explaining why it was suspended, i.e. for a…

Google will show a searcher a list of competing businesses after you clicked on a Local Service Ad and sent a message to that business to learn more about doing…

In May, Google announced the “about this” feature will be coming to Google Images with “about this image.” It is now live and it shows history of the image, how…

Google announced yesterday that the Google Search Generative Experience has added new “supportive” links to the AI-powered answer snapshots. Google wrote, “you’ll now be able to see AI-generated descriptions of…

Google has a new ad format called AR beauty ads. In Google Shopping ads you can now add the “try-on experience” in place of the search ad’s product image. “With…

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 now…

I am seeing signs of another possible Google Search ranking algorithm update today that kicked off last night into today (October 24 and October 25). This is an unconfirmed update,…

Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, has provided examples of unhelpful content types. He also provided examples of strategies writers may use to write unhelpful content. As a reminder, the general…

Google is testing showing ads within the organic (free) search results. Generally, Google would show the ads at the top of each page set, even within the continuous scroll interface….

Google Search as of last week now supports syntax graph merge. This allows you to use two different forms of structured data, such as JSON-LD and Microdata, on the same…

Both Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising revenue were up big this past quarter, both up about 10%. Comparing it to last quarter, Google was only up 3% and Microsoft was…

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

Google Ads is testing (or rolling out) a new overview design for the advertiser console. It lets you pick which metrics you want to show in that view, and you…

Google seems to be testing displaying user-uploaded product images within the Google Search product section. So that when you click on a product, instead of showing the official product image,…

Google seems to have fully rolled out data overlays on top of the knowledge panel cards for both the main card and the sub-cards for the people also search for…

Google is now showing for some urgent cares and other medical offices, how long it would take to get an appointment at that facility. This shows both in the local…

For many years now, Google Search has offered ways to find products that are in stores near your location. Now the product overlay feature within Google Search also lets you…

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

In part one, we learned about Chris Long and his experience working with Bill Slawski. Then, in part two, we spoke about helping people with SEO on LinkedIn and using…

Google’s John Mueller said that an issue with Cumulative Layout Shift scores would not be a reason why your website suddenly and significantly drops in the Google search results rankings.

Since late last week there has been a spike in Google Search Console’s URL Inspection Tool showing a “failed: hostload exceeded” error. Google’s John Mueller said on Friday they are…

Google Search is testing a “by the numbers” tag or label in the Google News / Top Stories “For Context” section. I guess Google adds this tag if it thinks…

Google has released version 15 of the Google Ads API last week but I did not notice until over the weekend. The big updates include but are not limited to…

Google seems to be testing a new search feature to encourage more searches from its user base. There is this new “Do more with search” box that shows other searches…

Google AdSense this morning rolled out frequency controls for vignette ads format in Auto ads. These frequency controls let AdSense publishers decide how often vignettes are shown to their users.

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 the original iTunes version, click here. This week, we covered that the Google October 2023 core update is done rolling out…

It took almost the full 14 days, but the Google October 2023 core update is now officially done rolling out. The October 2023 core update started rolling out on October…

Google is testing a new local pack design that shows reviews, menu details and more in these card design. It is not too far off from the original local pack…

Google Ads has a certification program and has had one for a while. But Google is now requiring some, if not all, advertisers who take the certification exam to record…

As you know, Google Ads has been requiring advertiser verification from more and more of its advertisers. Well, one advertiser posted on X saying it is too much, the length…

Google has added a new auto ads option to AdSense named related search for auto ads. Related search for Auto ads lets publishers show their users search terms related to…

Google has finished rolling out the Google October 2023 Spam Update that started 15 days and 12 hours ago. That update began on October 4th at 12:52 pm ET and…

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

X, well, Twitter.com, is now blocking Bing Search, specifically Bingbot, from crawling and accessing content posted on Twitter.com, on the X platform. Twitter specifically added to its robots.txt file a…

Google is testing placing what looks like a banner ad in its own search results. It says “Shop all deals” and takes you to a query for “shop deals” but…

Google upgraded the Rich Result Test now to support the validation of structured data for paywalled content. This means you can check live sites, any site, to see if they…