Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

Google Discover is now pushing users to see AI Overviews directly in the Google Search results. As you scroll through the Discover feed on Google.com, you may see a promotion…

Google has been mixing search ads into the free organic search results for several months now; Google even changed its definition of what it considers top ads in order to…

Google Business Profiles has a new AI feature to let you upload a photo of your menu and Google will create your menu items for your restaurant based on that…

Google may be displaying the X (formerly Twitter) carousel in the search results less often for news related topics. A report from Newzdash shows the X carousel is showing up…

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

This week…

Google pushed out a large update to Gemini (formerly known as Bard) and this update includes more links to both related content and also links to verify the content that…

OpenAI has announced SearchGPT, its AI search tool that looks and feels a lot like ChatGPT but gives you more sources and answers through links. OpenAI wrote, “We’re testing SearchGPT,…

Google’s John Mueller said on LinkedIn he does not recommend you use LLMs (AI tools) for SEO advice. He wrote, “please don’t use LLMs for SEO advice.” “They learn from…

Google is testing showing a related images carousel right below an images box in the mobile search results. As you scroll through the search results, you are presented with an…

Google seems to be testing a new option for the Book Online call to action option that does not use an online booking service but rather lets you call the…

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

Google said it again, it will soon test ads within its AI Overviews. Philipp Schindler, senior vice president and chief business officer for Google, said this in the earnings call…

Microsoft announced yesterday it has begun testing its new Bing generative search experience – so Bing GSE (versus Google SGE). “By combining the power of generative AI and large language…

On July 1, 2024, Reddit updated its robots.txt file to prohibit most search engine and AI crawlers from accessing its content – including blocking Microsoft Bing. Reddit did not block…

Apple has launched a public beta version of Apple Maps on the web after launching the mobile app back almost 12 years ago on September 19, 2012. “Apple Maps on…

Google Local Service Ads can now show the business’s phone number in the ad unit when you hover over your mouse cursor over the ad. It will then dynamically expand…

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

I probably should have covered this yesterday but I have been seeing more ranking volatility starting late on Monday, July 22nd, through yesterday, July 23rd and into today July 24th….

Aleyda Solis posted the results of a poll she ran, which showed 54% say their sites have seen mostly a positive effect from Google Updates in the last couple of…

Google has added new ad budget options and features to Local Service Ads. You can now set a maximum monthly ad spend limit for the month for some accounts.

Google / Alphabet reported its Q2 2024 earnings last night, where its ad revenue hit $64.62 billion, up 11% from last year’s quarter of $58.14 billion. Clearly, Google’s advertising business…

Google seems to have changed how it shows large videos in the search results. I am now seeing them show these gray lines, outlining the video box, in the 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. Google will not…

Google Search is testing using AI Overviews to provide video descriptions in the Google Search results. When you click to expand some videos, Google may overlay the video and its…

Google has decided not to deprecate, do away with, third-party cookies in Chrome. This is something Google has been planning and testing for a while, delaying the efforts numerous times,…

Google is testing larger sitenames and favicons again. You can see a considerably larger font used for the sitename (the link in the Google search result snippets) and a larger…

Google Ads has a new sitelinks interface, and functionality, for Performance Max campaigns. The new recommended sitelinks features are rolling out, plus there is a new numbered layout for the…

Google has released version 2.7 of the Google Ads Editor. This new update brings a number of new features and also deprecates a number of features. New features include AI-generated…

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

Google is also testing link icons in the AI Overviews to show citations for statements generated in the AI Answer. These links, when clicked, will take you to an overlay…

Google is testing the ability to save your AI Overviews to your Google Interests section. If you are opted-in to labs in Google, and you see AI Overviews, at the…

Microsoft Advertising is rolling out brand lists for Performance Max campaigns. “Brand lists allow greater control over brand image and ad visibility, including the brands you don’t want your ads…

Google is showing AI-generated images in some of the knowledge panels they show in Google Search. Google is not creating these images; they come from images on third-party sites. And…

Bing is testing placing the related searches at the top of the search results page, directly under the search bar. The searches are exactly what you would see in the…

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

Google said that the next Google core update should be coming in the coming weeks. Google had some search ranking volatility, an unconfirmed Google update, around July 18th. Google said…

Google announced that it will stop serving the Google URL Shortener, so any URL that was set up to redirect using goo.gl, which Google stopped supporting adding new ones back…

Gary Illyes from Google said in the latest Google SEO office hours that using a ccTLD and the localized language on your page and website does help you rank a…

Google’s John Mueller laid out a few ways to determine if your SEO team is doing the actual work they promised to deliver. While trusting your SEO team is important,…

Google Merchant Center Next now finally supports supplemental feed/source support. Google promised us this would come early this year, but it didn’t happen until early Q3 of 2024. That being…

Google is testing showing a button in some local panels, some Google Business Profiles, that reads “Search Products With Camera.” This seems to be related to Google Lens and the…

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 may be seeing the start of a Google Search ranking algorithm update, as I am starting to see volatility spiking in the Google Search results and a spike in…

Google AI Overviews are only really live in the United States, for personal Google accounts (not Workspace accounts) and on Chrome browsers. Well, Google seems to be showing AI Overviews…

Google is testing bolding the query in the search box when you click your cursor outside of the search box, otherwise the query is in normal plain font text. This…

Google announced that Google Merchant Center Next, the updated version of Google Merchant Center it announced at Google Marketing Live in 2023, is now coming to all merchants this month….

Catena Media, a publicly-traded online gambling information company, issued their Q2 earnings update a couple of weeks ago, saying they have reduced its revenues forecast due to the Google Site…

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

There was a lot of speculation that Google would remove the Search Notes feature from the Google Search labs results last May after living past its official end date of…

Google is testing showing store ratings review stars in the knowledge panels for some retail stores. Clicking on the stars will take you into the Google Store Rating panel.

Google is testing renaming the short videos carousel to quick takes in the Google Search results. Short videos are quick videos Google surfaces in its search results from YouTube, Instagram,…

Google Ads has changed what they call broad match to intent match in Japan. So now it is called ã’¤ã³ãã³ãããã (Intent Match), it was called é¨åä’è’ (Partial Match).

Google seems to be testing a query refinement ad option. Where Google is showing other search queries related to the ads it is showing under a sponsored ad carousel in…

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

Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, said that he expects the next core update will be rolling out in the coming weeks. He said it is hard to predict because…

Yesterday, July 15th, Google ended support for new chats to be initiated within Google Local, Google Business Profiles, in Google Search and Google Maps. This is not a surprise, Google…

Google may have some type of classification score for if your site uses AI to write content. This score might label your site as being artificially generated content with an…

Google may allow publishers to exclude some of their content from being displayed in Google Discover. Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, said he thinks that option would be useful…

Google Search is testing a way to jump back up to the AI Overview after you scroll past it. This button shows up after a searcher decides to scroll past…

Google Search seems to be continuing to test highlighting words in blue in its search results snippets. Plus, Google is also testing showing light background color for some words in…

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

Brandon Saltalamacchia, the founder of Retro Dodo, covered his meeting he had with Danny Sullivan at Google – he covered it under the title A Brief Meeting With Google After…

Google seems to be testing its AI-organized search results pages for local search queries. We saw Google testing this for shopping-related queries after Google announced at I/O that it would…

Google AI Overviews is rarely ever showing citations from Reddit or Quora anymore, according to a new report from BrightEdge. In fact, Reddit citations have declined by around 85%, whereas…

Back in 2019, Google began testing and piloting showing 3D/AR images for products and other items in its search results. We even saw it being tested on desktop starting last…

John Mueller from Google was asked if you should worry that massive link disavow lists can hurt you negatively and also if you remove the list that it might also…

Schema.org has a new design, it seems like the design went live this week. The Schema.org validator also looks fresh and new. It is unclear if there were any other…

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

This week, guess what, we had more volatility over the weekend and also a blip in the middle of the week. Google also had another indexing bug that lasted only…

There are new reports that a booking/appointment system run by Thumbtack, a local search service, is automatically adding its booking links and service to Google Business Profiles. Well, you can…

Google has added a method in Search Console settings to add your shipping and return information. This should make it easier for some merchants to specify their shipping and return…

Google may be testing auto-playing the video thumbnails it has within its search results page. I am not sure if this is some sort of browser bug or something else,…

Bing is testing a voting feature in the Bing Search results. You can vote up or vote down specific search results in the search results page. It even shows you…

It is not news that Google now mixes in ads within organic results, but I have to say it still feels super icky to me that Google does this. Ginny…

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

Google is also testing this new ad format labeled “People also browsed.” I guess this shows you what other products on Google searchers looked at for a similar query and…

Google seems to be testing a new ad format with two rows of shopping ads in the search results in a carousel format, so you can scroll through more shopping…

Google Business Profiles can include consumer alerts on them, which will notify those viewing your local listing on Google about a possible violation or suspension of spam. These alerts can…

Google is testing a new video format for its search results in the mobile search results. This test shows thinner video search result snippets with smaller video thumbnails.

Google’s John Mueller said in a video he posted yesterday that the feedback submitted and Google collected around the March 2024 core update has “been really helpful in evaluations and…

Google is now showing the translated search results feature in more languages, adding Arabic, Gujarati, Korean, Persian, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese to the list of of now 21 languages.

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

Many of the Google Search ranking volatility tracking tools are showing a spike in volatility over the past day or so. But I need to say that the chatter is…

Google now enables broad match by default when you create new search campaigns within Google Ads. Previously, this was not on by default, but now it is, according to Thomas…

Bing Search is now showing coupons deeper in the search results interface, where you now need to click (or hover over) the explore menu icon to see them. Previously, Bing…

Google is testing shifting the Google logo on the search results page to the right. Instead of it showing on the left with nothing below it, Google shifted it to…

Google seems to be testing a new user experience for the “from sources across the web” search feature. Instead of showing a carousel or content on the search results page,…

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. Last night…

A couple of years ago, I reported that Google has changed how your feeds work in Merchant Center for countries by removing the need to list a primary country and…

Last month we reported that Google Ads began to allow some ads for opioid painkillers, like to discuss awareness and abuse. Well, Google decided to “indefinitely pausing this policy update”…

Bing is testing adding nutritional details to images in its search results. It includes labeling food products with “high calcium,” “lean protein,” “anti-inflammatory,” and other labels.

Google Search now supports a new IPTC digital source type for images which seems to be about reading if an image was made in help with AI. Google added compositeWithTrainedAlgorithmicMedia…

Google may be testing showing which country the site operates in with a country label attached to the search result snippet. In the example below, Google is showing a “South…

Google Search is currently having yet another indexing bug, similar to what Google Search experienced just about two weeks ago on June 20th. Google is not indexing new content that…

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’m seeing more…

I don’t cover YouTube SEO here much but I found a post from the YouTube Liaison talking about how traffic sources are impacted. In short, the YouTube home page recommendations…

There are numerous reports of Google sending out email notifications about there being new owners added to your Search Console profiles. The new owner notification emails have been going out…

Google has updated its URL structure best practices for Google Search help documentation to tell us again to not use URL fragments to change the content on that page. Google…

Did you know that Google Maps can suggest that you add a stop along the way as an advertisement or sponsored route along the way? It pops up as you…