Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

For the past year or more, Google AdSense (and Ad Manager) has this feature named Offerwall messages (Beta). Google AdSense has recently pushed it more via the AdSense console interface…

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

I am seeing early signs of a possible Google Search ranking algorithm update starting yesterday, February 28th, and into today, February 29th. The chatter started to spike yesterday amongst the…

There is no doubt that Google is going through a rough patch right now on many fronts. Between all the complaints about search quality, all the search bugs, the revelations…

Google Search is testing a section, a carousel, named “Popular opinions.” The section shows articles with opinions on products or other topics. The example below shows, what looks like, review…

Did you know that some Google Ads support representatives you are chatting with may be using Google Translate? They may be automatically translating your questions from English or whatever language…

Microsoft may start to test Bing’s Deep Search features again in the wild after pulling back its testing earlier this month. As a reminder, Deep Search is an enhancement to…

Google is testing a new design and feature for its local justifications section. There is this “people likes” section that is shaded in blue and really stands out under the…

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

Google’s John Mueller said on Reddit that disallowing URLs with UTM parameters in them won’t help you to improve crawling or rating with Google Search. He added that a site…

Google Ads will soon support showing the Search Partner Network in the Performance Max Placement report. This means Google will show you which sites your PMax ads are running on…

Google seems to be now rolling out expandable menus and information sections for the local panels on the right side of the desktop interface. These were live for normal knowledge…

There are reports that the filetype operator within Google Search has stopped working, it has not. It doesn’t work when you add additional search operators to it, like a site…

A week ago, I had several people notify me that the news tab in Google Search was missing. I checked using multiple browsers and devices and I saw the news…

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 local pack…

Google Search may have a bug in the European regions with hotel listings being hijacked by spammy sites. Google will show TripAdvisor, Hotels.com, Booking.com and other legit sites in its…

Google Analytics seems to have added a new default Google Ads report to the performance reporting section. This is if you have linked your Google Analytics 4 profile with your…

Google Ads now will use colors, like yellow and red background highlights, for the “limited by budget” status column. I assume a yellow indicator color is not as limited as…

Google has dropped the “more places,” “view all” and links to see more local results from the local pack, the places box, in the Google Search results. This happened last…

According to a court filing by Google, Microsoft tried to sell Bing, its search engine, to Apple but Apple did not want it because of search quality issues and lack…

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

Last week, Google revealed it signed a deal with Reddit to access its content using an API so it can get the content faster and in a structured format. This…

Now when leaving a review on a business within the Google local and maps results, the disclaimer has a notice about “beta questions.” It reads, “For beta questions, your answers…

Google Search is testing a new carousel named “Most-read articles.” I guess Google is using click data to see which articles are being read the most. Or maybe Chrome or…

Google Ads is testing a new change history page that shows more details on the changes made to your ads and campaigns. It now documents the change overview by user…

There is a large thread in the Google Analytics help forum with complaints from site owners of being flooded with fake referral traffic originating from Poland. This seems to be…

I am seeing some massive volatility being reported today after seeing a spike in chatter within the SEO community on Friday. I have not seen the third-party Google tracking tools…

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…

Google spoke more about the time it takes to recover from a helpful content update and then said it is up to you to decide ice what old content is…

Google Ads announced that within Performance Max the search ad company is rolling out asset generation globally in English with more languages to come. Plus, image editing will finish rolling…

The topic of removing or updating or blocking old content from Google is not new, and we covered it countless times. I saw John Mueller of Google comment about it…

Google has announced a deal with Reddit to gain access to its content using the Reddit Data API reportedly worth $60 million annually. Yes, Google is paying Reddit to get…

Google released version 16 of the Google Ads API yesterday. The update includes additional recommendation types, support for time-related segments, support for advertiser verification, plus much more.

Bing Search now has these yellow “opinion” labels on news stories within its search results. The label is overlayed on the news story’s image and really makes the story stand…

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

Google has these latest styles and shop the look carousels for some clothing queries. Now when you swipe through the carousel, Google will dynamically change the products listed below them.

Google has a confirmed bug with using negative search operators, a way to exclude words from your search results, within Google Shopping. Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, confirmed the…

Bing is testing replacing its search pagination bar at the footer of the search results with a “next page” button and a “refresh” button. This is instead of showing the…

Bing Search’s sitelinks can sometimes be expanded to see sub-sitelinks, deeper level sitelinks. This is something Google experimented from time to time but something Bing Search does on mobile right…

Google is testing fading in the text of the search result snippets as you scroll down to see more search results. The text is a light gray, and then it…

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 past 20 years, probably even longer, the debate about Google giving preferential treatment to large sites over small sites has been a huge topic in the SEO world…

Google is pushing some businesses to sign up for a free Google Ads consult with a Google representative through their Gmail accounts. This is in the form of a pop…

Google Ads has an issue with some sitelink assets where it shows the sitelinks are eligible but “limited” and the reason says “unknown.” Google’s Ads Liaison said, “the team is…

The other day, Gartner, a respected research firm, predicted that “traditional search engine volume will drop 25%, with search marketing losing market share to AI chatbots and other virtual agents.”…

The popular Google app, the Google Search app, now has a toggle at the top to quickly switch between Google Search and Gemini (formerly Google Bard). It shows up at…

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

John Mueller from Google once again addressed the topic of sites using the Google Indexing API when Google does not officially support those use cases. He said it is not…

Google will change how it estimates its delivery times through Google Merchant Center. Starting on April 9, Google will look at minimum [min_handling_time]and maximum [max_handling_time] attributes for processing time in…

Google has posted a new policy for Google Merchant Center around using AI-generated images. In short, you need to make sure those images have meta data that labels the image…

Google has always shown how expensive restaurants are by placing either one, two, or three dollar signs by the restaurant’s name in the local pack listings. Now Google is testing…

Google Search is experimenting with a Pixel phone feature that will let you call a customer service line at a company and wait on hold until a real person answers…

Google announced this morning support for Product variant structured data. This new structured data supports three new properties; hasVariant, variesBy and productGroupID in order to handle most of the way…

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

Google is investigating a possible issue with its search results where Google is not ranking adult-oriented sites for its brand name in some regions. Instead, Google ranks the adult site’s…

Google seems to have rolled out the Shop with Google AI feature to some users after announcing it back in November. I cannot see it unless I am logged into…

A week ago we wrote about the timing it takes to recover from a Google helpful content update. Then on Friday, Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, added more clarity on…

Google Search seems to be testing a new search bar design on mobile search. The bar shows the images, videos, news, shopping, maps, etc buttons but with a light blue…

Google Ads will update its unacceptable business practices portion of the misrepresentation policy in March 2024. The update says you cannot entice “users to part with money or information by…

Google is testing a new menu item in its search bar. The new item is “Forums” and it filters the search results to forums, such as Reddit, Hacker News, 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 says again,…

This week, we covered another unconfirmed Google search ranking update that hit on February 14th and 15th. Google has some bugs or changes that really hurt recipe bloggers big time…

Google’s Danny Sullivan said it again, when it comes to what you do on your website, Google Search wants what your users want. Sullivan wrote, “Virtually everything someone asks about…

Google has updated its right to be forgotten EU takedown notices and details to not show the specific URLs and to stop notifying publishers of these requests. This is a…

In June, Google introduced virtual try-on models to some clothing<< product shopping results. When it first launched, Google said it used AI to generate models that can try on clothes for…

How do you use the link data within Google Search Console? That is what John Mueller of Google asked earlier this month, and he got a nice list of uses…

Google seems to be testing aligning the logo to the left in some knowledge panels within the search results. Typically the logo would show up on the right top corner,…

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 have another…

It seems that Google has stopped serving featured snippets in its search results this morning. It started around 7 AM ET today, just about an hour ago. I cannot trigger…

I see signs of another unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update that kicked off yesterday and is rolling into today. The SEO chatter within the SEO industry started yesterday and…

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, said last week that the search company will issue additional clarifications around the acceptable or unacceptable use of AI to generate content for SEO purposes….

Google is testing two new layouts for the hotel search results – the hotel pack. Instead of just listing the results in a list view, Google is testing show the…

We’ve been seeing changes to the Google Search results in the European regions related to Digital Markets Act (DMA) comparison sites and hotels, etc. The Google Search team now posted…

Google is testing a new top stories feature and label that tells you that there are new top stories available since the last time you searched for that query. There…

Google has added a section to the use rel=canonical link annotations section of the canonical search documentation to clarify that rel=canonical annotations with certain attributes are not used for canonicalization.

Google Search Console has quietly launched some relatively small user interface changes. It seems like the filters and sorting boxes are now curved and more modern.

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

There seems to be a bug right now with Google Search not showing the local pack results right now. I suspect it will be fixed really soon. Searches that trigger…

Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, wrote on X, “Another thing to keep in mind is that some of the sites I’ve looked into, where someone thinks they have a…

Google Ads is beta testing a new feature, a new button, in the Google Ads console named “Spacing.” This is a feature that is available for individual advertiser accounts and…

Google has released its new Google Maps and local spam fighting numbers for the 2023 year, citing a big lift in reviews and other local fraud that was blocked. Google…

It seems Google has no plans to build a mobile app for Search Console in the near future. John Mueller of Google was asked about the possibility and he responded…

The Google Ads team is sending out a new email series that promises “customized” steps you can take to “optimize your clients’ Google Ads campaigns.” Google says these emails will…

Google has updated the Google Business Profiles requirements for ordering or delivery providers to require them to add instructions on how to remove that service from a Google local listing.

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. Some recipe sites…

We’ve covered Google saying E-E-A-T is not a ranking factor too many times here but have we covered EEAT not being a thing that factors into other Google ranking factors?…

Google’s John Mueller said on Reddit that you won’t get your Google search rankings back by simply disavowing toxic links from a Semrush report. He wrote, “You’re not going to…

Google is testing a new feature for featured snippets that will animate the highlighting of the text of part of the featured snippet. It looks like Google is manually highlighting…

Google announced that the use of generative AI for automatically created assets (ACA) is now fully live for the English language in the US and UK. Google initially announced AI…

Earlier this month, we reported on issues Google had with recipe search results. Some changes were made that seemed to resolve some of those issues, but then it seemed to…

Nate Louis noticed that clickable stars were placed next to the keyword list in his Google Ads advertiser console. He can click them to highlight them and unclick them to…

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 spoke again…

Google seems to be testing removing the side carousel in the SGE, Search Generative Experience, interface. The side carousel generally shows the card answers on the right side of the…

Google has updated, in a big way, its how to “Remove images hosted on your site from search results” help documentation page. Google said, “Part of our ongoing efforts to…

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, posted again about the timing around recovering from the helpful content update. He essentially repeated what Google said back when it first was announced, that…

When Google first launched SGE, the Search Generative Experience, it would only work in Chrome or the Google Search App on Gmail accounts opted into the search labs experiment. But…

Late last week, Google began to roll out those branded Local Service Ads, but it surprised many businesses without a way to opt out of the feature. I am told…

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

For the original iTunes version, click here. This week we covered a new possible Google search ranking update that started brewing on Wednesday, February 7. Google’s Danny Sullivan said again…

Google has updated its Web Stories documentation to explain where Web Stories can show in search. Google said Web Stories no longer will show up within Google Image Search, the…