


Daily Search Forum Recap: November 16, 2023
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 newsletter is…

Google Hidden Gems Ranking Algorithm Update
Google announced the hidden gems ranking system has been rolling out. This hidden gems update helps promote content deep within forum posts, social media, and blog posts that Google Search…

Google To Personalize Search Results To Your Previous Searches
Google also announced that later this year, in the US, Google will make it easier for you to find your favorite sites by showing you sites you view more often,…

Google Search Adds Follow Feature
Google is rolling out a new search feature to let you follow topics. You can click on a follow button and Google will not only show you more of those…

Google Search Labs Adds Notes To Search Results
Google Search is testing a new notes feature where you can add your own notes to the search results and also see the notes others have left on that search…

New Google Search Console Robots.txt Report Replaced Robots.txt T...
Google announced a new robots.txt report within Google Search Console and at the same time said it will sunset the old robots.txt tester tool. The new tool shows which robots.txt…

Bing Chat Now Named Copilot
Microsoft has rebranded Bing Chat to Copilot. “Beginning today, Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise are becoming Copilot, with commercial data protection enforced when any eligible user is signed in…

Google Adds New Course Carousel Info & Search Console Reports
Google announced it has expanded its courses rich results so you can now provide new data such as pricing, educational level, ratings, and length with structured data. Google said this…

Google SGE Gift Ideas, Generate Images For Apparel & Men̵...
Google announced some new Search Generative Experience (SGE) features for shopping, including gift ideas, generating images for apparel purposes, and more virtual try-on features.


Daily Search Forum Recap: November 15, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Google Sues Over Fraudulent & Weaponized DMCA Takedown Reques...
Google has filed a lawsuit against two men who allegedly used Google’s DMCA process “aimed at removing hundreds of thousands of their competitors’ website URLs from Google Search results,” the…

Bing Image Search Hard To See Ad Labels
We covered a number of the tests Microsoft Bing Search has been trying around its ad labels, mostly around it making the ad label harder and harder to tell if…

Google Safety Crawler Google Help Documentation
Google has updated its help documentation specific to Google Crawlers and added the Google Safety crawler to the list of special case crawlers. This crawler is not new but Google…

Google Tests North East Arrow By Sitelinks
Google is testing placing a north east arrow symbol by the sitelinks in the Google Search results. We have seen arrows before with sitelinks but not the north east error…

Google Testing SGE Ads – Sponsored Content – You May ...
Google seems to be testing a new ad format for the Search Generative Experience named “you may also like.” These seem like content ads, where Google shows sponsored content, articles,…

Google: Avoid Including Prices Of Flights In Your Title Tags
Google has updated its title links help documentation to say it is best to avoid including flight price information in title elements. Google said this is because flight prices rapidly…


Daily Search Forum Recap: November 14, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Google: Expect To See Changes In Search Around Third Party Hosted...
Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, said that while Google has updated its guidance around blocking third-party content, more is to come. Google said we should see things improve over time…

Google Discover Products Section Adds Pricing & Discounts
Google Discover added products or e-commerce sections about a month ago. But now it seems Google is adding both pricing details and discounts to those product/e-commerce Discover results.

Google Won’t Detail How It Uses User Interaction Signals In...
Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, said during his brightonSEO keynote address on Friday that Google Search does use user interaction signals for Google Search but he added he won’t…

Google Products Results With Discussion and Forum Feature
Google seems to be testing showing the Discussion and Forum feature within product listing search results. The Discussion and Forum is about a year or so old now but I’ve…

Microsoft Advertising Sending Faster Email Disapproval Notices
Microsoft announced that it has updated some of its existing advertising policies and with that also made the email notification process for disapproval faster and quicker.


Daily Search Forum Recap: November 13, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Vlog #248: Dave DiGregorio’s Path From Sports Memorabilia T...
Dave DiGregorio is the Vice President at Sterling Sky, Inc, and while we spoke a lot about SEO, we also spoke about lot about Michael Jordan trading cards. This is…

Buckle Up: Google To Make Major Search Ranking Changes
Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, spoke at BrightonSEO in San Diego on Friday and while most of what he said was “not new,” he did say big changes are…

Signs The Google November 2023 Reviews Update Hit This Weekend
Google launched its November 2023 Reviews update on Wednesday afternoon, November 8. But we didn’t see it have much of any impact until Saturday, November 11th. It currently seems this…

Google Showing More FAQ Rich Results By Tweaking Which Sites Can ...
Over the weekend I saw two SEOs notice that Google is showing FAQ-rich results more often since it recently announced it would only show these FAQ-rich results for the most…

New Google Business Profiles Gym Attributes/Amenities
Google is rolling out new Google Business Profiles attributes for gyms. You can add these attributes by editing your Business Profile and then they should show up in the local…

Google Search Console Adds Learning Video Rich Results Data To Pe...
Google has added the learning video rich results data to the Google Search Console performance reports. Google announced this news just minutes ago on X, saying, “Search Console will start…

Google News Magazine Support To Be Discontinued December 1, 2023
Google announced that it will discontinue its Google News magazine service starting on December 1, 2023. Any magazines you purchased and that are available within the Google News apps or…


Daily Search Forum Recap: November 10, 2023
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. Check out the…

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Reviews Update, SGE Expansio...
Google released the November 2023 reviews update on Wednesday afternoon, while the November 2023 core update rages on with a ton of heated volatility. I posted the Google webmaster report…

Google Search Posts From (X, Instagram, YouTube & More)
Google seems to be testing a “posts from” section in the search results. Very much like the popular on Twitter (now X) section but this includes not just posts from…

Google Search Does Not Use Sistrix’s A Virus Scanner
John Mueller, a Google Search developer advocate, said on X that Google Search does not use a virus scanner. Googlebot does not scan documents for viruses as it crawls the…

Google Shopping Adds Amazon Prime & Nike Membership Promo
Google seems to be testing showing a promotion for Amazon Prime membership directly in the Google Shopping search results interface. It is this line that has a small Amazon logo…

Bing Search Testing Shopping Filters Within Product Overlays
Microsoft may be testing shopping search filters in the product overlay within the search results. When you hover your mouse over a product and the overlay window comes up, Bing…

Google Search Result Thumbs Up/Down Poll: Was This Result Helpful
Google is trying out another design for surveying or polling some of its searchers if they find the search results helpful or not. This one shows directly under a snippet…


Daily Search Forum Recap: November 9, 2023
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 November 2023 Reviews Update Rolls Out
As expected, the Google November 2023 reviews update has started to roll out this week. It started on November 8, 2023 at about 1 pm ET. This will be the…

Google Expands Search Generative Experience To More Countries &am...
Google announced it has expanded the Search Generative Experience beta to 120 or so countries and four new languages. Google also added new follow-up questions, AI-powered translation help and more…

Google Shopping Search Filter Shows For Local Queries
Everyone is now seeing the search shopping filters in the Google search results for e-commerce-related queries, which Google started testing well over a year ago. And as some have noted,…

Google Merchant Center Breaks Up Its Abuse Policy
Google has updated its various abuse policies for Merchant Center. Google said Google Shopping ads and Google free listings Malicious or unwanted software policy will be split into three separate…

Google Tests Multiple Local Packs In Search Results As You Scroll
Google seems to be testing showing multiple local packs in its search results as you scroll down the page. I cannot replicate this, which makes me believe this is a…

Google Top Stories Open Access Label
Google seems to be testing a new feature for top stories named “Open Access.” I am not sure what open access means, if you know, please comment below. It seems…


Daily Search Forum Recap: November 8, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Google Search Console Redesigns Page Experience Overview Screen
Google seems to have redesigned the page experience overview report within Google Search Console. The overview screen now looks more like a basic informational screen with a lot less data…

Parasite SEO Is Not A Term Google Uses Internally
There has been a lot of talk about parasite SEO over the past several months in the SEO community. Heck, we even saw it mentioned in notes Danny Sullivan shared…

Google Search Local Panel Tests New Reviews Layout
Google is testing a new reviews user experience from the local panel listing in the search results. Instead of popping up the reviews in a new window over the search…

Google Ads AI Asset Generation For Performance Max Rolling Out
Google is now rolling out the generative AI asset generation features for performance max Google Ads campaigns in the US. This allows you to let Google’s AI create headlines, descriptions,…

Microsoft Poll: Users Split On Wanting Faster Bing Chat & DAL...
Microsoft’s Mikhail Parakhin posted a poll on X asking where Microsoft should prioritize its efforts in terms of speeding up different services. Do you want a faster Bing Chat or…


Daily Search Forum Recap: November 7, 2023
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…

Google’s 3 Pillars Of Search Ranking Via DOJ Documents
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 Business Profiles New Activities Section
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 Bing Patent On Web Site/Content Reliability Scores
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…

Microsoft: Bing Chat Demand Not Going Down
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…

New Google Ads Policy Disallows Location Assets For Closed Locati...
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…


Daily Search Forum Recap: November 6, 2023
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…

Google November 2023 Core Update Is Super Volatile & Super Fa...
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…

November 2023 Google Webmaster Report
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 Shop Deals Shows Commerce-Like Interface With Produ...
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…

Google Search Shopping Side Bar Filter Adds Toggle On/Off Option
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…

Sullivan Shares Internal Documents On How Google Search Listen To...
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…

AdSense for Search To Stop Serving Over Google, Ad Personalizatio...
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…


Daily Search Forum Recap: November 3, 2023
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…

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Core Update, Bug With Discov...
This was a fun week, being that you all ruined the internet. First up Google shocked us with a new core update…

Google November 2023 Core Update Rolling Out
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 AdSense Payment Revenue Share Structure To Change & Im...
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…

Google’s Helpful Content Update Is Sitewide; A Single Chara...
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 Ads Editor Version 2.5 Is Now Out
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,…

New Google Reviews Update Coming Next Week; It Will Be The Last C...
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 AdSense Launches New Ad Review Center
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,…


Daily Search Forum Recap: November 2, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Daily Search Forum Recap: November 1, 2023
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…

Google: Stop Thinking What Should I Do For Google When Writing Co...
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 Responds In Real Time, Like Its Competitors
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 Mobile First Indexing Now Really Done
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…

Google: Keyword Stuffing Isn’t About The Number Of Times A ...
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 Adds Google Business Profile Details
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…


Daily Search Forum Recap: October 31, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Google Ads New Intrusive Popup Survey When Pausing A Campaign
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…

Google Search Generative Experience Now Triggers AI Answers For R...
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…

Report: Google Local Service Ads Showing Ads More Evenly
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: Old Content Doesn’t Make It Unhelpful Content
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 Expands Testing People Also Ask Speaker & List Icons
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…


Daily Search Forum Recap: October 30, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Vlog #247: Chris Long on Improving Technical SEO Skills & Pla...
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 To Recipe Bloggers: We’ve Heard Complaints, Ensure K...
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…