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. The Google reviews…

There is some chatter in the SEO community that Google Image Search may be down ranking, lowering the rankings, of AI-generated images, in favor of non-AI-generated images within the Google…

Google is making more changes to the Google Publisher Center, in March Google News will fully transition to automatically generated publication pages in March.

Microsoft has updated Bing Webmaster Tools to make selecting the date ranges a lot easier in the performance reports. Now the date selectors are very quick to select, and not…

Google is testing adding filters to the latest post carousel. These filters can show recent posts, video posts, posts from Instagram, or Facebook.

The big Google review count bug, that we first reported on Friday and that later Google confirmed on Monday afternoon, is now being fixed. We can now see review counts…

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

Did you ever want to validate to see if Google or other search engines can see your tabbed (hidden in a tab) navigation or content? Well, John Mueller from Google…

There are a number of advertisers in the local space who are complaining that the lead quality has been worse than ever in the past few months. They blame the…

Microsoft seems to be testing dropping the AI labels and other interaction features from the Bing Search AI Answers. Or maybe, Bing dropped its AI Answers for normal featured snippets…

On Friday, we reported that the Google local reviews seem to be disappearing or being counted wrong. Well, Google finally confirmed the issue, just minutes ago, in the Google Business…

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 are seeing…

Over the weekend, the Super Bowl LIX weekend, there has been a lot of chatter about ranking volatility and traffic losses. Truth is, I feel there is often chatter about…

Earlier we reported that Google was testing AI-organized restaurant results in the Google Search results. Now, Google is doing the same for local events; and organizing them with AI.

Google has combined the marketing email preferences within Google AdSense, which may lead to you getting more emails from the Google AdSense team. Google merged the “Customized help and performance…

One can always find weird bugs in the Google and Bing Search results but these two really caught my eye. Bing Search seems to have a bug for some searchers…

Google is no longer showing the price of Bitcoin when you search for it in Google Search. Google’s VP, Engineering for Search, Rajan Patel, said this is “Not intended” and…

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

John Mueller from Google wrote on Bluesky, “and let’s be honest, people can tell when author bios are used purely as an SEO tactic. It’s kinda awkward, not reassuring.” This…

Google has updated its Google Business Profiles reinstatement emails to now include the case number on the first appeal email. Plus, Google added five proof upload boxes to upload more…

In December, we reported that Google was experimenting with something they call AI Mode. Well, now, we have more details and even screenshots of AI Mode in Google Search.

I am seeing a ton of complaints in the Google Business Profiles forums about reviews going missing. A lot of people are saying the review counts have dropped from one…

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

Another update in the revised Google Quality Raters Guidelines that was updated on January 23rd was that they added a section for recipe sites and said that requiring “significant scrolling”…

Gary Illyes from Google reportedly said at event the other day that it is important for us to focus on originality in the coming year. “Originality is something we’re going…

Gary Illyes from Google ranted on Bluesky about folks updating the lastmod date in their sitemap files when all they have changed was the date in their footers copyright line…

OpenAI announced big news that its ChatGPT Search service is now open and no longer requires a login or an account. It comes the same day that Google expanded access…

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

I am seeing a lot of renewed chatter within the SEO industry of a possible unconfirmed Google search ranking update touching down in the past 24-hours or so. The weird…

Microsoft published its new Microsoft Advertising features that it released over the past month. This goes across Performance Max tools, reporting, new values, targeting, and more.

Google AI Overviews are now able to show super detailed comparison within Google Search. If you search for two very specific models, Google may give you a ton of details…

Google / Alphabet reported its Q4 2024 earnings last night, where its ad revenue hit $72.46 billion, up 10.6% from last year’s quarter of $65.52 billion. Google’s revenue was up…

The folks at Seer put together a study looking at how the click-through rates of the Google organic and paid search results are impacted by having AI Overviews on the…

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

As you know, Google updated its Search Quality Raters guidelines with 11 new pages a couple of weeks ago. But with that, Google also added the term “generative AI” to…

Google is now testing using generative AI to write descriptions within the popular products section in Google Search. We’ve seen this with knowledge panels, local listings and many other parts…

Ever since we began seeing the new Yahoo Search AI features and AI Chat, we’ve been asking if they were powered by their own AI, by maybe OpenAI or maybe…

If you embed resources on your pages, those embedded resources can be cached longer than other parts of the page in Google Search.

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 testing…

While this month was not as busy as last month, it was still a pretty stressful month for a lot of site owners and SEOs. I was expecting more core…

Google is sending emails to some advertisers letting them know that they can opt out of a test, where Google will use AI to automatically create backgrounds for their images…

Jordi Ribas, the Head of Search at Microsoft, touted Bing’s growth on social media (X and LinkedIn). He wrote, “Since we launched Bing Chat in Feb 2023, we’ve seen significant…

Over the weekend Google launched Product Studio AI features to Google Business Profiles products. Now when you add/edit products on your local Google Business Profile, Google will let you “change…

Google has this new map unit that is titled “Related places” and shows a map with a carousel beneath it of related places. This actually comes up for brand name…

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

We are seeing more Google search ranking volatility hit both over the weekend and also mid-week. Google expanded its site reputation abuse enforcement to Germany. Google AI Overviews powered by…

Google is testing (I think again) review carousels and block units in its search results for product queries. A number of SEOs spotted these coming up over the past week…

Google Search is now sometimes showing the ability to filter products in its search results by product rating. I am not sure if this is new or not, but I…

Google is testing a new filter for its shopping results in the mobile search results. Instead of showing a single filter menu, Google is showing a product image carousel line…

Google has a new Search Labs feature named Ask for me. Ask for me will have Google call businesses for you, to figure out the cost of the service 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 search ranking…

Google Search ranking volatility spiked and heated again over the past 24-hours or so. I am seeing renewed chatter spike up yesterday, January 29th and continue through today. I am…

Did you know there is a quick way to directly generate an access request for Service Area Businesses in Google Maps? This is apparently not so new but also not…

We recently covered how you can now drag and drop menu items for your restaurant in your Google Business Profiles. But Google also seemed to add the ability to move…

In early December, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, said Google is starting to test powering AI Overviews with Gemini 2.0. Well, we may be starting to see some of…

Microsoft reported its second quarter 2025 earnings and it showed that its search and advertising revenue was up 21%. The previous quarter it was up 18%, then 19% but before…

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

Google has once again expanded the reach of its site reputation abuse policy, beyond the US enforcement from from May and beyond limited European regions last week – we are…

Google may have pushed some improvements to the reporting system within Google Search Console. Now Google can show how soon the report was updated within a 30 minute interval. So…

Google AI Overviews, even when not signed into a Google Labs project, is providing coding and programming examples and help. This started sometime yesterday, I believe, and before, I believe…

John Mueller from Google noted that he finds it “interesting” how those who spend time in our industry “can often recognize made-for-search-engine content fairly quickly.” Meaning, we are good at…

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

John Mueller from Google said that merging content is always more challenging than a basic site move. Meaning, when you take a look at your content on your site and…

Gary Illyes from Google said that if a URL has a status within Google Search Console as “URL is unknown to Google” that means that URL is really unknown to…

Google has added a method to bulk manage the special hours for all the businesses you manage in Google Business Profiles. You can easily copy special hours from one business…

Google Search is testing the frequently saved label not just in the main search results but also on the local results, the places section, of the Google Search results.

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

Google Search may have pushed some unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update or tweak around Friday, January 24th. I briefly mentioned this on my Friday video but I felt it…

Yahoo is continuing its AI Chat features within Yahoo Search, while also incorporating AI Answers into its search results. The AI powered answers and chat seemed to be powered by…

Microsoft Bing is testing placing the sources section of its AI Answers in a carousel view, instead of a list view. This let’s you scroll through the sources as opposed…

Microsoft is testing different colored URLs for its organic (free) results and its sponsored (paid) results. The organic URL slugs are bold black colored and the sponsored URL slugs are…

Google is testing a new job carousel in the search results titled “jobs at similar employers.” This likely pulls from the Google Jobs postings schema and more but it can…

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

Google search ranking volatility is heated this week, but some of the tools are having issues tracking them. Google is sending out penalties, manual actions…

On Thursday, January 23rd, Google updated its search quality raters guidelines PDF document. The last time Google updated this document was for the March 2024 spam update changes, over ten…

Google’s John Mueller said that when it comes to disavowing links “it’s in a spammer’s best interest to encourage others to spend time on it.” Why? Because Google has said…

Microsoft is testing a new local pack design and layout for Bing Search local pack results. Bing is placing these blue boxes, either below the map, to the right side,…

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

Google looks to have expanded its enforcement of its site reputation abuse policy to European regions this week. Google began enforcement in the US back in May but Google seems…

Yahoo seems to be testing AI Chat within its search results. The chat feature loads on the right side for your query. You click on it and it loads an…

Google is still testing its offensive page annotation feature in the Google iOS app still, but the good news is that the opt out feature does indeed work. Yes, it…

Microsoft is testing a new search filter menu option that lets you filter by real estate results. This shows up in the normal search menu below the search box.

Now when you use Circle To Search in Google, Google can now return AI Overviews to those results. Google said they are “expanding AI Overviews to more kinds of visual…

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