Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

This week, I posted the monthly Google webmaster report for May 2023. Google may have pushed out an unconfirmed search algorithm update on May 1st and 2nd…

John Mueller of Google said there is no percentage of traffic you should expect from your Googlebot activity compared to other bot and traffic activity on your site. Meaning you…

Google has updated the video structured data to say that the description property is no longer a required field. Instead, Google moved the description property item to the “recommended” section,…

Google seems to be testing the ability to filter by perspectives. Google is testing a button to filter your query by the perspectives results.

Earlier this week, we reported on an unconfirmed Google search ranking update on May 1st and 2nd. Well, throughout the week, things have heated up a lot more, and we…

In the latest Google SEO office hours, Google said that Google does not trust outbound links from a site they think is spammy. Duy Nguyen from the Google Search Quality…

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

Google has posted that the Google Merchant Center feeds have issues. The notice is posted here and reads, “We’re investigating reports of an issue with Feeds. We will provide more…

Google’s John Mueller said it is a “terrible idea” to disavow links based on metrics from a third-party tool. In fact, John is not a fan of disavowing links in…

Microsoft had an event yesterday in NYC showing off some new features for Bing Chat, touting some growth figures and announcing it removed the waitlist for the co-pilot feature.

Google Search is testing up and down arrow buttons in the search bar, so you can click to toggle down or up to autocomplete search suggestions. You can also use…

Google Ads seems like it will not be adding Search Impression Share reporting to Performance Max campaigns any time soon. Google’s Ginny Marvin confirmed that “auction insights and click share…

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. There may be…

Microsoft Advertising announced many new changes and information yesterday, including a new campaign-level change history report, new code-free conversions for Smart Campaigns accounts with Multi-platform, postponing the Enhanced CPC change,…

Google launched highlighting of text within featured snippets some time ago, after a ton of testing. We saw it also in people also ask and now we are seeing it…

Google Discover generally should not show content or images that Google’s SafeSearch filter would block. Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, said this on Twitter a few weeks ago but this…

Over the past couple of days, I have been seeing signs of a possible Google search ranking algorithm update. It may have started on May 1st, with the chatter within…

Google has updated its help documentation for canonicalization. It removed a line about syndicated content and also updated a line about noindex to prevent selection of a canonical page within…

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 big Google…

While last month’s Google webmaster report was filled with the Google March core update, the product reviews update, Bard, AI, sitenames and more; this month was just as packed. We…

Google Search can show video results, including key moments within the videos. But now Google seems to break down the pros and cons, if available, in a video review for…

Google is testing using different lightly colored backgrounds for the shopping ads carousel in mobile search. We saw Google testing lighter variations of this almost a year ago, some with…

Google’s John Mueller said he would “try very hard to avoid having a “coming back soon” page during a revamp.” He said if you must have the “coming back soon”…

Google has been saying for years now that there is no E-A-T (or now E-E-A-T) algorithm, but Google does have factors and signals it looks for that align with the…

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

A poll on Twitter asks SEOs how they got started doing SEO. The poll showed that most got started in SEO by reading and then practicing alone.

Google has a help document on “Common issues that delay bulk verification” that it updated to add more tips on avoiding delays with Google Business Profile bulk verification.

I finally convinced Glenn Gabe to let me interview him on my vlog, and we spoke for a while on a ton of core SEO topics. Glenn has been doing…

Google Image Search and Google Video Search has historically simply removed content from its search results when you ask it to filter explicit content using SafeSearch. Now it seems Google…

Historically, Google has said you should not use a noindex along with a canonical tag at the same time. But not always. John Mueller of Google said recently, “it depends.”…

Google seems to be testing a new section on the local knowledge panels named “often searched together.” Mordy Oberstein found this and said on Twitter that it is a “great…

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

With generative AI and the new AI search features, we are not only able to use some generative AI tools to create excellent content, but how searchers access information is…

Google is testing a new version of the “more” results button to make it look more basic and simple. Instead of the larger more results button, Google is testing a…

Google is now saying that page experience, mobile-friendliness, page speed, and secure site are ranking “signals” but were never ranking “systems.” “It just meant these weren’t ranking *systems* but instead…

Google has shared more details on its upcoming deadline for when Universal Analytics 3 will be turning down. The new information is that you will be able to access, report…

Starting on July 3, 2023, Google will prohibit ads for products that carry an imminent, proven, and unresolved risk of death or grievous bodily harm that has been the subject…

This week, we had the Google April 2023 reviews update finish rolling out after 13 days. That update was pretty heated toward the last week of the rollout. Google clarified…

Google has released Google Ads API version 13.1, and below is a list of what changed. The big changes include bid simulations retrievals, added several recommendation types related to Shopping…

Google may be sending text messages to business owners to verify that the information they have listed in their Google Business Profile is accurate and up-to-date. This text comes from…

Google is testing showing the number of followers a specific social media account has in the mobile search results. You usually see this information in the snippet itself, but Google…

Google has removed the ability to opt out of Education Q&A carousel in its search results. The original help documentation had a section with a link to a form to…

Google has noted that it now supports 25 more countries for the applicableCountry property within the new return policy information to the Product structured data documentation. Now Google supports 50…

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…

Microsoft has reduced the number of disengagements in Bing Chat by over three times for its most egregious category, said Mikhail Parakhin, the CEO of Microsoft Bing.

Both Google and Microsoft reported Q1 2023 earnings last night, and so far, Wall Street seems to be happy with the results. But if you look, Google’s ad revenues were…

Google has released an update to fix some, but not all, of the problematic Site names in the Google search result listings. This comes days after Google asked for feedback…

Some SEOs are seeing Google rewrite more of their titles to something shorter and maybe less descriptive than they would prefer to display in the Google search results.

The Google April 2023 reviews update finished rolling out yesterday afternoon on April 25, 2023. It took 13 days and two hours to roll out this expanded reviews update, which…

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 Ads had…

Google Ads is also testing a gold verification badge or label in the search results. We saw a blue label and then a blue badge-style label and now we are…

Google seems to be testing a grid-like format for local results in the mobile web search results. We see these grid formats primarily for product and shopping search results, but…

Microsoft Bing has seemed to add the site name and favicon feature to its search results. This is similar to what Google launched first on mobile last year and then…

Google Ads seems to be testing a “show similar” button in the product carousel of sponsored listings. When you click on the “show similar” button, you are presented with a…

Google Ads has been having more than normal latency issues causing errors within the advertiser interface and the Google Ads API. This started yesterday evening and is continuing through this…

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…

It is hard for site owners, content creators, and marketers to know how much traffic and visibility they get from Bing Chat. But that might change soon, as Fabrice Canel…

Google and Bing announced more updates for Google Bard and Bing Chat. Google said Bard can now code, and indeed it can. At the same time, Bing Chat announced a…

Google has updated its Verifying Googlebot and other Google crawlers help document to add a new section describing the three categories or types of crawlers they have. They have their…

Google’s John Mueller posted a new form asking you to submit feedback to Google about when the site name Google shows in search is not what you’d expect it to…

In part one, we learned about who is Igal Stolpner, and in part two we dive into the topic of international SEO. Now we dive deeper into this topic and…

Google’s April 2023 reviews update is now just almost two weeks since it started rolling out, and while the update seemed to have started slow, this past week, we’ve seen…

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 has updated its documented ranking systems page over here to remove four ranking systems from the list, including removing three ranking systems. Google has removed the page experience system…

Microsoft Bing Search sometimes will show a button to see what images look like with transparent backgrounds. It shows up for searches for some company logos, where it says “see…

When the horrific Louisville shooting happened several days ago, SEOs began to notice a new box in the Google search results labeled “lives affected.” It was a box that showed…

Remember a few weeks ago; I showed a test where Google Ads allowed some advertisers to use AI to generate ad copy for their search ads? Well, the Financial Times…

What a busy week, we had Google confirm it is working on an all-new search engine that uses AI and Bard. There is no ETA for when that will go…

For the past several weeks, publishers have been complaining about an issue with Google AdSense reporting that their Google AdSense ads have been getting zero clicks. This has become known…

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 has said…

I find myself going back to traditional search over asking AI-based search for answers, and I was curious if I am alone or not. So I created a number of…

In the coming months, Google will deprecate the page experience report within Google Search Console, the mobile usability report, and the mobile-friendly testing tool. The core web vitals and HTTPs…

Google has launched some goodies for news publishers, including a new Reader Revenue Manager within the Google Publisher Center and a Subscribed content report in Google Search Console.

Yesterday, Google announced it made some changes to its guidance around what makes content considered helpful, including adding in good page experience to the equation. Google also made some other…

Google Bard is rolling out an update to make the draft responses more distinct from each other, while Bing Chat has rolled out cleaner and nicer formatted math formulas.

Google has added a new crawler to its list of Google Crawlers and user agents, this one is named GoogleOther. It is described as a “generic crawler that may be…

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

Ginny Marvin, Google’s Ad Liaison, said on Twitter that there is “ongoing work to surface search term data in privacy-preserving ways.” This also includes bringing “more functionality to search terms…

Google posted an update that now Google Ads will import fractional, cross-channel web conversion credits from Google Analytics 4 properties. Google said this is even if the last non-direct click…

Google seems to have rolled out pricing overlays on top of some product thumbnail images within the search snippets. For example, if you search for [diamond bands] and look at…

There is reportedly a confirmed bug with the Google Business Profile Manager where some business profiles are not showing up in the list. This can happen even when you search…

Google Search is testing adding a color swatch to the product grid layout in its search results. Google is showing colors in small boxes and a “+ more” label if…

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

Bing Chat may soon be able to process book-size documents, not just a page or two of a PDF of web site, but a whole book. Mikhail Parakhin, the CEO…

Google’s vehicle ads, which launched as a beta in January 2022 and then became available to all US advertisers in March 2022, are now available to Canadian advertisers this month.

Google announced that it can now show expanded shipping and return information in the Google search results snippets. Google also added new Search Console reporting to help merchants debug these…