Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

Ever wonder at what point you need to worry that there are too many of the same keywords on the page? Well, John Mueller from Google said it is not…

Google Business Profiles is testing using generative AI to help business owners write descriptions about their businesses. When you edit your business profile in Google, and then edit your business…

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

Google, for some users, is showing up to five search ads on a page. Google generally won’t show more than four ads on a search results page. Google’s Ad Liaison,…

About a month ago, I spotted a new ad format in the Google Search results that had this local pack vibe. I shared it around, seeing if anyone else would…

Google is testing a “return to top” button at the bottom of the Explore section in the search results. Previously, you had to manually scroll to the top, but now…

Google has removed the @id mentions in the site name documentation calling the use of @id “unneeded.” If you compare the old version of the page to the new version,…

A couple of months ago we reported Google will be changing its Google Ads trademark policies to do away with the ability to have industry-wide blocks for trademarked terms. Instead,…

Looks like all the negative feedback around the lack of links within the AI-generated answers that are generated by Google’s Search Generative Experience has made a difference. Google is testing…

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

The other day Agile SEO posted on Twitter an example of Google’s Search Generative Experience not showing any answer boxes, aka snapshots, for an answer it generated. Danny Sullivan, Google’s…

Google’s John Mueller was asked if Google stores a permanent or semi-permanent copy of its own search result pages for future reference. John replied basically saying no, because it is…

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, commented about a popular tactic content marketers use before writing content – using trending keyword tools to find topics that are trending or popular now….

Google has launched a new help document that gives business owners an overview of the Google Business Profile policies. I received an email about this update yesterday that read, “we’re…

Google is testing adding a “view as customer” link to your Google Business Profile web search dashboard. This, I assume, allows you to view your business listing in web search…

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

With the updates to Site names last week, Google decided to post a revised set of questions, FAQs, resources, support and timelines on the whole Google Search site name bit…

In part one, we learned more about Fabrice Canel of Microsoft Bing and spoke about indexing quality. In part two we dig more into the concern around content generation through…

Google seems to be testing bolding and underlining the title links in the search results snippets in the mobile search interface. Google is also testing a triangular format for the…

Google has removed a couple of the Google News sitemaps help documentation. I should note, it seems these were removed a very long time ago, but the links to those…

Microsoft is working hard to upgrade the Bing Chat infrastructure. This will not only make Bing Chat faster and more reliable but also enable features like third-party plugins and nosearch….

Here are two screenshots of search ads in the Bing Search results. Let me know how long it takes you to find the “ad” label on these ads. It took…

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 AI-generated…

As Google promised, it has updated its support for site names in its search results. Google said it has expanded support for subdomains and also has compiled more information on…

Ashwarya, Google Search Community Manager, posted that Google Search will soon roll out “a new experience to make access to key items easier on the Search Results Page on the…

Google has posted a new policy saying AI-generated reviews are against its policies, disallowed and considered spam. If you find such content, Google said you must mark it as spam…

Google wants you to add your customer support details to Google Merchant Center Next. Google said, “Shoppers are often dissatisfied when they can’t easily find customer support and returns related…

This week, we noticed that many, but not all, of the Google rank tracking tools were cooling, but then later this week, the SEO chatter heated up. Google Merchant Center…

Google has updated the Google Business Profile food ordering section with more options and settings. This feature was in the old Google My Business section but was updated recently in…

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 am now…

Google seems to be testing categorizing the review by the type of review in the Google Maps and Local reviews section. So if you have a couple on vacation leaving…

Google has made the links within the Things To Know box more prominent by placing some of those links outside of the accordions. So you no longer have to click…

As we expected, Bing Chat and Bing Search both now support dark mode. There is a new “dark” setting under the “appearance” section of the settings menu at the top…

I am seeing a significant increase in chatter from within the SEO community around a possible Google Search ranking algorithm update. While most of the tracking tools have calmed, except…

Google has updated its Local Service Ads reviews dispute form. The update clarifies that the form should be used for reviews on Local Service Ads and not to handle reviews…

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 and Microsoft…

Both Google (Alphabet) and Bing (Microsoft) reported earnings last night and both showed that their ad revenues grew. Google Ad revenue was up 3.3%, with overall revenue up 7%. Microsoft…

Google’s John Mueller had another one-liner – this one was posted on Twitter and it reads, “programmatic SEO is often a fancy banner for spam.”

Over the past few days I’ve seen reports of Google Search testing more visual elements. These visual elements are across featured snippets, top stories, products and likely more.

Google has moved the way to add an appointment link in your Google Business Profile. It use to be within the edit profile section and is now available in the…

Google announced that the self-upgrade tool for “upgrading” your Google Ads to Performance Max campaigns is now available for Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) campaigns and Google Display campaigns.

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 said site…

Should you put your site name in your title tag? Google’s John Mueller said it really shouldn’t be an SEO decision. John Mueller seems to be a fan of having…

Google Business Profiles messaging feature may be rolling out the ability to set your status to respond to messages and the ability to configure your away mode.

Microsoft might build an expert mode search interface for Bing Chat for those who may want to do more advanced prompting. Mikhail Parakhin, the Bing CEO, said on Twitter, “Yes,…

Google’s John Mueller said that when a link spammer (or I guess any time of spammer) find a vulnerability on a website, they might share that vulnerability with their network…

Yesterday I covered the hotel version of Google Search testing a comparison sites carousel and a new search filter. Well, it seems it is not specific to just hotels but…

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…

In part one, we learned more about Fabrice Canel of Microsoft Bing and spoke about indexing quality. In part two we dig more into of the concern around content generation…

For the past few months, Google’s search results have been very volatile, but over the past couple of days, it seems, at least to some rank-checking tools, the volatility is…

Google posted a new Search Off The Record podcast all around picking a domain name and SEO. This was recorded by John Mueller, Gary Illyes, and Martin Splitt of Google….

Google seems to be testing a new hotel search feature that lets you compare sites using a carousel and a new search filter. The carousel shows you comparable hotels that…

Google Business Profiles seems to be rolling out a new FAQ feature where Google will automatically create FAQs based on your Google Business Profile details and your website.

Google Merchant Center is rolling out a new feature named “collections.” Collections let you group up to 100 products together in the same collection. Google said collections, “Collections allow you…

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 Editor…

With Microsoft announcing the enterprise version of Bing Chat, some are worried that the free version might disappear. Well, it won’t. Mikhail Parakhin, the CEO of Bing at Microsoft, said…

Google has released a minor update to the Google Ads Editor. This is version 2.4.1 and I am not exactly sure what updates we have with this minor release.

Google has updated its URL structure guidelines to specify what characters Google Search supports in URLs.

For the original iTunes version, click here. Every week, the Google Search volatility keeps getting hotter, but Google did say we should have a confirmed update this summer. Google fixed…

On June 28th, three weeks ago, I removed the AMP pages from this site. Overall, I didn’t see overall traffic changes from the change. I did notice issues with this…

Google Search is testing a new carousel search feature that shows products from EnergyStar.gov and Energy.gov, governmental websites, on products that you can buy to save with tax credits from…

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

For the past couple of months now, Microsoft has been saying dark mode is coming to Bing Chat. But now they are putting a timeline on it – dark mode…

Several weeks ago, Bing’s CEO, Mikhail Parakhin said that Bing Chat will soon work on any browser – that you don’t have to use Microsoft Edge to run Bing Chat….

I think everyone in our industry is surprised we have not had a confirmed Google search ranking update since April 2023. But you should expect Google to confirm a search…

Google Search Console has a link report and that link report has become less and less useful over the years. This morning, it seems like Google pushed an update or…

As you may remember, Google has a news topic authority ranking system, which has been around for a while but Google recently disclosed to the public. Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search…

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

A month ago we saw Bing Chat testing visual search. Well now it is available for all who want to snap a photo or upload an image to Bing Chat.

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, responded to Vox Media’s claim that AI content is currently “well-received by search engines.” Sullivan said, “It’s still not correct that AI content will be…

Google has removed the related search operator from its “overview of Google search operators” help documentation. The related search operator would show you pages that are related to a specific…

Google’s John Mueller was asked again about page speed and how important of a ranking factor it is, if at all. John replied, saying page speed is a vague term…

Joe Hall posted a poll on Twitter asking SEOs how they typically handle category and/or tag archive pages for SEO. The results said that most noindex those pages so 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. Just when you…

Some of the Google Search rank-checking tools are so far off their scales that they look broken to me. Did Google’s insane volatility break the automated Google Search volatility tracking…

Google Search is testing boxed-in favicons for snippets. That is, instead of the favicon as is, Google is placing them in a square box.

Google’s John Mueller seemed to get annoyed the other day around people faking who they are with fake personas. He posted a PSA, public service announcement, on Twitter Monday saying,…

Google News seems to be testing a new section in the “for you” section named “Suggested for you.” This section shows you news sources that you can follow within Google…

Google’s John Mueller was asked if keyword research helps SEO. John immediately replied, “no,” but then explained why he said no. It is not the task keyword research that helps…

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 past weekend…

Here is a Google Search treatment that feels old but I can’t see any coverage of this feature on this site or on other sites. There is a carousel section…

In January, Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liason, said that Google Search has issues showing the searcher’s preferred language on the search results page. He said this is a priority for…

Have you ever spotted a Google quality rater visiting your website? It is not as uncommon as you thought. I even saw it on this website. You can spot it…

Google confirmed an indexing bug with Google News publishers that went on for about three weeks. It started around June 21st and was officially fixed on Friday, July 14th.

Google has posted a new document in the Google Merchant Center area on how to build trust with your customers. The document goes through your business identity, your transparency, your…

I often post about Google ranking volatility and search ranking algorithm updates but I rarely post about them on a weekend. But I just had to this Sunday morning; the…