Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

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

Google is testing the “order online” button from the bottom of the search result snippet to the top of that snippet. I see it on the bottom, but some can…

Google has posted a new help document for posting restrictions around user-generated content in Google Maps. This is specific to reviews, photos, and videos users may update to Google Maps….

Last October, Google revamped its Google Webmaster Guidelines into Google Search Essentials and one part of that was to consolidate the previous pages on thin content and affiliate programs into…

This week we had two unconfirmed updates from Google rollout after the helpful content…

The other day we reported on the newish check wait time button and now we are seeing a “join waitlist” button as well. I guess this gets you on the…

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

It looks like we may have had another tremor or Google search ranking algorithm update kickoff yesterday, Wednesday, January 18th. We just had one this weekend after the December 2022…

Google has posted that you may see an increase in clicks and impressions in your search performance report when filtering by the product results search appearance in Search Console. Google…

Google has dropped the playable podcast search result rich snippets. 9to5Google reported this first, and there is a bit of confusion around what exactly Google removed. Google seems to have…

Google is rolling out Performance Max experiments in Google Ads today. We knew this would come and now, I think for the first time but I might be wrong, we…

Microsoft Bing is testing topics refinements options in the search bar, this is similar to what Google Search launched a few months back on mobile search and has been testing…

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

Google’s John Mueller said again that its quality updates, like core updates and the others in the family, can not just impact the ranking of a page in Google Search…

Google’s John Mueller was asked about if it is okay with Google Search to have a website with the same name as another site on the internet. John said he…

Google has a “related products” section in its search results. This seems similar to the similar products concept, but it looks like the other query expansion options for Google Search…

Google Posts insights is no longer working, it has been discontinued according to the Google Business Profiles API documentation for the deprecation schedule.

Google is testing displaying a round map pin that has a business photo in the pin itself. This is supposedly working on some Google Maps devices when you request directions.

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

For a long, long time, Google has given searchers a way to override the location Google Search thinks you are searching for. Often, that location was in the footer, but…

Here is another PSA from Gary Illyes of Google. In short, if you serve a 4xx status code with your robots.txt file, then Google will ignore the rules you have…

John Mueller of Google said on Twitter that “publishing frequency alone does not make something spam.” Google’s algorithms don’t look at the content volume as a spam signal alone.

Google seems to be testing a new box in the search results named perspectives and opinions. The naming convention reminds me of Google perspectives, but this acts differently, as the…

Google is testing a “check wait time” button for some local results in the Google search results. I guess this tells you how long you have to wait to receive…

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…

Mark Saltarelli and I spoke about his history and about B2B digital marketing in part one…

Just a couple of days after the December 2022 helpful content update and link spam update finished, we are now seeing another update, an unconfirmed update that seemed to have…

Google’s John Mueller said that Google Search Console’s URL Inspection tool to submit a page to be crawled would probably not see the quota increase anytime soon. He said on…

Late last week, Google Business Profiles had a bug where uploading images to your business profile would fail. This was reported first by Tim Capper on Twitter on Thursday and…

Google Business Profiles seems to be testing, beta testing, the ability for businesses to add more details, to “say more about” their business attributes.

Last week we reported on a comment made by John Mueller of Google about the head section of your HTML and why you should keep it clean. John, on Friday,…

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

This week, the December 2022 Google helpful content update and link spam updates are finally complete after a long, long wait. There was a lot of movement on Wednesday…

After a long slow and paused rollout, Google has said that both the December 2022 helpful content update and December 2022 link spam update are now done rolling out. Google…

Mike Blumenthal dropped a simple but thoughtful local SEO tip that all businesses should do some time in the near future. Just check the featured photos that Google selected to…

Google is now testing the Google Ads sponsored label in the product listing results within the more products section in an additional result. I cannot replicate this, but Saad AK…

Google has a “recent images” photo carousel for some knowledge panels. For example, Google had this for a search on the [golden globes] last week, where it shows photos from…

A Reddit thread asks if Google engages in link-buying sting operations where they will pretend to want to buy a link and then use that to penalize the network. John…

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

Apple has reannounced its toolset for businesses to manage their business listings on Apple Maps. It is now called Apple Business Connect, previously named Apple Places and prior to that…

Google Search is testing displaying news stories for users in a specific country or region, from a specific country or region. Google titles this section, “Trending stories from country/region” and…

Google has this SEO case studies and success stories page since 2019 and they have updated it a few times, I believe, since. Recently, someone Mariachiara Marsella asked John Mueller…

Google’s John Mueller said when it comes to your HTML head section, you want to ensure that section is clean and tight. If possible, you don’t want it to have…

Over the last few days or so, Bankrate has been gaining a lot of attention in the SEO space. They are using AI to write a lot of content 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…

I see signals, both in terms of SEO chatter and some of the Google Search tracking tools, of more volatility in the Google Search results. The volatility is algorithm update…

The Google Ads Liaison, Ginny Marvin, confirmed a bug when editing ads within a draft or experiment campaign. The Google Ads team is working on a fix, but Ginny provided…

In Google’s fifth release of the product reviews update, Google added that linking to multiple sellers is part of the overall algorithm. Alan Kent from Google said yesterday on Twitter…

Google’s John Mueller said that just because an algorithm update takes longer to roll out, it doesn’t make that update more or less intense. The update’s length is generally related…

Google Business Profiles will stop supporting price ranges for products and custom call to actions, starting February 15, 2023. Google will also remove any existing price ranges and all landing…

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

Google Maps can now show 360 views of the outside of some famous buildings and places. This gives some sort of aerial 360 view of the building in a video-like…

Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter that traffic is not necessarily a quality measure. Basically, John is saying just because a certain number of pages do not get as much…

Google Search has a feature named “instances” that shows you when an event happened each year in history. So if you run an event annually, Google may show the instances…

Ginny Marvin, Google’s Ads Liasion, said on Twitter that performance max is not preferred over search ad campaigns. Ginny wrote on Twitter, “PMax isn’t ‘favored’ over Search.”

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

Matt Casady spotted that Google added a new vertical to Local Service Ads. Google now allows dental practices and dentists to buy ads on Google Local Service Ads.

Mark Saltarelli used to work at Cypress North for a couple of years but wanted to go in-house and joined Order, a later-stage startup. We spoke a bit about his…

Google has updated the JSON files with the list of IP addresses Googlebot. I believe Google added one new IP6 and one new IP4 IP address to the list. That…

Google has once again updated the relatively new documentation around Site Names in Google Search, this time to clarify that www and m-dot prefixes for domain names are generally considered…

Google’s John Mueller said that with some Google search algorithm updates, it is like when you plant seeds in your garden. In short, he said it is not always easy…

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, said on Twitter on Friday afternoon that the December 2022 helpful content update and December 2022 link spam update may take an additional two weeks…

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

There are reports in the Local Search Forum that in the past few weeks or so, Google has been offering fewer verification methods via postcards than other verification methods, compared…

Google’s John Mueller said on Mastodon that using AI or ChatGPT blindly for title tag generation is not a great idea. But he did add that if you are running…

Microsoft Bing is at it again, this time testing a sitelink interface that zooms in and expands as you hover your mouse cursor over the link. It is pretty cool…

Do you need outstanding core web vital scores to be included in Google Discover? The answer is no, at least John Mueller of Google said “we don’t have that connection…

Welcome to the first video recap of 2023, where I start with the January 2023 Google webmaster report. I then explain how the Google helpful content and link spam updates…

As you know, Google can now crawl from locations outside of the United States. We know this is rare, it is used in specific situations. But if you want to…

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

A Google research paper named Generative Models are Unsupervised Predictors of Page Quality paints a negative connotation of SEO practices. It has a section named “attempts at search engine optimization…

The Information reported the other day that Microsoft plans to add OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot feature within the next few months. Bing Search already has a chatbot but ChatGPT is way…

Google seems to be sending out surveys about Google Search Console and potential future development and features around that tool. The survey takes several minutes to complete.

Google has sent out email notifications to some Google Ads advertisers about changes happening to the remove redundant keywords recommendations. In short, Google is expanding this recommendation to work across…

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

Google’s John Mueller said it is possible that Google Search Console’s URL inspection tool can show a nofollowed link as the referring page but he also said it is rare….

Google has updated the article structured data help documentation by removing the 110-character limit from the headline properties. It now says, “Consider using a concise title, as long titles may…

As the Google December 2022 helpful content update and link spam update continue to roll out, I am now seeing more signs of volatility and chatter within the SEO industry…

If you’ve been following my coverage here on confirmed Google search algorithm updates over the years, you would see that the dates Google gives to the start of an update…

Google is testing or has launched a new search refinement or expansion feature named “popular next steps.” If Google thinks<< your original query will lead to a new query in your…

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…

Another small study says that reviews with photos with them last a lot longer in the Google local listing for a business than reviews without photos. This was another study…

For the past few months or so, I’ve been tracking reports that suggest that Google Search Console is not properly tracking clicks and impressions from the local pack. This first…

Google’s John Mueller said that when it comes to hidden text on a page, Google is “good at ignoring it.” It is one of those things that Google seems not…