Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

This week, we learned that Google’s Panda update at one point in time evolved into what was called the Google Coati update. Google also had another weekend update last week….

Google announced a bunch of features around Google Search, Google Maps, Google Lens and more that are now rolling out in the US and some other regions. This goes across…

I am sure many of you have received one or two (or more) requests from Google Business Profiles saying the owner is requested access to maintain your business. I just…

Dawn Anderson asked Google’s John Mueller if redirecting a non-relevant page would cause the destination page (where the redirect it going towards) to be less relevant and cause any ranking…

Google’s Danny Sullivan said that not only can a rich result manual action result in the removal of your rich results from displaying in Google Search but also it can…

Google’s John Mueller was asked about the impact of changing the author’s name on an article. John gave three pieces of advice in response to the question, (1) use author…

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

Google has added a new shopping section to the Google Search Console platform. Google added a shopping tab that includes a quick way to create a Merchant Center account, access…

There is a fun Twitter thread where Google’s John Mueller and SEO Elmer Boutin talk about expensive pages for Google to crawl. John starts off by explaining that Google doesn’t…

Google is testing a picture-in-picture mode for videos that are shown in the search results. You can click on the video preview image and play the video at the bottom…

With the World Cup just around the corner, Google is asking certain businesses, like bars, restaurants and other venues if they will be showing the world cup at their location….

Google is testing a new user interface and design for the photos and street view imagery in a local panel knowledge panel within Google Maps. This is being spotted by…

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. Have you ever…

Google’s John Mueller confirmed that GoogleBot will crawl and pick up on URL patterns that simply do not work on your site. I mean, we have all seen this happen…

Google has added to the Google Business Profiles Google Posts or Updates section the ability to use a cropping tool when you upload photos to your updates. So now you…

At SMX Next yesterday I have the privilege of interviewing Hyung-Jin Kim, the Vice President of Google Search. Hyung-Jin Kim has been working on search quality for the past 20…

It looks like the Google AR products, at least for shoes, and the clippable coupons feature is now live. If you search for various shoes or sneakers, you will see…

Google’s John Mueller said that while it does make sense to cross-link between your content on your website, you should do it only when it is relevant and within the…

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

Here are some cute features spotted in both Microsoft Bing and Google Search around products. Bing is testing showing “trending for you” or “top picks for you.” Google is testing…

Another small study done by Joy Hawkins says that the recency of reviews does impact the rankings of those local business listings in Google Search and Google Maps. Like the…

In June of 2022, Mordy Oberstein first spotted a new SERP feature being tested called Google Explore. That’s where a feed of content shows up after a user scrolls through…

Google has updated its review snippet structured data help documentation to recommend using dot separators in numerical review values over comma separators in numerical review values. Both dots and commas…

There are reports that in some cases you can be missing some of your Google Ads data and campaign information when you use the Google Analytics 4 API in conjunction…

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. Yep…

The Information wrote a piece that says Apple is at least four years or more away from building its own search engine – Apple Search. We have been talking about…

It seems as if I see more volatility signals on the weekends with Google Search than I do during the weekdays. We may have had another Google search ranking algorithm…

Last week I reported on how Google Local reviews can display how many reviews a specific reviewer left in a specific city. Well, Google is also doing this by category,…

Google Business Profiles and business listings reviews are going missing, dropping out completely, again, but this time it seems to be related to automated suggested edits occurring on some business…

Google Ads is sending emails out to some advertisers offering to pay them $100 in Google Ads credits for enrolling in automatically applied recommendations. The response from the PPC community…

In part one with Rick Mariano we spoke about helping build LocalEdge to provide high volume digital marketing services at a low cost and then in part two we spoke…

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

Google has updated the client libraries and code examples for the new Google Ads API version 12, which was released a couple of weeks ago.

We had yet another biggish unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update on November 4th and 5th. Google also removed the annotation about the search features bug and added a Discover…

Microsoft is testing the AI chat bot feature at the top of the Bing Search results. We have seen the let’s chat feature from Bing for a while now but…

Google has released version 2.2 of the Google Ads Editor, this comes four months since version 2.1 was released in July. The new version gains quicker access to the Asset…

Google’s John Mueller said that some old links to old websites may be irrelevant links, at least from a Google Search and ranking perspective.

Google’s John Mueller confirmed I think again, that hreflang link tags do not have to be in hierarchical order. When asked about this, John said that “it doesn’t matter” on…

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

Mastodon is surging with Twitter in chaos, but traffic from the social network will be hard to track. That’s because Mastodon is using rel noferrer on outbound links causing visits…

Google has done something unusual, it has removed one of the confirmed data anomalies notes about a search features bug, and added a new note confirming a bug with Google…

Google has confirmed a delay with the Google Search Console API being a bit more delayed than normal. Daniel Waisberg from Google said the “delay was caused by processing issues,…

Yes, Google can pass PageRank and other link signals from an HTTP non-secure URL to HTTPS secure URL through redirects. John Mueller from Google said this is how Google does…

Generally, Google says you should never let Google index your internal search result pages. But John Mueller of Google said you shouldn’t even be considering going against Google’s advice here,…

Yesterday, a number of advertisers were asking why there Google Ads were being disapproved. The disapproval was due to the ad using the word “get” in the ad text and…

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

John Mueller shared on Mastodon that he met with someone who relies on screen readers to consume the web. And he explained to him how old-school SEO tricks make reading…

Google’s John Mueller recommended the obvious (as I write this I am asking myself why write it but hey, sometimes the obvious needs to be reminded). If you have SEO…

Google has added a single “note” to the create crawlable links help documentation to say that links generated by JavaScript, where the link is visible, can be crawled by Google….

Google has updated the sitemap section of the localized pages search help documentation to say that “Child elements don’t count towards the URL limit for sitemaps.”

Google has recently, estimates are in the past few weeks, added auto-play video thumbnails in the local finder on mobile. Allie Margeson spotted this and posted a video of it…

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 hearing some reports that Google is testing a new user interface for the Google Merchant Center. The new interface is not just some design changes but an overhaul…

Google is showing a green leaf label that says “pre-owned” on Google Shopping results, which I guess are pre-owned. This shows both in the desktop and mobile Google Search shopping…

Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter that Google rewriting your page titles is not a sign of a quality issue with your page or site. He said, some pages have…

This should come as no surprise – but more people and companies spend more on PPC than on SEO. A Twitter poll from Lily Ray shows that but so does…

Since the October Spam update and the helpful content update, many SEOs are saying AI-generated content is being targeted by Google. The answer, as I said previously, is not really….

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

In part one we spoke about how Rick Mariano has helped build LocalEdge to provide high volume digital marketing services at a low cost. In this next part…

Google has been testing a lot of Sitelinks features in search, including the boxed-in design. But now I am seeing this new boxed design with different-sized formats for a single…

Google has been busy, on Friday morning, November 4th, I began to see new signals of another Google search ranking algorithm update. Over the next 24 hours, those signals escalated…

Google has moved the lyric details from the main middle section of the Google Search results to the right side panel. Well, for most queries, but not all.

Joy Hawkins and her team published another local ranking study, this one says that hitting ten reviews on your local listing will result in a ranking boost in the Google…

Google’s local listings show for some listings the number of reviews left by a specific reviewer in a particular location. So if a specific person left 15 reviews and those…

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

Microsoft Bing seems to be testing animated ads in the Bing image search interface. The ads look like an interactive banner ad of some sort, based on your query.

Google’s John Mueller said that the size of your header tags, i.e. H1s, H2s, etc, does not matter for SEO or ranking purposes. John said it might matter for users…

Google has published on the Search Off The Record podcast, which was a recording from brightonSEO session, where John Mueller of Google said that he believes that over time, links…

Google’s John Mueller said that if you make your content creation decisions based off of keyword search volume lists, then those pieces of content will be mediocre, at best. John…

Google is now redirecting some (or all) of those trying to edit their business profiles in the Google Business Profile manager to the Google Search interface. You can still manage…

To start things off, I quickly covered the monthly Google webmaster report. Google also had some big unconfirmed update on or around October 28th. Google confirmed a search bug with…

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

Google Search, for some videos, allows you to click an expand icon on some videos it shows you in the search results. That expand button will then overlay a larger…

Google’s John Mueller confirmed on Twitter that having a Sitemap file that lists pages that are duplicative to others, won’t necessarily cause ranking issues for your site. It might confuse…

Google has announced some changes to the Google Ads policies for government documents and official services. Google said “in March 2023, the Google Ads Government documents and official services policy…

Google is already testing the new site name and favicon design change they launched just a couple of weeks ago on the desktop results. This brings the favicon and site…

Google has posted a short note in the Search Consoles data anomalies that says there was a bug in Google Search that affected some search features, including but not limited…

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

Google has finally added the Google Lens button to the Google.com homepage search bar. Rajan Patel from Google announced this quietly on Twitter saying the Google homepage, which rarely changes,…

The past 30-days or so was pretty heavy between the October 2022 spam update and then several unconfirmed updates that were pretty strong, it was a bumpy road. Google also…

Google announced a few new ways to find and use online deals while searching for products and holiday gifts this season. The updates include clippable coupons and promotion codes, a…

Google’s John Mueller was asked if sites that are verified with Google Search Console get crawled more often or at a higher priority. The answer is no, “crawling is independent…

Google announced that it is doing away with similar audiences segments. Starting May 2023 new similar audiences segments will no longer be generated in Google Ads and in August 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. There may have…

Microsoft Advertising announced a few upgrades to the Google Ads Performance Max import tool before the holiday season. Most of it is around importing Performance Max campings that use a…

Some SEOs are noticing a possible Google search ranking algorithm update on or around October 28th where sites hit by the unconfirmed October 13ish update and even the spam update…

Google’s John Mueller said a website does not need to have 200,000 words to be considered authoritative. This comes after a Twitter thread said “You need around 200,000 words on…