Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

Joy Hawkins pointed out an example of Google Local Service Ads showing duplicate listings for the same law firm for the same query. Google has policies against that and asked…

Glenn Greenwald reported that a “federal district court in California on Friday denied Google’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that the Silicon Valley giant is violating federal antitrust laws…

If you are on an HTTP site and you decide to migrate the site to HTTPS, it is common practice to update all of your internal links from the HTTP…

Yesterday afternoon Google temporarily disabled the ability to validate fixes for issues in the coverage report. This is related to some “minor updates” the Google Search Console is adding to…

I know some of you may not like it and may think I am some sort of suck-up for covering this but there is so much truth and beauty to…

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 seems Google does not care how many Facebook tracking links you have in your Google Tag Manager, especially for Google Search reasons. John Mueller was asked about this and…

Google Search is testing a new expanded menu for the Google Business Profile tool in Google Web Search. This allows you to click an arrow down to expand the options…

Being in close contact with Google or the people that work at Google really does not benefit you (or me). The is just the simple truth – you just won’t…

On July 27th Google said it began to roll out the July 2022 Google Product Reviews update. But we didn’t see it impact the Google search results until a couple…

Google seems to be testing a new search box and feature titled “perspectives.” Perspectives seem to give searchers answers to a more broad and maybe philosophical type of query.

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…

This week, it was awkwardly quiet with the Google rankings and then Google dropped the bombshell, the July 2022 Google Product Review update touched down. Google also released new search…

Google has updated its Google Search Quality Raters Guidelines PDF just a bit over 9 months since the last update. The document keeps getting smaller, from 175 pages in 2020…

Google Maps announced it is adding photorealistic aerial views, new cycling route information, new notifications for sharing your location, and more.

This may be obvious to a lot of folks but embedding iframes can be a confusing topic to many. John Mueller of Google confirmed that if you embed an iframe…

Danny Sullivan of Google said on Twitter that he believes that sites that require age verification would not surface in Google Discover. He added he has to confirm this but…

In 2021, Google said that Core Web Vitals may also be graded based on pages on your site that are noindexed. Well, that is no longer the case according to…

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 fourth version of the Google Product Reviews Update is now rolling out – this update is called – you guessed it – the July 2022 Google Product Reviews Update….

Google has updated its Google Merchant Center policy to no longer disapprove the login required and restricted purchase free listings. Google said instead, Google will mark them as active but…

We have seen Google Search test infinite scroll search results on and off for years, even launching continuous scroll on mobile officially. But now we are seeing Google Maps test…

There is just so much going on with Microsoft Bing Search between new features and tests, I figured I’d put together a quick list of them in one place. I…

Fabrice Canel from Microsoft said on Twitter last night that 5% of all URLs downloaded are over the new BingBot user agent. To take you back, in April, Bing announced…

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

It appears that Google Business Profiles is pushing more and more to verify their businesses using video verification. We covered this before, as Google set this as the default option,…

Here is a small but interesting test I want to document. Google is testing showing a plus sign before the related searches and people also search for sections in Google…

Both Google (Alphabet/GOOG) and Microsoft Bing (MSFT) announced earnings last night and while both missed expectations, both earnings were not that bad and their respective stock prices are up after…

Google not only is testing more list view formats for the top stories section but also testing, for some queries and some searchers, having the first set of web results…

Google seems to be testing another refinement feature named “explore more.” This is in addition to the product grids, and popular products and refine by search features. This looks similar…

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

Over the past couple of weeks, Google has been displaying a new snippet line for some e-commerce sites that show the return period policy for that product. So under the…

Google’s John Mueller reiterated something he said before, he said on Twitter “there is no objective way to count links.” He said this in 2019 when he said “counting links…

Google Maps has updated its photos and videos criteria for the Google Maps user-contributed content policy. Google added selfie photos, excessively dark or blurry images, significantly rotated compositions, and the…

Google Hotel results show a wealth of information about a hotel listing but what I think may be new is a section called “Featured In.” This section shows you articles…

Google is emailing some Google Ads advertisers that they will automatically move some of their conversion actions to data-driven attribution. Google announced data-driven attribution back in September 2021 when 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. Google’s Things to…

The Google Things To Know box, which was announced at Google I/O, and eventually has been showing up for about 1% of desktop queries, is no longer showing up for…

Google is testing mixing the search bar, where you normally see the vertical search options like videos, maps, images, shopping, news, etc – but also showing refinements for your searches.

Google has a section named “appears on these lists” that will show you which product review content (or comparison lists) has mentioned the product you are looking at. This works…

Google’s Local Service Ads are supposed to be screened, guaranteed, and reviewed by someone contracted by Google. But supposedly, the reviews in many Local Service Ads are filled with fake…

Google is now showing three local service ads listings in both the mobile and desktop interface. Previously, Google has shown two local service ads listings, but as Len pointed out…

Jaimie and Jon Clark came for a visit and we all spoke SEO and a lot more. Jaimie Clark is the VP of SEO at Centerfield, she was previously the…

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

Google has updated the suicide prevention box in its search results with a new hotline number and a chat support option. “While Google has included suicide prevention information at the…

Google’s Creators channel has released a super basic video on SEO and how to rank your content in Google Search. It covers four basic tips and makes it all sound…

Google’s John Mueller again said on Twitter “using a shared IP address is fine” for SEO and Google Search ranking purposes. “There is no SEO advantage to using a unique…

Google Search seems to be testing a new “trending topics” section for some news queries in Google Search on mobile. This Trending Topics section lets you toggle and refine your…

Google Ads announced that Google will start the process of automatically “upgrading” accounts to Performance Max for Smart Shopping campaigns. Automatic upgrades will gradually progress and finish in September for…

Google had plenty of bugs, some really big ones, this week including not indexing new content for a day in Google Search. Note, there were rumblings of a Google algorithm…

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

Google My Business has added a new feature to automate responses to customer messages through Google Search and Google Maps. It is a frequently asked question section where you enter…

The Google countdown timer and stopwatch feature seem to have stopped working. It seemed the Google stopwatch stopped ticking on July 19th. This feature first came up in Google about…

Google is testing a new label to notate that the reviews aren’t verified in Google Search and Google Map. The label is above the reviews in the local business listing…

Ten days ago, we reported that the people also ask feature dropped down 30 percentage points in terms of how often the feature is shown in Google Search. Well, now…

Google Search’s local pack has for a long time let you filter the local results by hours of operation. But I am not sure when Google added by the day…

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 going…

Google announced it will begin testing new AR, augmented reality, experiences in the public with a limited number of Googlers and trusted testers. These include in-lens displays, microphones, and cameras,…

Google announced this morning that they have added a new way to verify your domain name and properties in Google Search Console. You can now do so through or via…

Google has this weird Google Search rendering bug where it is showing only one search result to some users. This seems like a super limited bug, impacting a limited number…

Google is doing a lot of product result testing, as you’d expect. Here are some new features we spotted Google testing for products in the search results. They include showing…

The other day we covered a knowledge panel box card layout, but now Google is testing a more interactive version of this card layout. When you click on the cards…

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 had another…

Google may investigate a potential bug in Google Search with the recipe search results carousel. There are reports of sites dropping out from the recipe carousel without the URLs dropping…

Microsoft Bing may be testing polls for the knowledge panels they display on the right panel. If you search for [joe biden], and scroll down the right side knowledge panel,…

On Friday, the Google Ads, AdSense, Analytics, consoles, and more were delayed, super slow, and overall buggy. Well, it is happening again today, Tuesday morning. Google Ads has even confirmed…

Just a reminder, Google Ads no longer allows you to edit URLs, or create or edit any ETAs, i.e. expanded text ads, anymore. This should have gone into effect on…

Google is now testing placing icons next to the Things To Do, How To Get There and Places To Stay search feature. Previously, I don’t think I have ever seen…

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

Jaimie and Jon Clark came for a visit and we all spoke SEO and a lot more. Jaimie Clark is the VP of SEO at Centerfield, she was previously the…

Google six years ago launched a new Test My Site portal in the Think with Google portal. Well, that feature is going away soon, in the next few months Google…

Google is updating its Google Ads Political Content policy next month, in August 2022, to say that ad disclosure must be visible at all times and be of sufficient size,…

A recent New York Times piece highlighted blackmail threads taken on small restaurants that threaten and blackmail the owners. These threats say the person will leave a one-star review, hurting…

As many of you know, there was a pretty massive indexing issue impacting new content in Google Search most of Friday, July 15th, but that was pretty much isolated to…

Google Maps might be testing a form of map pin ads that contain images or photos from the local business. I cannot replicate this, nor do I know if 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. Google had a…

So while Google Search is currently having massive indexing issues, the Google Ads advertiser console is having issues loading ad spend and other data. Google confirmed the issue saying “affected…

There may be another indexing issue in Google Search. None of the articles I posted this morning on this site are showing yet in Google Search, even when I search…

Microsoft Bing is testing a section under its featured snippet answers named “answered by Bing expert.” Bing will show an answer pulled from the source website, put the author’s name…

We had more volatility from Google Search on July 10th. Google shows half the number of people also ask boxes in the search results. Google Search Console anonymizes many queries…

Microsoft Bing Video search results has had a playlist feature since at least 2020. But now it seems Microsoft is testing displaying the playlist icon in the Bing web search…

Microsoft is testing in Bing Search a link named “see your ad here.” I guess this is promoting Microsoft Advertising’s search ad platform to encourage advertisers to bid on those…

Google Shopping results have shown top highlights for products some time but now it seems Google is testing showing the number of available product highlights in the carousel of product…

Google is testing a new format for destination queries that not only shows things to do but now showed this story format “Discover” section. Google embeds stories from TikTok, YouTube,…

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 Analytics 4…

Google has updated the user agent string for the AdsBot Mobile Web crawler. Google said if you hard-coded the old user agent string, you will want to make sure to…

Google is testing adding a videos section to the popular products feature in Google Search. Personally, I do not yet see this, but Punit shared screenshots of this on Twitter.