Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

Google has made some changes to its sitemap documentation and title links documentation but has yet to document those changes. Here are a list of the changes, some might be…

Google is not going to be migrating the Google Business Profile photo analytics section, known as “Insights” from the Business Profile manager to the new performance dashboard in search. Joy…

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

Rick Mariano is the Vice President of Digital at Hearst and he runs LocalEdge…

A new study from Sterling Sky shows that putting keywords in the local reviews on business listings does not help improve the local listings ranking in Google Search. The study…

Google seems to be testing displaying some fall season decorations in the search results. So Google is adding these colored leaves to the background of some search features.

On Friday, Michelle aka @Shelliweb, spotted that the Google Search Console geographic target setting feature was still visible under the legacy features. This is despite Google deprecating the feature months…

Google is showing the on-time delivery percentages and order accuracy percentages in some of the Google Ads search listings. This should not come as a surprise because Google Merchant Center…

Mark Williams-Cook shared an example of a test site he was toying with that got hit super hard by the October 2022 Google spam update. He said the site was…

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

This week, we covered how the day after Google announced the Google October 2022 spam update was done, only then did we see some really massive changes. Google fixed a…

Google’s John Mueller confirmed this morning that Google no longer uses the old Google page speed algorithms from 2010 or 2018. Instead, he said, Google only uses the page experience…

Google for years has recommended against SEOs changing URLs for the purpose of adding keywords to the URL. If you can keep the same URLs and change other things, that…

Google announced new features and reporting for Google Analytics 4 including behavioral modeling in real-time reporting, custom channel reporting for data-driven attribution, and integration with Campaign Manager 360. Plus, Google…

Google Ads has added several updates to Performance Max campaigns. The updates include support in performance planner, scheduled asset groups with automated rules, first-party data segmentation, and up to 15…

Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter that just because a piece of content is written by a human, it does not make that content necessarily helpful and good content. Having…

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

Earlier this month, we reported that there was a bug where the Search Consoles queries report in Google Analytics, specifically Universal Analytics 3, was missing all of its data after…

There are some signs that Google web search results are displaying the local pack, the local search results box, less often and for fewer queries. The most shocking state is…

Since mid-September, there was a bug where some favicons were not showing up in Google Search at all, as we reported a week or so ago. Well, Google has now…

A few months ago, we reported Google was testing an expanded menu to manage your Google Business Profile in Google Web Search. Well, now it seems to be fully rolled…

Google has released version 12.0 of the Google Ads API. Version 11 of the Google Ads API was released in June, and version 11.1 was in August. Version 12.0 is…

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. A new zero…

Both Google (Alphabet) and Microsoft (Bing) have announced earnings last night and both companies are down over 5% in pre-marketing trading after the news. Google’s ad revenue was up only…

Microsoft Bing is showing the search box in the bottom right corner, when you scroll down the search results page and your browser window is wide enough to fit it….

Marcus Tober at Semrush, a respected search marketing platform, published a new zero-click study that puts zero clicks across Google on average at 25% of all searches or 26% on…

Google is testing showing the overlay feature for its shopping ads, when you click the “view more” both at the top and the bottom. Here are GIFs showing how the…

Google’s John Mueller said that link wheels are against Google’s webmaster guidelines, I mean search essentials, because Google would consider them link schemes and thus spam.

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

Google has no documented limit on the number of characters for the site name as listed in Google Search. In fact, the documentation says “there’s no limit to how long…

Google has confirmed that it has relabeled many of the rich results issues in Google Search Console from “errors” to “warnings.” So you may see a bunch of errors being…

Google may be showing fewer rich results, specifically, FAQ rich results and possibly people also ask (although I think that is a bug with the tracking tools). RankRanger is showing…

Google has clarified its help documentation for the new site name markup and old favicon requirements about if they can be specified on the domain versus sub-domain versus sub-directory levels.

Last week, Google began sending new notices via Google Search Console about ways to enhance your images on Google. The notice talks about using the max-image-preview robots meta tag on…

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

Google has confirmed an issue affecting call ads within Google Ads. Google said, “the issue is specific to call ads and is affecting a subset of users.”

In part one, I do a lot of bantering with Greg Finn and talk about his history in the space and the growth of his agency, Cypress North. In part…

So we had Google confirm that the October 2022 spam update finished Friday morning, the morning of October 21st. The tracking tools and chatter were somewhat mild but that makes…

A few months ago, we spotted Google testing a dynamic search bar refinement interface in the core search results. Well, now it seems Google is testing a similar variation for…

For the past several months Google has been testing a more visual product experience, a product grid that basically turns the search results into an e-commerce category page-like interface. Google…

There is something super funny about listening to Lizzi and John from Google talk about the Google team doing SEO on the actual SEO help documentation. It is a fun…

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. That was fast…

The Google October 2022 spam update, the first spam update since last November, started and was completed within 42 hours, I have more on that in the video. Google also…

Google Maps and local panels have shown booking, appointment, reservation, and other ordering solutions from third parties for many years. And while we have a way to opt-out, it is…

There are numerous reports of Google doing some mass pruning and removals of reviews from the local maps results, from Google Business Profile listings. This is done every now and…

In less than about 42 hours, Google has fully rolled out the last spam update – the Google October 2022 spam update. The update began on October 19, 2022, at…

Google My Ad Center is now rolling out globally to all users, giving users the ability to control the ads they see or do not see, across Google Search and…

We have seen Google place a lot of goodies in the search box auto-complete and search suggestions, including people also ask and other forms of answers. But remember the new…

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

There have been some complaints about using Performance Max with Google Ads with lead generation sites. The concern is that many or some of the leads end up being invalid….

Google seems to be testing a new local finder for local queries that trigger the local pack. Andy Simpson spotted this and posted some screencasts and screenshots on Twitter.

It has been 11 months since the last time Google released a spam update and now Google announced the October 2022 spam update. Google said this update will take several…

Google seems to be grouping photos together by category for some business profile local panels. So if there are several photos of the location’s bathroom, Google will group those together…

Google’s John Mueller confirmed that Google Search is working on an issue with some favicons not showing up properly in Google Search. The issue has been ongoing for weeks, well…

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

Google Ads announced three new reporting columns including results, results value and conversion goals columns. Google said these columns are available on the Campaigns page for tables and charts, as…

Google is now showing a “trending now” box in the search results for shopping and product-related queries. This was announced back at Search On and now seems to be slowly…

I spotted this interesting statement from Google’s John Mueller on Twitter the other day. He said “In my 15 years at Google, I haven’t run across a site whose ranking…

Google seems to be testing a new local feature that has a section named “preview this place.” This shows an image carousel from the local business profile of that business…

Michael Kerr spotted a new Google Ads test that lets you click a button to turn on broad match keywords across your whole domain. That set fear into the ads…

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. Some SEO tips…

An individual chat support representative at GoDaddy told a knowledgeable SEO that adding Google AdSense and/or Google Analytics help with getting your content indexed by Google. John Mueller of Google…

Google’s John Mueller said there isn’t an added delay in Google Search Console reporting for those who have many verified sites in their Search Console accounts. The delays are not…

Microsoft Bing is testing a new feature in Bing Search in the news section of the search results. The feature is titled “more on this topic from” and it shows…

This may be obvious to many of you and this is a purely technical note, but for a URL to be somewhat unique, generally you need to have at least…

Google is testing a new interface and user experience for the product panel results in Google Search. The new interface has the price with arrows to expand the price, 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…

In part one, I do a lot of bantering with Greg Finn and talk about his history in the space and the growth of his agency, Cypress North. In part…

Google is officially rolling out the new site name and favicon design, along with the new sponsored ad label, in the mobile search results. Yes, this is something Google has…

Google’s John Mueller said that there is no need to use English URLs when your pages are not in English. You can use the language of the page in your…

For months we have been watching Google test a new ads label in search named “Sponsored” in bold black text. Well, now it is officially live in the Google mobile…

Google’s John Mueller said in the latest Search Off the Record podcast that you should leave decorative alt text on your images empty and blank. Oh, and John later said,…

Google has announced that it is kicking off its in-person SEO, creator, publisher, site owner, etc event named Google Search Central Live. The first in-person event will be in Singapore…

I will be offline completely for the holiday of Simchas Torah on October 17th and October 18th, Monday and Tuesday. Any stories published here will be scheduled and written beforehand…

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

This week, Google pushed out a revamped Google Webmaster Guidelines and renamed it the Google Search Essentials. Google also seemed to release an unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update. Google…

Google seems to have launched or is testing a feature to have Google Search read details about a local business listing. This might be in only some regions, as I…

Google announced at the Search On event that it would be adding a remove result feature in the about this result overlay in Google Search. Well, now it is there…

We all know that ranking well for competitive terms in Google Search is not as easy, or even a fraction as easy, as it was two decades ago. This is…

Google’s John Mueller said that pinging Google that your sitemap file has been updated can help Google index your new content quickly. He said it is simply Google practice to…

Google has replaced the Google Webmaster Guidelines with the Google Search Essentials. The name change is Google’s ongoing efforts to remove the term “webmaster” so that these tools and documentation…

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 may have…

Fabrice Canel updated us the other day that now half of all crawling Microsoft Bing does is over the new BingBot user agent. About a month ago, it was 20%,…

It has been a while since I reported on an unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update but it seems over the past 24 hours or so, we are seeing one….

There are reports from some local SEOs that Google is pushing out previously held reviews in Google Maps. Some are seeing dozens, if not over a hundred reviews being posted…

Google has added support for image credits for image metadata. Previously, image credit information was only supported with IPTC photo metadata.