Google Search Still Does Not Have Optimal Keyword Density
Google has posted one of its Google SEO office-hours, this one was posted today, recorded in January, after the Google layoffs news, and one question asked was about keyword density…
Google Tests More Card Box Like Buttons In Search
Google is testing more card and box-like elements in the search results. We covered this with the product results interface a few weeks back but now we are seeing them…
More Bing Search Features & Tests
Here is another batch of Microsoft Bing Search tests and features that were caught out in the wild that I wanted to share with you. They include
Yahoo Working On Yahoo Search
Last week I reported that Yahoo Search posted on Twitter that it will be making search cool again. As I posted on Search Engine Land yesterday, we got more evidence…
Google: Spammy Links From Porn Sites Are Not Something To Priorit...
Google has posted one of its Google SEO office-hours, this one was posted today, recorded in January, after the Google layoffs news, and one question asked was about if you…
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 30, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Vlog #208: Jeff Ferguson On Starting His Own Digital Marketing Ag...
In part one, we go through Jeff Ferguson’s long history in search marketing. Here, in part two, we pick up with him starting his own agency…
Google Ads News & Feature Announcements Dry Up
The Google Ads team has not posted a new feature announcement or any new announcements on its new features and announcements page for about two and a half months, since…
Yandex Search Ranking Factors Leaked & Revealed
Yandex had a boatload of its source code across all its technology allegedly leaked by a disgruntled employee and part of that was the source code for Russia’s largest search…
Unconfirmed Google Product Reviews Update On Thursday, January 26...
On Thursday, January 26th, there were some signs of a possible Google search ranking algorithm update. The signals and chatter I was tracking, honestly, were not at super high levels….
Google: Don’t Use Relative Paths In Your rel-canonical
Gary Illyes from from the Google Search Relations team posted another PSA on LinkedIn, this one says “don’t use relative paths in your rel-canonical.” Gary wants you to use the…
Google: If You Redesign Your Site Your Rankings May Go Nuts
Gary Illyes from the Google Search Relations team posted another PSA on LinkedIn. This time he said, “when you redesign a site, its rankings in search engines may go nuts.”
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 27, 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. Google Ads now…
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Layoffs, DOJ Sues Google, Se...
As I mentioned briefly last week, Google announced mass layoffs last week, and I discuss what I know so far about it. There are also reports that Google is pushing…
Poll: Most SEOs Won’t Recommend Using AI To Write Content
A new Twitter poll shows that most SEOs do not yet feel comfortable recommending using AI to write client content. The poll asked, “Would you recommend using an AI writer…
Gary Illyes: Google Search Handles marquee Tags Appropriately
Gary Illyes, from the Google Search Relations team, said on LinkedIn that Google Search handles the marquee HTML tag “appropriately.” What does it mean by appropriately? That is Gary for…
Google Search Result Snippet Scrollable On Some Browsers
Did you know that in some browsers, specifically on Android on Chrome and maybe others, that you can scroll to see more of a longer and truncated snippet in the…
Poll: AI-Generated YMYL Content Trusted Less By SEOs
Lily Ray ran a Twitter poll asking SEOs if they trust content in the YMYL, your money or your life, category more, less or the same if it was written…
Google Ads Gains Account-Level Negative Keywords
We knew it was coming, Google Ads now supports negative keywords for brand safety at the account level. Google has just added account-level negative keywords to Google Ads and the…
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 26, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Google Publishes A New SEO Case Study, This One From Vimeo On Vid...
A couple of weeks after I said I thought Google would stop publishing SEO case studies, Google just published a new one. This one is on How Vimeo improved video…
Google Tests New Trusted Store Badge
Google is testing a new design for the trusted store badge in the paid shopping results. The Google Trusted Stores program to all U.S. merchants back in 2012, along with…
Bing Search Menu Drop Down With Explore & Collect For Images
Microsoft Bing is testing a new search bar interface on image search (I believe) where the search vertical options, such as web, videos, news, etc, are now presented in a…
Google Search Console Content Ideas Going Away March 28th?
Last December, we caught Google testing an experimental feature named content ideas in Google Search Console. Well, yesterday, Google sent more invites to this feature but noted the feature is…
Report: Dealerships Can List Auto Inventory On Google Business Pr...
Google is now opening up its car or auto inventory feature within Google Business Profiles to all motor vehicle dealerships. Google began testing car listings in 2021 and then expanded…
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 25, 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. Google is being…
DOJ Sues Google Again To Break Up Its Ad Business Over Monopolist...
The big news out of yesterday was that the US Department of Justice and several states has once again sued Google calling for the breakup of its ad tech business…
Bing Tests Infinite Scroll
Microsoft Bing is testing infinite scroll just a month after Google fully launched continuous scroll on desktop search. I guess this should come as no surprise that Bing would test…
Microsoft Bing Ads Revenues Up 10% – Growth Slowing…
Microsoft reported earnings last night, and in after-hours trading, it seems, for the most part, that Wall Street is happy. But if you look at the search ad revenue numbers,…
Two Justifications In The Google Local Search Results
Now, Google is showing double justifications for some local results. Google’s local search results has a feature to highlight and/or summarize some of the local reviews in the map pack…
Google: Generating Fake URLs On Competitors Site Shouldn’t ...
John Mueller from Google said that bulk-generating fake URLs of your competitor’s site should not lead to negative SEO and ranking issues for that site. “This is not something I’d…
Google Search Issue With Search Results In Preferred Language Due...
Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, posted a message on Twitter and other social networks, apologizing for the ongoing issues and complaints with Google showing the preferred language in the search…
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 24, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Report: Google Pushing Advertisers To Use Agencies & Third Pa...
Digiday reported that with the mass Google layoffs, Google advertisers are being encouraged to work with third-party resellers, like agencies, directly as it seeks to reduce its overheads related to…
Google Parses img Elements Even When Enclosed Within Other Elemen...
Google has also updated the image SEO best practices document to clarify that Google will parses img elements even when they’re enclosed in other elements such as picture elements when…
Google To Sunset Google Optimize On September 30, 2023
Google will be sunsetting, killing off, the Google Optimize product on September 30, 2023. “Google Optimize and Optimize 360 will no longer be available after September 30, 2023. Your experiments…
Title & Link Are The Important Content For The Google Discove...
Google has updated its Get On Discover page in the RSS feed for the Follow feature in Google Discover section to specify the most important content for that section. Google…
Google: Include Your Canonical URLs In Your Sitemap File
Google’s Gary Illyes said on LinkedIn this morning that you should “include the URLs that you would want to see as canonical in your sitemaps.” This is not necessarily new…
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 23, 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…
Google Ads Outages Impacting Many Advertisers (Now Resolved)
Google has confirmed outages across the Google Ads network, including Google Ads for Search, Google Ads for other surfaces and many of the Google Ads management projects, like Search Ads…
Vlog #207: Jeff Ferguson’s History In The Search Marketing ...
Jeff Ferguson is the CEO of Amplitude Digital, and he has been in the search space for a really long time. He is also an Adjunct Professor at UCLA. In…
The Google Layoffs Are Sad For Many But The Fear May Be Worse
As many of you know by now, Google announced mass layoffs due to “difficult economic cycles.” Those Googlers in the US were already informed by Friday morning if they had…
Yahoo To Make Search Cool Again
Yahoo posted on Twitter under its Yahoo Search account, “Just popping in to remind everyone that we did search before it was cool. BRB making it cool again.” Is that…
Google Search Console Insights Achievements Section
Google Search Console Insights seems to have added a new section named “Achievements.” I believe Google would email these achievements but now there is a section at the top of…
Possible Bing Algorithm Update On Wednesday, January 18th
There was a possible Bing algorithm update that rolled out on January 18, 2023 that’s impacting some sites heavily.
Google: No Preference Between Connected Structured Data In Graph ...
Google’s John Mueller was asked if there is a Google SEO preference to having your structured data connected in some graph or node array versus having them as individual elements…
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 20, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Google Search Tests Order Online Button At Top Of Snippet
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…
New Google Maps Posting Restrictions For User Generated Content (...
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….
Google Explains Why The Affiliate Programs Spam Documentation Wer...
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…
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Two Google Unconfirmed Updates, Per...
This week we had two unconfirmed updates from Google rollout after the helpful content…
Google Search Local “Join Waitlist” Button (Not New)
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…
Google Search Console Video Indexing Report Improves Thumbnail In...
As of January 19, 2023, Google has updated the video indexing report in Google Search Console, which now reports on thumbnail indexing issues more accurately. The result may be that…
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 19, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On Wednesday?
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 Search Console Search Performance Product Results Clicks &...
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 Search Drops Playable Podcast Rich Snippets
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 Ads Rolling Out Performance Max Experiments
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 Tests Topics Search Bar Refinements Like Google
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…
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 18, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Google: Google Quality Updates Can Impact Crawling & Indexing
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: Having A Website With The Same Name As Another Site Is Fi...
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 Maps Tests Business Photo In Round Map Pin
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.
Google Search “Related Products”
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 Discontinues Google Posts Insights
Google Posts insights is no longer working, it has been discontinued according to the Google Business Profiles API documentation for the deprecation schedule.
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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 17, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Google: Publishing Frequency Does Not Make Something Spam
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 Local Check Wait Time Button
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…
Google Search Tests New Location Override Feature
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…
Google Will Ignore Robots.txt Rules If It Serves A 4xx Status Cod...
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…
Google Search Perspectives & Opinions
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…
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 16, 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…
Vlog #206: Mark Saltarelli On What We�re Missing With Marketing...
Mark Saltarelli and I spoke about his history and about B2B digital marketing in part one…
Google Unlikely To Increase Request Indexing Quota In Search Cons...
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…
Google Business Profile Image Server Rejected Upload Bug
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…
Weekend Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update – Saturday, ...
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 Business Profiles Attribute Details Beta
Google Business Profiles seems to be testing, beta testing, the ability for businesses to add more details, to “say more about” their business attributes.
Google’s John Mueller: More About Head Section & JavaSc...
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,…
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 13, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Google’s Helpful Content & Link Spam Updates Done Rolli...
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…
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Helpful Content & Link S...
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…
Google Sponsored Label In Product Listing Results
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…
Does Google Conduct Link Buying Sting Operations? They Don’...
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…
Local SEOs: Check Your Photos In Your Google Maps Pin Overlay
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 Knowledge Panel Recent Images Carousel
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…
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 12, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
