Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

Google Search is showing and maybe testing news and top stories related boxes with a headline that says “maps on this topic.” Also, Google can also know what publications you…

It has now been 19 years that I’ve been writing on this site, covering what you – the search marketers are talking about from within the search community. Today marks…

Since Friday of Thanksgiving last week, we have been seeing a lot of chatter and volatility with Google Search. Google said they improved the accuracy of the Discover performance report…

Google’s John Mueller said it is a big deal if your most important page or pages are terrible but not such a big deal if your less important pages are…

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

Google announced it has filed a lawsuit against “scammers who sought to defraud hundreds of small businesses by impersonating Google through telemarketing calls.” You know, the calls from “Google” asking…

Google has annotated the Discover performance report in Google Search Console, saying the report has been improved. Specifically, Google said it improved the system for counting clicks and impressions within…

Back in 2015, Google said the URL should be in the same language as the content of the page. But now, Alan Kent from Google said the URL doesn’t have…

Google has announced a new AdSense ad format named side rail ads. Side rail ads stick to the sides of your web pages when the user viewing the page is…

Google is testing placing the map of the business you searched for in the search results area under the snippet(s) for that listing. Google is also testing a slightly updated…

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 says again,…

Google’s John Mueller said on the last Google office hours that using HTTP/3 for your server will likely not have any impact on your SEO or rankings in Google Search….

Duy Nguyen from Google’s search quality team said in the Google office hours video that “backlinks as a signal has a lot less significant impact compared to when Google Search…

Here is a good one-liner from Google’s John Mueller on the technicalities of the Google index. John said on Twitter “A page’s content doesn’t need to be indexed for a…

Duy Nguyen from Google’s search quality team said in the Google office hours video that Google has “algorithms to go after” those who post AI plagiarized content, he the algorithms…

In the last Google office hours, Gary Illyes said that Google is not more likely to crawl or index shorter or more niche content better or worse than other forms…

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. Got a lot…

Google may now show you the time it takes to review a requested edit in Google Business Profiles. So if you edit, let’s say, your business category, Google may show…

Google is testing various headlines for the Local Service Ads. Two of them show the “Ads” label and one does not, while they all test different headlines for the ad…

The new Google Business Profile interface in Google Search to update your local listing can show the previous location your business was listed at before you tried to move that…

Joy Hawkins team did another small local ranking study in Google and found that the longer reviews, the wordier reviews, tend to rank towards the top of the reviews and…

Google is testing the Things to know search refinement expander feature in a carousel format. Normally, the Things to know is in this list format but here Google is testing…

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

Google lets you dive into some of the reviews on a business listing, so if you say show me the reviews of the bar in a hotel, Google will let…

For the past several weekends, I’ve been reporting about a Google search ranking algorithm update that hit on a Friday and continued throughout the weekend. Well, last weekend was the…

In part one, we learned about Jeremy Meindl, why he loves pushing the line in SEO and how he never was caught with any of his SEO spam efforts. In…

The other day, I covered a poll that showed about half of SEOs still use guest posting for SEO purposes. Then a few days later, an SEO asked John Mueller…

Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, said there is no such thing as an SEO compliance score from Google. He said instead think about avoiding technical errors, don’t spam, and use…

Microsoft Bing is testing placing a favicon or icon of some sort in front of the people also ask results. The screenshot example below is from Frank Standtmann, a German-based…

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

Gary Illyes from Google announced at the Google Search Central Live in Singapore yesterday that Googlebot, Google, can now crawl from outside of the US. He said, according to reports,…

And you think you have a duplicate content problem on your site? Google said, “60% of the internet is duplicate.” Gary Illyes posted this slide at the Google Search Central…

Google is testing a new design, layout, and user experience for the people also ask box in the Google Search results. This interface has results side by side and stacked…

When you create a Google Business Profile and now go into creating service areas, Google may now offer you a list of suggested service areas in your region. Just be…

Google probably did yet another weekend search ranking algorithm update, I see a pattern here. Google’s Hyung-Jin Kim said E-A-T is used for all queries, not just YMYL. Google documented…

Some of you may know that in the early days of Google, Google’s co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page would say Google Search was immune to search spam. Matt Cutts,…

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. Can you believe…

Google key moments is a feature where Google Search highlights the sections in a video through a chapter-like interface. Google added support SeekToAction markup for videos on your site, so…

In March, I wrote a post about “More recommendations” being surfaced in Google Discover. The call to action would show up after researching products in Google Search and would lead…

A poll by Marie Haynes shows that many SEOs are still doing guest posting for SEO purposes. The poll had over 400 responses and only 44% of those who responded…

Google is testing a new thin sidebar navigation on the left side of the maps interface. The sidebar has the Google Maps pin icon, then the explore tab, then trips,…

Just when you thought John Mueller of Google was done responding to sub-domain SEO questions – well – now we have a new social platform – so… John said on…

Microsoft Bing seems to be promoting TikTok video results within the Bing search results. If you do a search for some videos, Bing might add a box on the left…

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

Google AdSense is testing a new ad type for publishers named Rewarded Ad Gate beta program. This program is something Google has in AdMob and basically lets you serve some…

Once again, Google’s John Mueller said the last batch of sites still being indexed using desktop indexing is going to be moved over to mobile-first indexing “soon.” John said this…

Google has published a new document named a guide to Google search ranking system. That document outlines the “notable” ranking updates that are currently live and running for Google Search…

Google has added a new spam policy for policy circumvention. The new section was added to the Google spam policies document and basically says if you try to go around…

Gary Illyes is back on social, not Twitter, but on Mastodon and he asked for examples of URLs that you think should be indexed but instead give you the status…

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

Here we go again, I am reporting about yet another Google search ranking algorithm update over another weekend. That makes it several weekends in a row and I do plan…

Google has made a minor update to the meta tags and attributes that Google supports help documentation and added the two tags Google does not support. Those include the meta…

Google seems to have added a new carousel to the movie search results named “why to watch.” This carousel contains movie critique reviews, which is not new, but the user…

Bing Webmaster Tools will undergo scheduled maintenance between 10am and 1pm ET today. The Microsoft Bing Search toolset posted this notice at the top of the tool when you login…

Out of the Hyung-Jin Kim interview from SMX Next last week, we not only got the scoop on the Coati algorithm but also Hyung-Jin Kim told us that E-A-T is…

Jeremy Meindl is the co-founder of Target IQ and we spoke about the hotel we are in, its history of it, and the fire he risked his life showing how…

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 launched a…

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 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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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 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…

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…

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…