Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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….

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…

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…

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…

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 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 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 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.

Google has added some new features around attraction and tour operators including the ability to edit your ticket prices directly in Google Business Profiles.

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

Google AdSense has announced support for personalization with first-party cookies and also new improvements to the blocking controls navigation.

A few months ago we reported seeing Microsoft Bing test polls in the knowledge panels within Bing Search. Well, Microsoft said on Twitter that this is now live and a…

Google has added an arrow button, within a circle design, in the Google Search knowledge panel section. When you click on the arrow, it takes you deeper into the entity’s…

Google may be testing (or this might be old) a new user interface for the local pack map interface. In the example below, Google is showing the fuller local card…

Google has brought Data Studio into Looker and it is now named Looker Studio. Google says this will bring more features and analytics tools to the platform.

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

In June we reported about a beta feature in Google Ads that gives Google the ability to automatically create assets for your ads. There is an opt-out feature but there…

Google’s John Mueller said if you see the Google search results being shuffled around after they are loaded, then it is not Google Search doing that. Google does not “shuffle…

Google’s John Mueller recently confirmed again that Google Search does not use the HTML lang attribute. He said many screen readers do and Microsoft Bing might use it as well,…

Google’s John Mueller said Google Search does not care one way or another if you use premium security plugins or not. The answer is, Google probably doesn’t care if you…

Google is testing a clock/timer type of icon on the sitelinks within Google Search. That icon apparently is designed to communicate that you previously visited that page from Google Search.

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

Google has added three examples of the type of product review pages and who can write them to the “how to write product reviews” help document.

Google has confirmed that structured data is one of the many signals the search company uses to help identify if a page has product reviews content or not. This was…

Google’s Danny Sullivan told us that the Google product reviews update primarily evaluates product review content on a page-level basis, but not always. Danny added “for sites that have a…

Over the weekend, there has been a number of reports from news publishers of an error in the Google News Publisher Center. The specific error says “there are no items…

A month ago we reported on Google’s announcement of the featured snippet callouts feature. Where Google uses MUM to bold sections of the featured snippet to give searchers a more…

Greg Finn and I have known each other for a pretty long time, so this video is pretty fun and we kind of go off topic a bunch but I…

This is just a quick note that I will be offline for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot on Monday, October 10th, and Tuesday, October 11th. All stories, social media posts,…

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

This week, I posted the monthly Google webmaster report, an excellent place to catch up on the past month in SEO. Glenn Gabe shared some wild charts showing how Google’s…

Google is still working on getting the timestamps accurate in the search results and news search results. Several publishers, including the Director of SEO at USA Today and the SEO…

Google Ads announced that you can now apply a recommendation as an experiment in the Experiments page. This allows you to more efficiently “in as few as two clicks, you…

Google has released its 2023 schedule for the Google Ads API. This includes the tentative dates for when various versions will be released and/or sunsetted for the Google Ads API.

Google has updated the Google tag to include a new tap coverage summary and offering deeper Google Ads, Google Analytics, and various CMS integrations.

John Mueller of Google said on Twitter the other day that “in many areas, searching visually is rare.” Meaning, that most of your traffic likely does not come from Google…

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 Search Console’s…