Microsoft Bing Updates Webmaster Guidelines: Conversation Mode an...
Microsoft has updated the Bing webmaster guidelines to support the updates with the new co-pilot, AI, ChatGPT-powered version of Bing. Bing updated the answers section and added a new section…
Google Business Profiles Removing Emojis & Special Characters...
For the past few weeks, there have been reports via the Local Search Forum that Google has been removing emojis and special characters from business names within Google Business Profiles….
Google Confirms Podcast Carousels Going Away In Search On Februar...
A few weeks ago, we reported that Google dropped the podcasts carousel from the search results. Well, now Google confirmed the podcast carousel is 100% going away within the Google…
Google Search Feature: Coupons From Stores
Almost a year ago, Google began to integrate clipable coupons into Google Shopping. Well, now it seems that Google is testing showing those clipable coupons directly in Google Search, and…
Daily Search Forum Recap: February 7, 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 Search launched…
I’m At The Microsoft Bing Event Today – Expecting Cha...
I am currently in Seattle, and headed to the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, for an in-person press event. I decided to go, assuming it would be related to ChatGPT and…
Google Tests New Larger Video Layout In Search
Google may be testing a new layout for videos it displays in the Google Search results. Google is testing a new format for how the videos show in the Google…
Google Search Launches Bard, It’s ChatGPT Feature, To Trust...
Well, we knew it was coming and here it is, Bard – Google’s answer to ChatGPT. Google is now having its trusted testers test out Bard and will soon roll…
Survey Says Most Think Yahoo Won’t Be Able To Compete In Se...
As you know, Yahoo is planning a come back to search with a new way of thinking about Yahoo Search. What that means, we don’t know yet, but we do…
Google Search People Cards Now Visible In US
Back in 2020, Google Search introduced a feature named people cards. It was only available in India but now it seems like it might be expanding, as I can now…
Daily Search Forum Recap: February 6, 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 may have…
Google: Translating URLs To Content Language Is Less Critical
Google’s John Mueller was asked again about if you should translate the content of the URL itself to the language of the content used on that page. John this time…
Google Tests Gray Boxed Snippets In Search Mobile
Google is testing a new design for the mobile search result snippets. Google is boxing in the snippet, the description text, of a specific listing in a gray-shaded curved box.
Google Local Review Filters Removed Many Legit Reviews, Google Re...
Google has confirmed that its latest efforts to filter out local reviews against its policies and guidelines went too far. Google, over the next few weeks, is working to restore…
Vlog #209: Jeff Ferguson On Issues With SEO Studies & Ranking...
In part one, we go through Jeff Ferguson’s long history in search marketing. In part two, we pick up with him starting his own agency. Then in part three we…
Unconfirmed Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On February 4t...
There may have been another unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update – this one also on the weekend, around February 4th, maybe kicking off on February 3rd. I am seeing…
Google: JSON-LD, Microdata & RDFa Are All Equally Fine For St...
Google has clarified in its search developer documents that JSON-LD, Microdata and RDFa are all fully supported forms for structured data and Google Search. Google wrote, “all three supported formats…
Daily Search Forum Recap: February 3, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Is This The Microsoft Bing ChatGPT Search Interface?
Owen Yin shared some screenshots of what he said he saw on the Microsoft Bing website. It looks like the beta version of the upcoming ChatGPT features that we are…
Google Ad Revenues Down 3.6% Year Over Year, Working On Cost Stru...
Google reported earnings last night and their ad revenue not only slowed but was technically lower year over year. Google’s ad revenue was down about 3.6%, while total revenue was…
Google Does Major Refresh Of The Canonicalization Help Documentat...
Google has updated its search help documentation around canonicalization this morning. The Google Search Relations team split in three distinct sections and updated a lot of the content to provide…
Is The New BingBot Now Fully Live Today For Microsoft Bing?
As a reminder, since April, Bing has been slowly testing a new BingBot user agent, slowly rolling it out to more percentages of crawls over the year. It should have…
Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai Confirms New Chat Based Search F...
Last night I reported on Search Engine Land, based on the earnings report and earnings call, that Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai has confirmed the search company will release a chat…
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Algorithm Update, Yandex Sea...
In this week’s recap, I covered the unconfirmed Google update that seemed to impact product review sites but maybe more on January 26th. Yandex had a huge leak…
Daily Search Forum Recap: February 2, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
GoogleProducer: A New Googlebot Crawler From Google?
Google may be crawling the web with a new crawler, a new Googlebot, named GoogleProducer. This useragent is not listed on the official Google crawlers page but maybe it is…
Google Search Console Video Indexing Report Gains Impressions &am...
Google has updated the video indexing report within Google Search Console to add impression data and a way to filter the report by your available sitemaps.
Microsoft Bing: lastmod Tag In XML Sitemap File Is Critical
Microsoft Bing posted a new blog post saying “for XML sitemaps, one of the most critical tags you can include in your sitemap is the “lastmod” tag.” And it will…
Google Testing Apprentice Bard: Google’s Answer To OpenAI...
CNBC reported the other day that Google is working on its own AI chatbot named Apprentice Bard. Apprentice Bard is reportedly built on Google’s AI LaMDA language model stack and…
February 2023 Google Webmaster Report
It is time for the Google webmaster report, where I summarize the most important SEO and webmaster-related Google topics for the past month. Google completing the long rollout of the…
Daily Search Forum Recap: February 1, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
Google Blasts Agencies That Sell Links & Disavow Link Service...
John Mueller of Google blasted SEO or marketing agencies that sell both link-building services and disavow link services. He said on Twitter, “These agencies (both those creating, and those disavowing)…
Google: Search Console Verification Does Not Impact Your Ranking
Gary Illyes said in the Google SEO office-hours from yesterday that verifying your website in Google Search Console won’t impact your Google Search indexing or ranking whatsoever.
Google: Firewalls or CDNs Issues Are The Most Common Reason For B...
Gary Illyes from Google posted a new PSA on LinkedIn saying that the most common reason a site unexpectedly blocks Googlebot from crawling is due to a misconfiguration of a…
Google: Nofollow Site Credit Links Footer Links If You Control Th...
Google is still recommending that you nofollow your credit links in your footer, if you have control over those links. So the site designed by or powered by or made…
Google Ads To Update Government Documents and Official Services P...
After months of silence and no policy updates from Google Ads, Google has posted that it will be updating its Google Ads Government documents and official services policy in a…
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 31, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
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…
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.”
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….
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Daily Search Forum Recap: January 24, 2023
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
