


Danny Sullivan: Google Helpful Content Update Is Big But Not A Hu...
So many of you, including myself, are wondering why Google would make such a big deal of an upcoming update when the update itself is not that huge of a…

Daily Search Forum Recap: September 6, 2022
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Microsoft Advertising Adds Pinterest Import, More Google Imports,...
Microsoft Advertising announced a lot of new features today including the ability to import from Pinterest, Google Import to for Performance Max campaigns, Microsoft Advertising Editor support for multimedia ads,…

Google Learn Something New Web Story Feature
I am not 100% if this “learn something new” feature in Google Search is actually new but I have never reported on it before. Google Search shows a box named…

Google Home Hub Display Reviews Disclaimer Notice
The Google Home Hub display can show users an “about reviews” disclaimer or notice that talks about how the review may not be verified by a confirmed visit or experience.

You Don’t Want Google To Rank Your Site In Specific Regions
Google’s Gary Illyes was on Reddit offering advice to one SEO who simply does not want traffic from Google from users in specific regions. The reason is, that they don’t…

Book On Google For Google Flights To Be Discontinued Outside US
Google has quietly announced that on September 30th, Book on Google for flights will be discontinued in most countries or regions outside the United States.


Daily Search Forum Recap: September 5, 2022
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. For Labor Day…

Google Ads To Disapprove Ads That Don’t Meet Better Ads Sta...
Google Ads sent out emails on Friday to advertisers of a change coming to its policies starting in October 2022. The change says that if your destinations contain ad experiences…


Google Labor Day Logo 2022
Today is Labor day in the United States and in Canada and to celebrate the laborers’ work and contributions to their states, Google has a Doodle. The Doodle showcases plumbers,…

Google Analytics Makes Privacy Changes To Google Ads Search Queri...
Google announced that it is making changes, for privacy reasons, to the Google Ads Search Queries report in Universal Analytics and the Google Ads query, First user Google Ads query,…

Poll: Only 20% Noticed Ranking Changes After Google’s Helpf...
As we have reported, so far, the Google helpful content update seems pretty minor in terms of what SEOs and tools are picking up, despite what we all thought would…

Daily Search Forum Recap: September 2, 2022
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Weak Google Helpful Content Update,...
This week, again from Jerusalem, I spoke about this weird rollout for the Google helpful content update…

SiteGround Now Hosting Bill Slawski’s SEO By The Sea For Fr...
As many of you know Bill Slawski passed away in May. But earlier this week, Bill’s treasure trove of content covering search patents and more at SEOByTheSea.com went offline. The…


Dual Google People Also Ask Results In Different Languages
Google seems to be testing or launching, showing dual people also ask boxes in the Google Search results. One people also ask box is in English and, in this case,…

Google Can Crawl Site Sections More Frequently & Determine Qu...
Google’s Gary Illyes said on the last Search Off the Record podcast that Google can crawl certain sections of your site more frequently and also infer the quality of certain…

Google Search Tests Explore Brands With & Without Product Ima...
Google is testing a search feature for more product and e-commerce features, this one is titled “explore products.” The explore products feature comes with product images and without product images.

Google Provides Examples Of How To Improve Your Meta Descriptions
Google has updated its meta descriptions help documentation to provide five examples of how to improve your meta descriptions. This was added yesterday, plus Google did some formatting updates to…

Daily Search Forum Recap: September 1, 2022
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

New Google Ads Conversion Value Rules Features
Google announced new functionality within Google Ads to apply rules to specific store visits or store sales conversion categories. It is called conversion value rules, and it lets you adjust…

Google: Growth Of Microdata Is Fairly Stagnant
Ryan Levering who has been with Google for over 11 years working on structured data said on Twitter that the “growth of microdata is fairly stagnant.”

Google Ads Confirms Bug With Share & Auction Insights Reporti...
Google’s AdsLiaison, Ginny Marvin, has confirmed a bug with Share and Auction Insights reporting for Google Ads Search campaigns starting on August 29th. Ginny said this is just a reporting…

Google Isn’t Done Rolling Out The Helpful Content Update
We keep watching to see if this Google helpful content update is making some sort of dent in the rankings but so far, we are not seeing massive, Panda-like, ranking…


Google May Remove Word Count From Search Console News Article Con...
Google Search Console has a Google News specific article content error named “Article too short.” In that section it offers a recommendation to “make sure your articles have more than…

Daily Search Forum Recap: August 31, 2022
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Google Adds Products Section To Business Profile Guidelines
Google has added a new section for products to the Google Business Profile guidelines. The section says “If you run a retail business, you can show nearby shoppers what you…

Google’s John Mueller: No Recent Search Algorithms Focused ...
Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter that he is not aware of any recent search algorithm update that focused on links, outside of webspam algorithms. He said this when someone…

Google Learning Video Structured Data Docs Breaks Out educational...
Google has updated the Learning video structured data documentation to add the full list of supported academic values for educationalLevel. It now lists out the values per country, since each…

Google “See Results About” Goes Missing On Mobile Sea...
On August 17th, Google seems to have removed the “see results about” disambiguation search feature from the Google mobile search results. They still show on desktop but on mobile, it…

Google Search Browse Places Feature With Swipeable Cards
Google is testing a “browse places” search feature where it shows you place cards that you can swipe through and then click on. It is kind of like a new…


Daily Search Forum Recap: August 30, 2022
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Did Google Remove The Maps Review-Gating Policy?
Chris Silver Smith noticed how Google has updated its Google Maps contributed content policy and removed a line that prohibited review-gating. The line that was removed was “don’t discourage or…

Sub-Reviews: Google Local Reviews By Category & Attribute
Google is asking some Google Local Guides to leave sub-reviews about a single business listing. So Google might ask the local guide about the restrooms in the restaurant or the…


Microsoft Advertising RSAs Deadline Extended Again, This Time TO ...
Microsoft Advertising has extended the deadline to move from Expanded Text Ads to Responsive Search Ads once again. Instead of it being August 29, 2022, Microsoft is now pushing the…

Google Promotes Search Console Insights In Some Google Accounts
Molly Youngblood posted some screenshots on Twitter showing how Google is pushing her to check out Google Search Console Insights with a little banner that reads “New: Get insights about…

Google Local Business Structured Data Doesn’t Support addit...
Google has clarified on its Local Business structured data help documentation that when you want to specify multiple types in Local Business structured data, specify them in an array and…

Daily Search Forum Recap: August 29, 2022
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. So far, at…

Google Helpful Content Update Feedback Form
As you know, the Google helpful content update started to roll out on Thursday, August 25th. Google has opened up a feedback form for you to leave Google URLs of…

Google: Adding Video Structured Data Won’t Make Your Video ...
Google’s John Mueller said that adding video structured data to pages with videos on them will not make that video more prominent on that page. This comes from a video…

Google: Soft 404s Do Waste Crawl Budget
Google’s Gary Illyes said on the latest Search Off The Record podcast that soft 404s, pages Google thinks are 404s but return a 200 server status code, do waste crawl…

Google Tests Quick Read & 5 Minute Read Label In Search Resul...
Google is testing a new label in the search results to tell searchers what is a quick read or a page that takes less than five minutes to read. I…

Vlog #187: Jill Fecher On Podcasting & Agency Business Develo...
In part one, we learned about Jill Fecher, Chief Growth Officer at Cypress North. We learned about her past history in marketing, why she joined Cypress North, what she does…

Google Helpful Content Update Seems Weak & Slow To Roll Out S...
Google announced the helpful content update on August 18th and it officially started to roll out on August 25th. I thought this update would hit hard and fast, but so…


Daily Search Forum Recap: August 26, 2022
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. It’s been a…

Bing Tests People Also Ask In Carousel UX
Microsoft Bing is testing a carousel format and user experience for the people also ask. Normally we will the people also ask in a list view, but the carousel test…

View From Inside Of the Google NYC Outside View
Inside View Of A Google NYC Outside View

Google Search Conversations & Discussion and Forums
Google has had these discussion carousels for the past couple of years. Now Google also spotted a “conversations” box and also a “discussions and forums” box in Google Search.

Google Says Cloaking Affiliate Links Does Not Gain You Anything
Google’s John Mueller was asked about the pros and cons of cloaking affiliate links. John responded on Twitter saying, “I don’t think you gain anything by cloaking the affiliate links,…

Google Local Service Ads To Allow You To Exclude Areas
Google Local Service Ads is testing and may eventually launch a new user interface to allow businesses and advertisers to exclude their ads from showing in certain areas.

Google Business Profile Tests Captions On Business Photos
Google is testing allowing business owners add captions or descriptions to photos they upload to their business profiles. Mike Blumenthal spotted this in a Google Business Profile Help thread and…

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Helpful Content Update Live,...
Google has begun rolling out the helpful content update on Thursday…

Daily Search Forum Recap: August 25, 2022
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 now…

Google Expanded From Sources Across The Web Feature
Google has this “from sources across the web” box that shows sites that cover a specific topic in this grid list view. You can click on a specific site to…

Google Search Algorithm Update On August 24th But Was It The Help...
We were all expecting Google to post that the helpful content update started to roll out earlier this week but it is Thursday and Google has not posted it yet….


Google: Quality Raters Guidelines Are Not A Collection Of Ranking...
Google’s John Mueller said that the Google quality raters guidelines are “not a collection of ranking tips.” He said the quality raters guidelines “can be useful” to think about but…

Google: Don’t Noindex Pages With Comments, Keep The Good Co...
I am weird, I love user-generated comments and while tons of blogs removed them ages and ages ago, I kept them here. I do my best to remove the spam…

Google Adds Content Guidelines To Education Q&A Structured Da...
Google has added a new section to the Education Q&A structured data documentation for content guidelines. Google added three higher-level content guidelines around this type of structured data.

Google Helpful Content Update Is Now Rolling Out
The Google helpful content update is now rolling out. It can take up to two weeks to fully roll out. I’m currently typing this on my mobile phone but I…

Daily Search Forum Recap: August 24, 2022
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…


Google Adds “View All Business Profiles” In Web Searc...
As Google continues to migrate off of the old Google My Business manager to the web search interface to manage your business, Google keeps adding subtle but more features. Now,…

Google Search Tests Popular On Twitter Box
Google is testing a new title for some of the Twitter carousel results in Google Search. I guess if something is trending on Twitter, Google will label the Twitter carousel…

Google Deprecates International Targeting Report In Search Consol...
Google has announced on Twitter that it has deprecated the International Targeting report in Google Search Console. Google’s international SEO advice has not changed with this but the International Targeting…

Google Discover Also Let’s You Hide Content From Authors
The other day we reported that Google Discover was showing the author name under the article and not the site name, for some stories. Well, Google Discover can now let…

Google Ads Automatic Upgrades To Performance Max For Local Campai...
Google Ads announced that Google will start the process of automatically “upgrading” accounts to Performance Max for Local campaigns. Automatic upgrades will gradually progress and finish in September for most…

Daily Search Forum Recap: August 23, 2022
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Google Search Cannot Interpret Your Poem
Do you write poems, creative texts, abstract thoughts, and the like and are wondering how Google Search can and will rank that type of content? Well, John Mueller of Google…

Google: Beauty Blog With Financial & Medical Advice A Bit Sus
Google’s John Mueller was asked if mixing topics on a single blog is a bad idea. John implied that yes, it is, at least for users. John said on Twitter…

Google Ads: No Plans For Ad Customizers Using Location For Respon...
Google’s Ad Liasion, Ginny Marvin, confirmed on Twitter last week that there are no plans to add support ad customizers for responsive search ads, not now and not in the…


Google Tests New Local Service Ads UX
Google is testing a new layout and user experience for the Local Service Ads. This interface has the local service ads on the left and when you click on one,…

Google Core Web Vitals Report Adds URL Level Data For Examples UR...
Google announced on Twitter it has added URL-level data in the example URLs within the Google Core Web Vitals report. Plus Google added that it made some textual changes to…

Daily Search Forum Recap: August 22, 2022
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. Many SEOs don’t…

Vlog #186: Jill Fecher On Creating Your Own Job Description At A ...
Jill Fecher is the Chief Growth Officer at Cypress North and we spoke about her work history and her previous experience in traditional media. We spoke about how she joined…

Poll: Many SEOs Say The Content They Produce Is Helpful & Not...
As you know, Google will soon roll out the helpful content update and it has some SEOs and site owners a bit on edge. But a recent poll Aleyda Solis…


Google: Just Because You Didn’t Write It, Doesn’t Mea...
Google’s John Mueller explained that Google doesn’t really care who wrote the content on your site and saying someone else wrote it and you did not write it won’t save…

Google Search Console Video Index Report Now 100% Live
A month ago, Google started to slowly roll out the video index report within Google Search Console. Now that rollout is complete, Google announced on Twitter this morning.

Google Maps: Your Review Isn’t Posted Email
Google Maps is now notifying reviewers when their review isn’t posted. The email says “your review isn’t posted” and explains why. In the case below, Google said its moderation systems…

Google: API Not Impacted By Search Console Indexing Label Bug
Last week we reported that Google Search Console had an embarrassing bug where it was reporting pages as being indexed, when those pages were not indexed by Google Search. The…

Daily Search Forum Recap: August 19, 2022
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: HTTPS Is Not A Requirement To Rank In Google Search
Google’s John Mueller was asked if Google still ranks sites that are on HTTP (not over HTTPS), i.e. insecure sites. John said yes, being on HTTPS is not a requirement…

New Google Helpful Content Update To Change SEO Much Like Panda D...
Google has announced a new big search ranking algorithm update named the helpful content update – yes, Google named it that. This update will start to roll out next week…

Google To Launch Fifth Product Reviews Update Just Weeks After Th...
Google has announced it will be launching the fifth Product Reviews update in the coming weeks, which would be just a few weeks after Google finished rolling out the last…

Google Helpful Content Update, New Product Reviews Update, Search...
This week we covered the new big Google update that is coming next week named the helpful content update, I dig deep into it. Google has been talking about content…


Google Search On How Many Ads Are Too Much For Your Site
Google’s John Mueller was asked what percentage of content-to-ad ratio is too much to rank well in Google Search. As you can imagine, John said there is no number he…

Google: No SEO Benefit For Either Dynamic Rendering Or Server Sid...
Recently Google recommended strongly against using dynamic rendering as a workaround for JavaScript sites going forward, Google updated its help documentation to strongly say not to use it. But that…

Daily Search Forum Recap: August 18, 2022
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Google Ads API Version 11.1 Now Available
Google has released version 11.1 of the Google Ads API. Version 11 of the Google Ads API was released in June, so this is a minor update to version 11.