Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

Did you know that SEO bloggers, like myself, are the reason you see fewer and less nuanced responses from Google Search reps? John Mueller from Google said so on Reddit,…

Microsoft announced yesterday it has begun testing its new Bing generative search experience – so Bing GSE (versus Google SGE). “By combining the power of generative AI and large language…

As you know, Google released its August 2024 core update on Thursday, August 15th, followed shortly after by a large search ranking bug hours later. SEOs and site owners are…

Google’s Looker Studio has lost access to the Google Ads Auction Insights fields as of August 24, 2024 for new data sources. Then after September 23, 2024 it will no…

Google Business Profiles seems to have dropped the Q&A feature from businesses in India and some other regions, or at least, a number of them. The issue started a few…

This morning we covered these unusual “preferred source” labels in the search results. And now we are seeing “For you” labels in the search results. Maybe they are the same…

Google announced the beta launch of Search themes for Google Ads Performance Max campaigns. Search themes are an optional signal you can use to inform Google AI about your business…

Before creating your Google Business Profile listing, make sure you are using the right language. If not, it may cause serious issues for you in the long run where the…

Google’s flexible sampling solution that replaced the first-click-free solution for gated, subscription or paywalled content launched in 2017. Since then, many publishers use the structured data to communicate to Google…

As expected, Google has finally released its updated SEO starter guide and it was cut down in a big way. Google said this update was aimed at making it work…

In June, Google introduced virtual try-on models to some clothing<< product shopping results. When it first launched, Google said it used AI to generate models that can try on clothes for…

Google has unleashed tons of manual actions, search ranking penalties you can see within Google Search Console, after it released its search spam policy updates on Tuesday. The manual actions…

While I highly doubt Google pushed an algorithmic change over Memorial Day, there was a significant spike in chatter in the SEO community and the third-party Google Search tracking tools…

Last week, Google emailed its Google Ads and Google Analytics users with a heads-up about new privacy laws coming to some states in the United States. This involves topics around…

Apple has made some really big changes to the Applebot documentation after the Apple WWDC event, where Apple announced Apple Intelligence. Apple added more about Applebot, reverse DNS details, Applebot-Extended…

Google posted a new “Search Off The Record” podcast yesterday on the topic of crawling where John Mueller, Lizzi Sassman, and Gary Illyes spoke about how Google crawls, some ideas…

This is a programming note that Thursday and Friday are Sukkot and I will be offline the next two days. I will be offline on Thursday and Friday, October 17th…

Google may have hit Fortune Recommends with a search penalty, downgrading its Google search rankings. This may be related to the site reputation abuse policy, like it may have done…

The CEO of Bing from Microsoft, Mikhail Parakhin, said that Bing Chat is working on custom instructions for Bing Chat in the form of “a less geeky, more useful way…

Last week, Google revealed it signed a deal with Reddit to access its content using an API so it can get the content faster and in a structured format. This…

Google was asked if having two websites and Google finding out about them would cause the websites to drop in rankings. John Mueller from Google said that is “not likely,”…

Google is now showing Local Service Ads directly in the mobile version of the Google local business finder interface in Google Search. We know Google is showing LSAs now on…

Google seems to be testing a new user experience for the “from sources across the web” search feature. Instead of showing a carousel or content on the search results page,…

Google is now testing rounded outlines around some of its search result snippet features. This includes around the snippets in the local pack and also knowledge panels. I do wonder…

Can you believe it, it has been over a week since I reported on any Google Search ranking algorithm updates or volatility. Over the past 24-hours or so, the level…

Google seems to be showing trust scores for some website entities in the knowledge panel box. It can show a trust score from APIVoid and ScamAdviser. I can replicate it…

Microsoft announced that it has updated some of its existing advertising policies and with that also made the email notification process for disapproval faster and quicker.

A couple of months ago, Google launched course info rich results in the Engish regions but now it may be rolling out beyond those regions. Some SEOs in India are…

Just like Microsoft has been testing swapping out the Bing Chat link with the Copilot link within the Bing Search results pages, now Microsoft is testing swapping out the Bing…

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

Google has added a section to the use rel=canonical link annotations section of the canonical search documentation to clarify that rel=canonical annotations with certain attributes are not used for canonicalization.

Google is once again testing a larger font size in the search box in the mobile search results. We saw this back in 2021 with the mobile search box, also…

Google may be bringing comments to the Notes on Google Search (and Discover) feature. Notes on Search came last November as a labs feature in Google Search and Google Discover….

Google is testing a longer search bar, so I guess you can enter in a longer query into the search box. Google is also testing it in a gray color…

In March, Google announced a new verification process for its Local Service Ads program. Well, now, Google has started to email advertisers that need to take the steps to verify…

Google has made a small update to its crawl budget documentation page to add a best practice is to have the same links on both the mobile and desktop version…

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

Google has added a single line to its Googlebot documentation to say that when Googlebot crawls from within the US, it crawls using the Pacific timezone. Google added, “When crawling…

As a reminder, the Google helpful content system/update is a sitewide algorithm. It looks at your site as a whole when applying its ranking system to the Google Search results….

Google may be testing showing longer-form justifications in the Google local results. In the example below, provided by Miriam Ellis on X, it showed a more extended description/justification provided by…

Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, in response to another SEO hit piece by The Verge said that author bylines and bios do not help a site or piece of…

On Friday afternoon, I was able to play a bit with Bing Deep Search, Microsoft’s “enhancement” to Bing Search that provides a “deeper and richer exploration of the web.” And…

Back in October we reported that Google has confirmed its search ads, Google Ads, can show up mixed in the middle of the organic search results. Now Google is updating…

Google Ads has posted its first new features announcement in its help section in over two months. This was to announce several Performance Max campaigns features, which we will get…

Microsoft Advertising, the ads you see in Bing, have these “Marketing with Purpose Attributes” ad labels with carbon-neutral labels. Those labels used to be gray, but now Bing has them…

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 is a…

Microsoft may have updated its Bing Places support contact us page. The new page requires you to authenticate yourself, then pick your region, before filling out the form. The form…

Google is testing yet another new recipe search interface. This may be an ongoing test, as I cannot replicate it, but the recipe interface is way more interactive and useful…

Google seems to be testing displaying user-uploaded product images within the Google Search product section. So that when you click on a product, instead of showing the official product image,…

The Google November 2023 core update that started to rollout on November 2nd, Thursday afternoon, has been incredibly volatile, heated and in a very short time. We saw the fluctuations…

Google announced the hidden gems ranking system has been rolling out. This hidden gems update helps promote content deep within forum posts, social media, and blog posts that Google Search…

Google has updated its policy where an identifier exists issue will no longer lead to disapproval of your product listings. Instead, Google will first issue you a warning for identifier…

Google Ads will stop supporting Commissions (per Stay) and Commissions (per Conversions) bid strategies for Hotel Ads in October 2024. Google says this is because third-party cookies are being phased…

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

I’ll start by saying that was a hard title to write and I hope it makes sense. In short, Google’s John Mueller said on X, when it comes to fixing…

Google is testing another ad format, another card like format, for its search ads. We previously saw the vertical and tall ad cards, then the carousel horizontal card format and…

Google added a couple of new options to the spam reporting tool, including the new site reputation abuse and expired domain abuse, to the form. Again, Google announced these new…

Google is testing showing two more people also ask results, by default, which is a total of six people also ask, instead of the typical four people also ask that…

This month we had Google June 2024 spam update roll out over a seven-day period. We had a few other unconfirmed Google search ranking updates as well, listed below. Let’s…

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

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

With Google removing the cache operator from its search service, Google has stopped supporting the noarchive directive in Google Search. The directive, the noarchive meta tag, would tell Google not…

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

Google has finished rolling out the Google October 2023 Spam Update that started 15 days and 12 hours ago. That update began on October 4th at 12:52 pm ET and…

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 testing a lite version of a knowledge panel, maybe a knowledge panel “snippet” in the mobile search results. It is a snippet that looks like a sub-knowledge panel…

Right before the New Year, the Google search results volatility spiked big time. I posted the Google webmaster report for January 2024 this week. I published a big list of…

Microsoft updated Bing Webmaster Tools to build out the IndexNow reports, now named IndexNow Insights, add new Top SEO Insights to the main page and also cleaned up the side…

Google Business Profiles now lets you select your preferred menu source. You have three options for your restaurant: create or copy a menu, copy from a website, or pick a…

Google Images lets you upload an image, and then it may show you an option to “see exact matches.” This essentially will show you all the locations where the image…

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

Google is testing a dynamic map feature in Google Search that will update the map as you scroll through the location carousel. The location carousel has content like neighborhoods, things…

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. Apple Business Connect,…

It looks like Bing may be testing a new design for its search knowledge / answer panels in the search results. And that new design looks very much like the…

Google officially supports the suggestedAge property as an alternative to suggestedMaxAge and suggestedMinAge within its product structured data. Google says they added this support to make it more flexible for…

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been informed of a number of local user interface changes to the Google local panels in the search results. Here are some of…

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…

Want to scare an SEO? Just tell them they need to manage a site migration. Want to make an SEO faint? Tell them they need to manage to split a…

Google said it will not index sites that are not accessible on mobile devices after July 5, 2024. “If your site’s content is not accessible at all with a mobile…

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 spoke about…

There are many sad stories around sites getting hit by Google algorithm updates, such as core updates and of course the September 2023 helpful content update. But Hardbacon, a financial…

This is a programming note that Thursday and Friday are Simchat Torah and I will be offline the next two days. I will be offline on Thursday and Friday, October…

Several weeks ago some businesses were seeing that they could edit their social profiles within Google Business Profiles. But most businesses did not have access to this feature. Now it…

The Google News Showcase is new for those in the US and with that we are seeing content from within the Google News Showcase show up in more places. One…

Google announced that it will discontinue its Google News magazine service starting on December 1, 2023. Any magazines you purchased and that are available within the Google News apps or…

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

Google has updated its help document on how to fix suspended or disabled Google Business Profiles to explain that you can now “request an additional review to a denied request.”…

It looks like Google is rolling out a new Google Business Profiles image uploader as part of the new Google Business Profile management interface. The image uploader interface seems a…

The Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out, almost 6 weeks now, and we saw two shifts of ranking volatility, both mid-week and the weekend before. Google’s Danny…

Google Merchant Center seems to be testing a whole slew of new analytics for the Merchant Center console. The data itself is not new but the UX is, and I…

Google’s Gary Illyes posted on LinkedIn with two common examples of when a spike in Googlebot activity, crawling, is a bad thing. The short answer is when Googlebot gets to…

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…