Latest SEO News & Tips From SE Roundtable Blog

This week, we covered that Google told creators that a new search ranking update is coming fairly soon, but you shouldn’t expect to recover with this update. Google is now…

I am seeing a significant spike in chatter from within the SEO community about a possible Google Search ranking update and/or heavy volatility happening starting October 31st. Let’s call it…

Google added a number of AI, Gemini-powered, features to Google Maps including new search features, review summaries for place listings and a way to ask about a specific business listing…

Google is testing more local search features and sections including a section in the local finder named “Discover more places” and a local search box in web search named “Explore…

Microsoft seems to be testing a new design for its local knowledge panel or local listing for a specific brand. This new design has a more card-like interface, showing company…

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

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…

Google can show a restaurant’s menu right at the top of the search results for a search on that restaurant’s brand name. It comes up in this “menu highlights” carousel…

Google is testing replacing the question and answer box for Google Business Profile listings with a title that reads, “Lear something specific.” At least I think it is the same…

Microsoft reported its first quarter 2025 earnings and it showed that its search and advertising revenue was up 18%. The last quarter it was up 19%, but as I noted…

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 held that Web Creator summit yesterday at the GooglePlex, where Google told victims of previous search ranking updates including the September 2023 helpful content update, that a new search…

Google / Alphabet reported its Q3 2024 earnings last night, where its ad revenue hit $65.85 billion, up 10% from last year’s quarter of $59.65 billion. Google’s revenue was up…

Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, has confirmed that a Google ad representative, a Google employee, has made unauthorized changes to a Google ad account. Marvin wrote that following up…

You thought Google was sneaky with their ad or sponsored labels. Microsoft has a history of being super sneaky with their ad labels in Bing Search. Here is a new…

Google is testing a search ad product carousel format that has these sub-categories that scroll as you swipe through the carousel of products. This format looks familiar but I cannot…

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 AI Overviews…

Google announced it is rolling out AI Overviews in Google Search to over 100 more countries, making it available to over one billion users and in all supported languages. This…

Google’s John Mueller said it again, he said on LinkedIn, “We’ve been pretty clear that Core Web Vitals are not giant factors in ranking, and I doubt you’d see a…

Google is now testing a “Frequently saved” label on the search results snippets. Previously we’ve seen you’ve visit often labels, for you labels, preferred source labels and other labels in…

Google is testing a new “all places” and “compare now” interface to see businesses and third-party comparison sites outside of Google Search. This is something Google launched in the European…

With the new Bing Webmaster Tools recommendations section, we are learning more about what Bing Search likes and dislikes. One of the things Bing does not like is when a…

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

Google is now saying it has ranking systems that “aim to understand if a section of a site is independent or starkly different from the main content of the site….

Google Ads will be sunsetting call ads sometime next year and will be migrating those to responsive search ads. Google wrote, “Call ads are being upgraded to responsive search ads…

Google is now testing showing reviews within the photos carousel within a Google Business Profile listing. So when you scroll through the photos for a business, Google can also show…

Google is testing showing a carousel named mentioned products, that can be displayed under a search result snippet that shows the products mentioned in that search result. This came up…

Google Business Profiles may now ask you to verify your information about your store inventory within the Products section of your profile. Google will ask “Do you sell these products…

Google Search Console’s performance report seems to have a bug where it is showing almost zero data for today. I can replicate this across numerous Search Console properties, so maybe…

While I was offline, it seems we had two bouts of Google Search ranking volatility, one starting around Wednesday, October 23rd and 24th, and then again in the past 24…

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 said it…

This week, we had more Google search ranking volatility to report on – surprise…

Google Search likely does not use ARIA Accessible Rich Internet Applications, for ranking or even indexing purposes, according to both John Mueller and Martin Splitt at Google. ARIA is a…

Google’s John Mueller posted his thoughts on AI, which were two fold. (1) AI is not going away, so he doesn’t recommend you take a stance against AI and (2)…

Google Discover is rolling out some small design updates to its interfaces. It has these new colored icons that communicate the action and Google is also showing other articles shown…

Google is showing a section named “top recipe guides” that can be expanded or collapsed in Google Search. It shows a “Lists of options from the web” in this expanded…

Google is testing another variation of the people also ask box, this one is titled “other people search.” I am not sure if there is any functional or technical difference…

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…

Google is testing adding a new rich result type to the search results snippet named “Shop nearby.” The shop nearby link will open the Google Business Profile of the business’s…

Google Search is testing replacing the spelling notification for “search instead for…” with “revert.” I mean, it is a weird one being that I am not sure “revert” is the…

Google has this carousel that can pull in top products based on customer reviews in the Google Shopping graph. It is titled “Top products from customer reviews” and shows up…

Gareth Hoyle posted about this new game he and his company, along with others have spent about a year putting together. It is named SEO The Board Game and is…

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…

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

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…

Google’s John Mueller said he understands why some in our industry look to optimize for metrics within various SEO tool platforms, but he said there are not shortcuts in SEO…

Google is testing new Audience Insights or audience analytics within the Google Merchant Center interface. This can show you your audience’s regions, ages, gender, age group and more.

One of the complains with Google Search showing Reddit or other online forums all the time is that for medical questions, the answers can be dangerous and harmful. But at…

Google now has the ability to expand sections of knowledge panels on the desktop search interface. So when you search for Elon Musk and want to see his children, Google…

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

Google is deprecating the ten-year-old Sitelinks Search Box. It is going to start to disappear from the search result snippets starting on November 21, 2024. This does not impact the…

Google seems to be testing showing search ads that you can click to watch a video. We saw something like this back in 2018, but this shopping ad has a…

There are reportedly at least five bugs within the Bing Webmaster Tools API and the corresponding documentation. The bugs range from setting country and regions to site move requests, plus…

Microsoft is adding new AI features to Bing Search named AI-enhanced summaries. These can show up in the knowledge panel section, and say the “summary was generated by Al from…

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

Nope, Google won’t let up with its Google Search ranking volatility. We are seeing sites that are showing better rankings one day, only to see those rankings jump back up…

Nick Fox is now the new head of Google Search, replacing Prabhakar Raghavan who is moving into Chief Technologist role at Google. Nick Fox has been with Google since July…

Google will temporarily pause ads related to the US elections after the polls close on November 5th. Google said this “is a temporary measure, and we will notify advertisers when…

Google is at it again, double dipping on Local Service Ads clicks, by adding a “Request competitive quotes” button after you have already selected the business you want a quote…

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

For the original iTunes version, click here. Yep, another week, more Google search ranking volatility to report on…

Google Search is testing replacing the article carousel format with a list view format of sort. This shows the articles in two columns with a show more button, instead of…

Google is testing a more results button with a bit more design, the button expands or refines your query in the people also ask section. Normally you just see a…

Google is testing a new image pack design that shows four images instead of three images with a more images button. This may not be a new change, it might…

Google Search’s translate feature may sometimes show images that match the word or words, depending on the language you are translating from and to. So if you want to translate…

Google is now testing an “open in maps” button in the local pack maps embed interface. That button takes you into the core Google Maps product for that Google search…

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. Bing announced a…

Microsoft has provided some new updates to Bing Webmaster Tools, including 10 months more of data for the search performance reports, an updated recommendations section, and a preview of Copilot…

Google Merchant Center now lets you name your various shipping policies. This is a welcomed change because previously, it was hard to know which shipping policy was associated with which…

Semrush, the well-known and popular SaaS search marketing platform, has acquired Third Door Media and all its properties, including Search Engine Land, SMX, MarTech, and Digital Marketing Depot. As you…

Google is testing a product carousel within the search results snippets that contain product images, product information, ratings and prices. This might be specific to Amazon, but I am not…

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…

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. We are seeing…

Google announced a number of new Google Shopping features including the new home page, the new researched with AI, more personalized results and deal-finding tools like price comparison, price insights…

It’s been a handful of days since we reported on any Google Search ranking volatility and although I really don’t want to say we are seeing more volatility in the…

Google may have removed or be removing the health insurance fields from Google Business Profiles. So if you are a health related organization, and you want patients to see what…

Google has added two new verification methods for merchants/retailers within Google Merchant Center next. The new methods are to verify via a business email or verify via an e-commerce/shopping platform.

Google is testing adding a background color, shade, to the featured snippets on mobile search. We saw this in February with normal snippets, also with site names and favicons and…

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

The other day I wrote about a Google test named Quick view for recipes that gave the searcher no reason, whatsoever, to click over the the publishers site. But then…

Google is testing angled or off-centered design elements within the search results. The search box seems angled, the favicons seem twisted, the box elements throughout seem tilted – it just…

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. A new video…

Arun Maini, a famous YouTuber known for his Mrwhosetheboss channel, posted a scathing video named “Why Google Search is Falling Apart. The video goes through three reasons why Google Search…

Google is testing swapping out the normal spelled-out Google logo with the Super G (that is what Google calls it) logo at the top of the Google Search results page….