Search Engine Roundtable Podcast

This week in search, we had another unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm update that touched down in a big way on May 1st with a lot of weirdness the week prior. Moz’s home page was removed from Google Search for a 12 hour period after a fraudulent DMCA takedown request. Google is dropping support for some sitemap extensions to make things easier? Some are saying they saw a spike in crawl activity after Google removed the URL parameter tool. Bing gave some SEO advice on subscription based and paywall content. Do you think Google is doing away with web stories and replacing them with short videos? Google is offering digital marketing certification, where SEO is part of the curriculum. Google blocked a ton ads and suspected millions of advertisers in 2021. Google had a reporting issue wit h the Google Ads API, Google AdWords API and Google Ads Scripts. Google Ads customer match list will work with smart bidding and optimized targeting. Google Ads rolled out a slightly updated add new ad screen. Microsoft Advertising extended the RSA deadline, released auto-generated marketing lists and so much more. Microsoft Advertising also revamped its certification program and learning lab. Google is testing continuous or infinite scroll again in the desktop results. Google Maps added “this business does not exist” to the Business redressal complaint form. Google launched a slew of new travel search features. 67% of SEOs have university degrees, a poll says. And John Mueller of Google changed how he records the SEO office hours YouTube videos. That was this past week in search at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Sponsored by BruceClay who has been doing search marketing optimization since 1996 and also has an amazing SEO training platform.

Search Topics of Discussion:

Lior Krolewicz is the founder and CEO of Yael Consulting, a marketing consulting company. I’ve known Lior from when he was based in Israel, he spoke at a previous SMX Israel event back in the day. We spoke about his history in the space, he has been doing this for all over a decade. Lior told us about his experience in the IDF, Israel Defense Forces, he was special forces, he was in the high performance teams. His time in the IDF did help him build his company, mostly around building the right teams. He even shared some stories about his time in the IDF.

Lior is very big into the paid search side, specifically Google Ads. We spoke a bit about the evolution of paid search over the years. Lior said you have a lot less control, it is easier to lose money these days, and Google is pushing more for automation. He said generally, the Google reps who give the bad advice are the smaller accounts but the larger accounts get some good Google Ads reps to help them.

Learn more about Lior Krolewicz on LinkedIn, @yaelconsulting or at YaelConsulting.com.

This week in search, a reporter uncovered that sketchy SEOs are making up fake lawyers using AI to send out fake DMCA requests demanding links to their sites. Google was accused of stealing content and not crediting this source for that content, well, it turned out, Google was the one being copied, not he other way around. Google Search Console’s URL parameter tool is officially offline now. Microsoft is fully retiring the old Bingbot user-agent in the Fall of 2022. Google Search Console had a bug where the average position metric went missing in the performance report, it was fixed but that bug caused a ton of fear. Google now lets your remove personally identifiable information from Google Search. Google will launch signed exchanges for desktop Google Search for some sites. Google video results can now show you your question as answered in a video. Microsoft Bing ethical shopping hub is now live in the US. Google Business profile added products to the performance metrics reports. Google reduced the visibility of the edits it makes to your business local listings. Google Maps is asking local guides to update their old reviews. Google Ads performance max gained customer acquisition goals, new insight reports and a one click upgrade tool. Google Ads API released version 10.1 and then officially killed off the old Google AdWords API. Google updated the Google Merchant Center product data specification for 2022. Google added nine policies to the Google Ads strike based system. Google Search is testing images on the left side of the search results. And an SEO built an AI based John Mueller named MuellerBot which is pretty good and definitely funny. And if you want to help sponsor those vlogs, go to patreon.com/barryschwartz. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Search Topics of Discussion:

In part one, Larry Brauner and I spoke about growth versus brand marketing, reputation management, reviews, ads and more. In part two we go deeper on some topics including:

More to come soon from Larry, so make sure to subscribe on your favorite platform.

You can learn more about Larry Brauner on LinkedIn.

Before I start, just a reminder, this was pre-recorded and schedules to go live as I am offline today for Passover. That being said, it was a busy week with a lot of Google search ranking volatility this week, both on April 18th and April 21st or so. Google published its 2021 web spam report and told us about SpamBrain, spam AI Google has used since 2018. Google Search Console sent out notices for intrusive interstitials this week. Google Search is testing a new search bar but on the left side of the search results. Google search has been writing its own knowledge panels, replacing Wikipedia. Google is testing new featured snippets, with from the web and other sites say. Google is testing what people are saying in the search results. Google is testing found in related search. Google things to consider are now showing up in Google Shopping. Google is testing even larger product images in the search results. Google sitelinks rolls out scroll to text fully in the US. Bing has video previews in the search results that expand on hover over. Google Analytics real time reporting issues for Universal Analytics won’t be fully fixed. You can now import your Universal Analytics goals into Google Analytics 4. Google Site Kit now has an experimental feature to bring in Google Question Hub data. There is a bug with Google Ads automated rules where the conditions you set are not sticking. Google Business profiles messaging is seeing a spike in messaging scams. Google local listings has a “at this place” feature. Google added Easter and Passover decorations to search. And yes, I am offline today and tomorrow for the last days of Passover. And if you want to help sponsor those vlogs, go to patreon.com/barryschwartz. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

SPONSOR: Duda, the Professional Website Builder You Can Call Your Own.

Search Topics of Discussion:

Larry Brauner, the growth marketer and VP of digital marketing at iPostal1, stopped by the office to talk search. Larry has been in my office before, when we were mutually working on a local non profit organization together. Larry started off as a data analysts, then went into market research and then worked for IDT. It was while at IDT that he became fascinated by internet marketing, so left that job and got into search marketing and has not looked back. He said there was very little overlap between his earlier job and his new job.

We talked about tons and tons of topics but in part one, we specifically spoke about:

More to come soon from Larry, so make sure to subscribe on your favorite platform.

You can learn more about Larry Brauner on LinkedIn.

We seem to have another confirmed update starting on April 13th, right after the product reviews update finished. Google has finished rolling out the March 2022 product reviews update. Alan Kent from Google said writing in your product reviews content that you tested the product is not enough to show Google the content was really tested. Google also said not all product comparison content trigger the product reviews update. Google said there is no technical method to gain featured snippets. Google said negative SEO is not a thing and disavowed those misconceptions again. Google updated the words around automatically generated content, kind of, to say it is only an issue with its intended to manipulate the search rankings. Google Discover traffic is not impacted by adding navigation links to your menu. Google’s highly cited label is now live and so is the trusted store badge. Google search added more ways to add products to there product comparison feature in search. Google is testing a people also ask play and listen to button. Google local search has browse by products and browse by story. Google Maps is testing overlaying the local listing as a box on the map, which I kind of like. Microsoft is testing Bing Insights sub-snippets and they are also testing refinement bubbles on people also ask. Microsoft Advertising is rolling out seasonality adjustments. Google Ads launched a new dashboard for managers to see reporting across multiple accounts. Google also added a new way to create custom columns in Google Ads. Google said audience signals jumpsuit the Performance Max campaigns but also continue to inform going forward. Wishing you all a successful tax day, happy Easter and Passover! And if you want to help sponsor those vlogs, go to patreon.com/barryschwartz. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Search Topics of Discussion:

In part one with James Gibbons, the senior customer success manager at Quattr, we mostly spoke about how search tools can help you make decisions, and we also spoke about his history. In part two we spoke about what has changed in search marketing, more on SEO tooling and other sources of search traffic.

How Search Marketing Has Changed & Diversification Is Key:

James explained how the Google Ads use to be marked in yellow and were clearly able to be seen. He said half of the people would not click on ads, but that is changing and maybe people are trusting the ads more or maybe they are less aware that they are ads. I brought up an old search or golden triangle eye study from 2005, but I have not seen recent studies on this.

James said search marketers need to be aware that searchers and users are not getting to your content the same way. People can use head terms versus more long tail terms, he explained. James said you should go beyond your main keyword space to gain more users to your site. We also spoke about other platforms and verticals, like Google Discover, Google Ads, and more. But we kind of dug more into the Google Discover topic there for a bit.

More On SEM & PPC Tooling:

We then went back to the topic of SEO and SEM tools and should you build or buy. Of course, James was all for buying and not building. We spoken more about SEO recommendation engines and how the AI works with it. He said instead of building the tools, skip that step and just use a tool that has it so you can start immediately seeing your SEM success.

I brought up some of the first SEO tools, like Web Position Gold and others. How the tools themselves have grown in their capabilities over the years. It is amazing how far tools have gone over the years and where they are headed in the future. Google obviously uses a ton of machine learning in search and ads - but how much will AI take over is the big question.

Other Sources of Search Traffic:

We then spoke about how to find search traffic sources from Google but use sites that are already ranking well. You then get your site on those pages that are not yours and gain top ranking through other platforms. This includes sites like question and answer platforms, affiliate sites, review sites and so on. So you can use outreach, displays, affiliate, influencer or other methods to gain access to those sites and those rankings that those sites rank for.

You can learn more about James Gibbons on LinkedIn or @jamesfgibbons.

This week, I posted the monthly Google webmaster report - got to say, it was a super busy month - so catch up there. Google’s product reviews update, the tail-end, may have heated up in a big way, I covered that in a lot of detail. Google launched a new feature called Multisearch, where you can search using images and text at the same time. Google said thin content issues are not specific to individual pages but generally the whole site. Google said it does not matter if your content is outsourced or in-house made, what matters is quality. Google Search Console links report takes seven to ten days to show links for new sites. Google Search Console’s removal tool takes hours to listen to your cancellation request. Another Search Off the Record podcast was released this week, this was on structured data. Google Ads launched a new policy that prohibits content that shares personally identifiable information that promotes financial fraud, identity theft, harmful direct contact, or harassment. Google Ads has been having latency issues all week long, Google might have started to fix is just yesterday. Google Analytics real time analytics also is having weird latency issues. Google added to the local help documents that adding in-store products helps with local visibility. Google said it can now use AI to update your business hours, and will do so for 20 million listings. Google added a new recycling attribute for some businesses in Google Business Profiles. Google’s newish review management tool now works for those who manage multiple locations. Google Maps app added new features like toll prices, traffic lights, stop signs, deeper iOS integration and more. Google My Business app is going away, which was expected. And if you want to help sponsor those vlogs, go to patreon.com/barryschwartz. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

SPONSOR: This week's video recap is sponsored by Semrush.

Search Topics of Discussion:

James Gibbons, the senior customer success manager at Quattr, stopped by my office to do some vlogging with me. We spoke about Jame’s history in the space, working at a lawyer directory first, then moving to agencies like Acronym and Publicis Sapient and then getting into the software space in 2016. James is super passionate about building useful tools to help guide search marketing decisions. I just want to be clear, these vlogs are NOT paid or sponsored and are not advertisements.

We spoke a lot about how these reporting tools are going beyond reporting and turning into a decision engine to give you actionable next steps you can take. I kind of joked that SEOs will be out of a job soon because the machines can make all the decisions and even implement them. But James said no, we aren’t there yet, your SEO jobs are safe, humans still need to make the final call. We spoke about this early on and how these decisions can be made.

The algorithms, machine learning and AI will just keep getting better as more data is being fed into the models.

We then spoke a bit more about his history in the search marketing job space. He worked with Mike Grehan, who just recently announced he is retiring from Acronym. Then we went through some of the other places he worked on and how he got into Quattr.

In part two we spoke about what has changed in search marketing, more on SEO tooling and other sources of search traffic.

You can learn more about James Gibbons on LinkedIn or @jamesfgibbons.