Search Engine Roundtable Podcast

Google had an unconfirmed but pretty big Google Search ranking algorithm update on September 24th and 25th. Google hosted its big search event called the Search On event, Google spoke about MUM being added to more places in search and a bunch of other features. Google said it is going away from the 200 ranking signals figure because it is somewhat misleading. Google said product rich results enhancement report now will show more granular errors, starting on September 29th. Google posted new help documents for best practices with e-commerce sites in Google Search. Google said it is best not to have Google index sponsored product listings. Google said as searcher intent changes so does its query interpretation. A survey showed that most SEOs experienced unexpected ranking changes and most of that was due to a ranking drop. Many SEOs this week have noticed Search Console reporting the crawled, not indexed error but the pages are indeed indexed. Google said URL case sensitivity matters but maybe more so for robots.txt directives. Bing has this weird red dot in the search bar near the shopping tab. Google My Business now can show a label for Latino owned businesses. Google i testing seller ratings product star review box in the snippets. Google Ads launched new budget reports that visually show you more budgeting features. Google Ads is updating its sexually explicit content policy to be part of the more serious egregious policy. Google Ads is moving away from the last click attribution model to the data driven attribution model for conversion actions. And Google celebrated its 23rd birthday this past week. 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:

This weekend we had yet another Google search ranking algorithm update that went unconfirmed. Google Search Console had some major bugs and stability issues but it all caught up now. Google said do not remove old news articles from your site for SEO reasons. Google spoke more about the importance of author bylines for EAT reasons. Google has a new automobile specs view for car searches that upset the car retail industry but Google said it licenses that data. Google said self referential canonicals can help clean up small SEO mistakes. Google said it isn’t too bad to have dynamically updated related links. Google Ads updated its matching types keyword preferability and is now using BERT for ads as well. Google Ads launched new advertiser pages for transparency purposes. Google Ads had an outage this week that caused a lot of billing confusion. Microsoft Advertising has dozens of new attributes for marketing with a purpose. Firefox is testing Bing as the default search engine on its browser. SMX will stay virtual through 2022. 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:

Last weekend we saw a long and large Google search ranking update lasting for about four days, it went unconfirmed of course. Google may be making improvements to the titles it chooses in the search results. Google said smart internal linking can help your site earn trust. Google said site quality is not only about the pages missing from the Google index. Google said it does not differentiate between category, filter, tags or other search pages. Google said some lead ben forms can be considered ads. Google said the new content visibility CSS element does not impact rankings. Google said changing your WordPress theme can impact rankings. Google said making accessibility changes isn’t going to go against Google’s webmaster guidelines. Google said the mobile intrusive interstitial penalty doesn’t impact your indexing. Google is now going to enforce unique product identifiers for free Google Merchant Center listings. Google seems to have dropped the website button link in the hotel search listings. Google is testing a much larger block design for Sitelinks. Bing has this new toggle feature to flip between a compact view and full view in search. 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:

This past Saturday, September 4th, there may have been another Google search ranking update. Microsoft Bing launched the content submission API out of beta. Google may automatically remove recipe rich results for listicles and category pages. Google Ads search term report gained more queries but some will be going away in the name of privacy. Google sent an email to Google News publishers by removing the AMP requirements. Google said website quality simply can’t be fixed by just making a few technical changes. Google said don’t put too much content on your category pages. Google said don’t forget to make sure you have dedicated pages for seasonal sales events. Google said image uniqueness is not the same as high quality images. Microsoft said 20% of Bing’s search results offer direct answers. Microsoft launched its own version of Google Discover, they call it Microsoft Start. Microsoft Advertising launched its own optimization score and then a few features like disclaimers on ads, video ads and more. 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:

This week, I posted the monthly Google webmaster report - catch up there on search topics you may have missed. Google may have done a search ranking algorithm update on September 1st. Google did say the page experience update is done rolling out, for the most part. The title changes in Google continue, I discussed an idea on how to control titles, that the title change does not impact rankings, that you should not simply replace your HTML titles with Google’s titles and some data from third parties on this title change. Google Ads is dropping expanded text ads for responsive search ads in June 2022. Google Ads quality score it not changing with that RSA change but you should focus on ad strength metrics, Google says. The missing Google Search Console data is lost forever for August 23rd and 24th. Google added shipping and return annotations to Google Shopping and Google Search. Google says try to limit on rich result markup per page, there is no defined order. Google has internal tools to check site quality. John Mueller said he often uses Bing to debug issues with Google. Chrome beta can display your competitors site above yours, when a customer is on your site. Google is testing expandable search snippet carousels. And a survey shows that most SEOs do not use Bing Webmaster Tools. 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:

Google, two weeks longer than expected, has finally finished rolling out the link spam update. Google confirmed it made changes to the titles it generates in search, it said it no longer uses the query when generating the title. Google has heard about some of the issues and may come up with a Search Console tool to help control titles. There are some complaints, you can submit those complaints to Google if you want. Just one point, the title does not use the query but the snippet’s description can and does. Google Search Console’s performance report had a big data bug on August 23rd and 24th - I am not sure if the data will be back filled. Google said if you remove your AMP pages, you generally should not see a ranking decline. Google made over 4,500 changes to search in 2020, it was a busy year. SEOs mostly use the canonical tag to deal with duplicate content issues. Most SEOs said COVID did not change how they do SEO. Google Ads redesigned the campaign set up screen, which threw some advertisers for a loop. Google Shopping had a bug that lead ti huge impression drops. Google Keyword Planner tool stopped working for a day or so. Google Ads added more custom columns and has a new conversion value rules for smart bidding. Google Merchant Center and Manufacturer Center can now be automatically in sync. Google AdSense added new auto-optimize features. Google Local pack tests no call to action buttons for some queries. Google Posts say they can appear on third-party sites now. 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:

This week, we had not just one, but two different unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm updates - one on Saturday and one on Wednesday. Google said the link spam update that was suppose to be done rolling out about two weeks ago, is still rolling out. Google made a change to the title link it shows for snippets, it now pulls more from headers. There was a bug with images not being displayed in top stories this week for a while. Google told us what we can do to make sure we are on the right track to a core update recovery. Danny Sullivan from Google confirmed again that personalization in search is extremely light and a rare ranking signal. Search Console has a new filter in the performance report for cross language results. Google replaced the feedback link with a report link for the knowledge panels. Google is looking to make knowledge panel edits better. Google opened the indexing bug report tool to more signed in users. Google is looking for bad Googlebot behavior. Google said it does retry old redirects for years. Google Ads has a new label that said “paid for by” for political ads. Google local labels some reviews as from the web and independent sites. A pol shows that most SEO projects do not lead to successful outcomes for clients. 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:

This past weekend we had yet another unconfirmed update around August 6th. Google may be having an indexing bug for the past month or so where pages are dropping in and out of the index. Google may investigate cases where big brand publishers are ranking too highly for keywords when their content is really not all that great for those phrases. Google now added the ability to specify the author details in article structured data, but will it help your site and articles rank better? Google said each core update that is released can be unique and unique impact the rankings at Google. Google said it is still working on migrating sites to mobile-first indexing. Google shared insights into the data in the Search Console insights reports. Google Search Console does not filter out all bot traffic. Google structured data testing tool is now a landing page to the other tools. Google is testing affordable picks in the mobile search results. Google is now enforcing some business listings to have physical addresses. Google Local pack can now show “updated today” for inventory. Google asks if you want more custom metrics in Google Ads. Google Ads Editor 1.7 is now out and supports hotel ads, extension forms and much more. Google AdSense launched a new ad format named full-screen inline ads. Google updated its podcasting requirements to include more details on the show level in your RSS feed. 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:

I start off this week with the big Google webmaster report for August, it is a good one. Google has decided not to use safe browsing as a ranking signal in the Google page experience update. Google is now saying that the page experience update is not just a tie breaker ranking factor. Google said core updates can impact local and image search, which is a bit of a turn from what Google said before. Microsoft Bing announced its latest AI, MEB, Make Every feature Binary that improves search relevancy. Google has officially removed the generic rich results type from the performance reports. Google added math solver structured data guidelines. Google said you may see a benefit in search when someone steals your images. Google said queries helps it determine what to showing the knowledge panel. SEOs are super split on using nofollow, sponsored or follow links. Google said if you have downtime, the pages should come back into search faster than they dropped out. Google Ads for a period of time showed the search term data it removed last September. Microsoft Advertising launchd target impression share bidding, Integral Ad Science (IAS) protection, new automated extensions, labels for account organization and changes to unified accounts. Google is testing a new discussions carousel in the search results. Bing is testing a new lets chat search feature. Bing has a “did you mean” box in search. Google Analytics is trying to bring us Discover data and News Showcase data but ran into a snag. 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:

I am sorry for the random static issues, I kept touching the wireless mic by accident. On Monday, Google pushed out a new algorithm update the company called the link spam update. Before that, we saw some movement and ranking changes over the weekend but then it remained quiet, even after the link spam update until Thursday where we saw more fluctuations. Just one clarification, there seems to be a lot of people who think yo need to switch your nofollowed links to rel sponsored, you do not need to do that. Gary Illyes from Google explained how Google ranks features or vertical search results within the main search results, it was interesting to hear. Google clarified that when it comes to FAQ schema, it is okay to be in expandable areas of the page. Google also changed its fact check guidelines saying only one ClaimReview per page now. Google said if pages disappear from the search results and using the submit URL feature brings it back in, then that pages is at the edge of the quality threshold. Google said localized versions of your site generally get their own signals. Google said the page experience update likely replaced the old speed signals Google uses for rankings. Google is testing indenting search results from the same domain. Bing tests an image button to load images from a search results. Google local listings can show service areas for that business. Google hotel listings added sustainability and eco certification attributes. Apple Places relaunched from Apple Maps Connect. Google Ads is removing the old target CPA and target ROAS bid strategies. Google Ads added new surcharges for some international taxes and fees. Google published the new privacy sandbox timeline. Google and Microsoft both released earnings this week and they were big. Again, we lost another member of our industry at an age way too young, Erik Stafford passed away. 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.

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