Google Knowledge Panels Gain Payment Options

Google is now showing payment options on some retailer's knowledge panels. This comes after Google started asking for the payment options a business accepts in Google Merchant Center, although, it might be unrelated (we don't know).

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Google Ads Tests Search Ads Without Ad Descriptions

Google Ads seems to be testing showing search ads in the Google Search results without ad copy, without the ad description text you added to your ads. I guess Google wants to see what type of impact this has on ad performance.

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Bing Search Tests How To Pick Section

Microsoft is testing a new section in Bing Search titled "How to pick." It helps you figure out what product you should pick, by breaking down the options and configurations.

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Google Ads For Performance Max Brand Control Adds Shopping Ads Override

Google Ads added a new brand control override for Performance Max campaigns that lets you override the exclusion for Shopping Ads. The check box is under the brand exclusions section and reads, "Allow Shopping ads on searches that mention excluded brands."

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Google Kwanzaa Decorations Are Live For 2024

And now we have the Kwanzaa decorations live in the Google Search results. Just search for [Kwanzaa] to see them. Google also went live with the Christmas decorations today and the Hanukkah decorations last week.

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Google Christmas Decorations Are Live For 2024

Christmas is around the corner and Google finally posted its Christmas decorations in Google Search today. We already have the Hanukkah decorations live and now we have the Christmas decorations - we are now waiting on the Kwzanzaa decorations.

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Bing Search Studies Of Carousel

Microsoft has this "studies of" carousel in the Bing Search results. It can help you find content that helps you prepare for a specialized exam or course, of sorts.

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Google Says It Makes No Sense To Block Disclaimer and Privacy Policy Pages

Google's John Mueller said, "It makes no sense to block" privacy, disclaimers, or other legal types of pages from your site. He added on Reddit, "They don't cause a 'duplicate content issue'."

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Google Merchant Center Now Lets You Select Your Payment Methods

Google Merchant Center now lets merchants specify which payment methods and options they offer customers. Google would normally handle this in an automated way but now Google is letting you override those payment options, in case Google is getting it wrong.

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Google Ads Tests Double Serving Ads From Same Advertiser On Same Page

Google has confirmed it is testing allowing showing the same ad, from the same advertiser, on the same search results page. Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison said, "We're conducting a small experiment testing different ad configurations" in regards to this test being spotted.

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Google: Disavowing Toxic Links Is A Billable Waste Of Time

Google's John Mueller reiterated in a big way that SEOs and site owners should not spend time disavowing "toxic" links. He said it is a "billable waste of time" to disavow toxic links, as provided in some of these SEO toolsets.

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New Google Merchant Center Promotion For First Order Discount

Google Merchant Center added a new field in the "Promotion conditions" section for "first order" discount. This seems to be for shopping ads set up in Merchant Center.

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OpenAI Opens ChatGPT Search To All Logged In Users

When OpenAI launched ChatGPT Search several weeks ago, it was just available to paid users. Now, anyone who logs into ChatGPT should have access to the Search the Web button on ChatGPT.com.

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Google Search Tests New Favicon Design With Backgrounds

Google is testing yet another design for favicons in the search result snippets. This one has these backgrounds, grayish backgrounds added behind the favicons in the search results.

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Google Search Research More Articles Section

Google is testing a "Research more" section in its search results that shows articles on the topic you queried. This looks like the list articles section we covered in October, but renamed to research more...

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Google Business Profile Emails Asking To Add Social Profiles

Google is sending out emails asking business owners to add their social profiles to their Google Business Profiles. The email says, "Link your social profiles so customers can see your posts from Instagram, X, Facebook, and more when they search for your business."

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Google Search Tests Attach File To Ask About A File

Google Search is testing adding a paper clip icon to the search bar, next to the voice search icon, next to the lens icon and the search button. This seems to also you to search a file you upload and says, "ask anything about a file."

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Google December 2024 Core Update Landed & It's Big

As you know, the December 2024 core update was announced on December 12, 2024 at around 10:46 am ET and Google said it would take about two weeks to complete. Well, this update seemed to have touched down, landed, over this weekend. There is a lot of volatility reported in the Google search results and with that, a lot of chatter within the SEO community.

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Google Hanukkah Decorations Are Live For 2024

Hanukkah (aka Chanukah) starts pretty late this year, compared to other years. The holiday starts Wednesday, December 25th. And Google has already added its Hanukkah decorations for his year, while Christmas starts the day before and Kwanzaa the day after - but both Christmas and Kwanzaa decorations are not live on Google yet.

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Google: Campaign-Level Negative Keywords For Performance Max In Beta

Ginny Marvin, Google's Ads Liaison, confirmed that campaign-level negative keywords are now in beta for Performance Max campaigns in Google Ads. She added that this will expand in 2025 to more accounts.

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Google Completes DMA Hotel Tests In Search

Several weeks ago, Google announced it would test changes to the search results for hotels in order to see how the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in Europe would impact hotels. Well, that test is wrapped and the results were not good for hotels, says Google.

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Google Tests Sitelinks With Arrow Down To Show More

We've seen our share of Sitelinks tests in Google Search. Including a number of variations around expandable sitelinks. But here is a version where you can click an arrow down to expand and show more sitelinks.

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Google Business Profiles Adds More Hours Categories

Google now supports even more categories for more types of hours for your business listing. Google added a number of new hour types for religious institutions and restaurants.

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Google Tests New Search Tools Design

Google Search is testing a new design and user interface for the search tools menu. Instead of it showing below the search bar, it now shows right under the tools button, with a new interface.

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Google Search Having Indexing Issues Again

Google Search is once again having indexing issues where new content is not showing in the index for all sites. Google wrote this is about a "delayed indexing in Google Search" that is "affecting a small number of sites."

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Google Showing Fewer AI Overviews In Search?

Google may have dialed back how often they show AI Overviews in Google Search, especially in some verticals like health and finance (YMYL). Ziptie, a toolset that tracks Google AI Overviews, shows that overall, Google is showing 4 percentage points fewer AI Overviews today than it did a week ago.

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Google Search Difference Between Clustering & Canonicalization

Google's John Mueller explained the difference between clustering and canonicalization within Google Search. He said, "Clustering is basically taking the pages that we think are the same. And then canonicalization is, from those pages, which one is the best one."

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Google Shopping Card Replaced Popular Stores With Where To Buy

As Google continues to test its shopping / e-commerce card format, Google is now testing replacing the "popular stores" section with a "Where to buy" section. I mean, it seems super similar to the other format, but who knows...

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Google Shopping Results Tests View All Buttons

Google is testing "view all" buttons in the Google Search results, maybe shopping oriented results, next to search result listings that lead to shopping category landing pages. The view all button is at the right side of the snippet, and when clicked, takes you to the category landing page on the e-commerce site.

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Google Search Console Refreshes Email Templates

Google announced that it has modernized and refreshed the emails that are sent out from Google Search Console. Google wrote, "Starting today your Search Console emails are looking more modern and refreshed."

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Bing See Results Only From...

Bing Search can now place a button under a search result snippet that triggers a site command to restrict the search results to only show results from that domain. The button reads, "See results only from [domain]."

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Google Web Rendering Service Cache Lasts For Up To 30 Days

We knew Google's web rendering service (WRS) does its own thing with caching but now a new post from Gary Illyes and Martin Splitt of Google said the "WRS caches everything for up to 30 days." This is done to help "preserve the site's crawl budget for other crawl tasks," Google wrote.

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Google Search Events Interactive Steps

Google has a newish way to search for events in specific regions. If you do a search for events in a region, like Las Vegas, Google will then try to get you to narrow down that search by asking you what type of event, and then it will keep going to drill you down even deeper.

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New Google Ads Customer Match For Google Analytics Audiences

Google Analytics now supports Customer Match from Google Ads. Audiences exported to Google Ads will now also include your first-party consented, hashed customer data, and your tag-based user identifiers, Carly Boddy from Google wrote on Bluesky.

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Google Gemini Testing New & Improved Link Sources

Google's Gemini is testing a new format for showing sources and links, a format that gives publishers and content sources more visibility in its AI answer engine. Google Gemini's AI search results may soon show sources much more clearly, wrote Android Police.

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Google Business Profile Food Orders Performance Metrics Gone

In April 2022, Google Business Profiles added performance metrics for direction requests, website clicks, bookings, products and food orders. Well, it seems like food orders are no longer being tracked by Google Business Profiles.

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Google Ads More Sponsored Results Button In Search

Google is testing displaying a button in Google Search to load more ads. The button reads, "More sponsored results" and when clicked, it can load more ads, if Google has more to serve.

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Thanksgiving & Google November 2024 Core Update

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States, so I was planning on not posting anything - since most of you just want to enjoy your time with your family. But I felt I needed to (1) showcase the Thanksgiving Doodle that (2) resembles the volatility of the Google Search results with the Google November 2024 core update still not being complete before Thanksgiving and likely Black Friday.

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Google Search Testing Gold Phone Call Buttons

Google is testing swapping out the blue buttons within the local pack with gold buttons. In this example, the blue call phone icon is now in a gold color, on dark mode.

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Google Rolls Out Search Console Recommendations

In August, Google introduced Google Search Console recommendations but it slowly rolled it out to more and more users over time. Now, Google has fully rolled it out and if Google has Search Console recommendations for your sites, then Google will show it on the home page of the dashboard.

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Google Confirms Latency Issues With Google Ads Interface

Google has confirmed there are latency and slowness issues with the Google Ads console. The issues started a couple of hours ago and are continuing throughout now.

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Google Ads Recommends You Spend More Because You Spend Under Common Budget

Google is always looking for ways to get their advertisers to spend more. Well, now a new notice to increase your budget says that other advertisers in your region are spending more, so you should too.

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Google's People Also Search In Images

I don't think this is super new but did you know Google Search can show people also searching images, not just people also ask, not just people also search. And when you click on the "people also searching images" option, it takes you to the image tab in Google Search.

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Google Search Tests Arrow Buttons By Title Links & Sitelinks

Google is testing arrow buttons icons at the end of the title link in the search result snippets. Google is also testing them in Sitelinks. I guess<<� this is a way to communicate to searchers that you can click on the search result to go to the web page...

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Google Search Tests Product Carousel Snippet

Similar to the Amazon-style Google product search result carousel snippet, we are seeing other variations of it. This shows products from the retailer; within the search result snippet, you can swipe through it as a carousel.

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Page Annotation In Google iOS App Browser

Google launched a new feature in the Google App for iOS named Page Annotation. When you are browsing a web page in the Google App native browser, Google can "extract interesting entities from the webpage and highlight them in line." When you click on them, Google takes you to more search results.

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DOJ: Force Google To Sell Chrome, Restrict Android & Ban Default Deals

The Department of Justice has asked the judge in the Google monopoly ruling case to force Google to sell Chrome, restrict Android from serving Google Search, and ban its default search deals with Apple and others devices. Of course, Google says this is "widely overboard proposal goes miles beyond the Court's decision."

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Google Sitelinks With Icons & Labels

Google Search is testing showing icons and labels in the sitelinks within the search results snippets. I am seeing icons for a phone, price tag, fork/knife, map pin and information icons.

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Bing Search Tests Circle Shaped Favicons In Search Results

Almost a year ago, we reported how Bing Search went from circle favicons in the search results to square favicons in the search results. Now, we are seeing Bing testing going back to the circle formatted favicons.

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Google Lens Updated For In-Store Shopping

Google announced new shopping features through Google Lens to help with in-store shopping and local shopping. Google said, "Google Lens can quickly show you product insights tailored to the store you're in. Just snap a photo to find product information, similar products in-stock, whether a store's price is competitive and shopper reviews."

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Google Makes It Clear It Has Both Site Wide & Page Level Ranking Signals

Google has updated its guide to Google Search ranking systems to mention at the top of the page that it uses both page-level and site-wide signals for search rankings. There was a debate on this after the Google creator summit about Google possibly saying they only have page level signals, so this may clear things up a bit.

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ChatGPT's Search Marketing Share vs Google

Is OpenAI, its ChatGPT service, taking market share from Google? Well, maybe. Rand Fishkin of Sparktoro posted his assumptions based on a mix of data from SimilarWeb and Datos that says ChatGPT's current market share is 4.33% - that is from October 2024 data.

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Bing Video Search Tests Categorizing Videos

Microsoft is testing categorizing the videos within its Bing video search results. Bing's video search interface can show at the top a featured video for the query, then trending videos related to the query, then short videos, then a related category of videos, followed by the normal video thumbnails.

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Google Tests Removing EU-Based News Publishers From Search

Google has begun testing removing EU-based news publishers in Google News, Google Search, and Google Discover for 1% of users in Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain (not France). Google is doing this to provide data on the impact this will make for these publishers if this would be rolled out to 100% of users.

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Google Ads In Store & Online Tab & Near You Sponsored Ads

Google Ads has this newish "in store" and "online" tab sponsored ads interface for its search ads, where you can tab between nearby stores and online stores that have what you are searching for. Plus a newish list view of "near you" stores that have the products you want.

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YouTube Often Within Google Discover Feed & AI Overviews

There are new reports that Google is showing more and more YouTube videos in Google Discover. There is also a new study that says YouTube is the most cited source in Google's AI Overviews. Is Google promoting its own video site way too often?

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Google People Also Ask Dropping More Results Button?

Google may be testing removing the "more results" button from the people also ask results within Google Search. In some searches, on some browsers, I see the "more results" button after expanding a people also ask result, but in others, I do not see the "more results" button.

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Ads In Google AI Overview In The Wild

Google has been telling us for many months that they will be rolling out ads for AI Overviews. Last month, Google said they will soon show in the US mobile search results - well, I think we've seen one of our first examples of it this weekend.

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Google Analytics May Be Missing Data From November 13th

Google Analytics may not have fully brought in your analytics data for Wednesday, November 13th, within the GA4 interface. Over the past few days, I've seen complaints from site owners and marketers about GA4 missing data from that day.

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Google November 2024 Core Update Heats Up This Weekend

The Google November 2024 core update started rolling out Monday, November 11, at 3:30 pm ET and we saw some movement begin around Wednesday/Thursday but it was not that widespread. Now, over the weekend, this core update seems to be casting a wider net.

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Google Chrome To Spotlight Merchant Center Promotions

Google sent emails to some Google Merchant Center advertisers and free users about a new feature in Chrome where the Google web browser will showcase your promotions directly in the browser. It will pop up promotion codes during the holiday shopping season.

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Google Search AI Sales Assistant

Google seems to be testing a new AI chat feature for e-commerce searches and retailers that is titled "Get help from Google's sales assistant." This will launch an AI chat feature that gives you AI-based product results based on your chat session.

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Bing Autosuggest Adds Rich Cards, Images & More Search Features

Bing Search has updated its autosuggest (auto complete) search bar to include rich entity cards and popular follow-on searches directly in the suggestion pane. Jordi Ribas, the Head of Search at Microsoft said on X, "The large images with additional context help users easily jump to their intended topic with less typing."

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Google Search Tests Expandable Articles, Videos & Popular Products

Google is testing more of those expandable sections in the mobile search results. We have seen them for ads/sponsored listings and other topics but now also for short videos, articles and popular products that say "in-demand favorites" but I assume they are showing for way more than just these categories.

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Google Customer Match Policy Warning: Don't Harm Users Or Else...

This week, Google sent an email to some Google Ads advertisers warning that they may lose access to use Customer Match with their ads cause harm to users or create a poor user experience. Google said they are updating their customer match policy effective January 13, 2025, to enforce this.

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Google Merchant Center Adds Sale Events Promotion Type

Google has added a new promotion type to Google Merchant Center named "Sale events." Sale events are a type data that you can submit on Google and are shown on non-product-centric surfaces. This seems to be available in the US for free Merchant Center listings right now.

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New Google Travel Ads Feed Format May Be Rolling Out

A couple of weeks ago, Google announced the new features for travel search ads through integration with travel feeds. These may now be out in the wild, as we are seeing pricing and other rich markup showing up for hotel ads in Google Search.

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Google Search Current Sales Expandable Section

Google Search has been rolling out this new expandable section in the search results titled "current sales." I guess Google is able to figure out what is a sale and what is not, maybe from structured data or Merchant Center and then have a section in the search results for that...

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Google Shopping Ads With Both Seller & Product Ratings

Google is showing both seller ratings and product ratings on a single Google Shopping Ad unit. It is a bit weird to see both ratings, and it can potentially be confusing to see different ratings for the same retailer but one is for the rating of the specific product and one is for the rating of the company selling that product, i.e the seller.

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Google Ads Tests Subheadline Links Under Search Ad Title Links

Google is testing placing a second link directly under the main ad headline link, some call the title link, that pull from your Google Ads assets or extensions. It is unusual to see these links right next to each other, sometimes you'd see them as sitelinks under the ad description but not directly under the main headline link.

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Google Ads Editor Version 2.8 Is Now Out

Google has released version 2.8 of the Google Ads Editor. This new update brings a number of new features including AI-generatged images, export to Google Sheets, brand guidelines, image cropping, strict age and gender targeting, a new help center and more.

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Google Tests Dropping Site Name & Favicon From Search Results

Google is testing removing the favicons and site name from the mobile search results. As you may remember, Google first launched these in the mobile search results back in October 2022 and yes, Google has had its trouble with these favicons and site names over the years.

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Google Map Finder Ads Sponsored Labels Not Always Showing

Google may be testing displaying sponsored labels in different positions within the local map finder view. Some of the ads have sponsored labels on the left side, where it lists the local listings. While others don't show the sponsored label until you hover over the listing.

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HARO / Connectively Platform Closing Down December 9

HARO, Help a Reporter Out, now known as the Connectively Platform is being discontinued, and shut down, on December 9th. For SEOs, it was a way to get attention and potentially links, from journalists and it is a topic we've covered in the past.

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Google Local Service Ads App To Stop Working In Two Months

Google will stop supporting the Google Local Service Ads app starting on January 6, 2024. An email sent to advertisers said, "On January 6, 2025, we will be turning down the Google Local Services Ads mobile app."

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Bing AI-Powered Buying Guide

Microsoft Bing has these AI-powered buying guide that can show up at the top right section for some e-commerce related queries. Microsoft spoke about these buying guides back in June 2023 but they now seem to be rolling out more widely.

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Google AI Overview Displayed Within People Also Ask

Google is testing showing AI Overviews and generative AI results directly in the people also ask section. People also ask generally are featured snippet powered but now Google is testing using AI Overviews instead of featured snippets.

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Google Ads Continues To Test Ads Mixed Within Organic Results - Dynamic Ad Placement

Google has mixed its search ads between and throughout the organic (free) search results starting sometime mid-last year. Google calls it dynamic ad placement, and it is an ongoing tests. In fact, Google had to change its definition of top ads to make way for this historically very unGoogle-like move.

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Google Shopping Ads With Bag Icon In Search

Google can show a bag icon on some of the sponsored search shopping ads. This can show next to the "Shop now" text, where you can either go to the retailers site to buy or click the bag icon to likely check out with Google (I am guessing).

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Google Testing Orange Links For Search Results

Google Search is testing orange links, instead of blue links, in dark mode. This is more like a muted orange color, but it seems orange nevertheless.

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Google AI Overviews Highlight Feature Expands AI Responses

Google is testing a new feature in the AI Overviews within Google Search. There is this "highlight" button that when you click on, it lets you highlight text in the AI Overview, which then in turn gives you more AI Answers.

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Google: Having Different Links On Mobile vs Desktop Pages Can Slow Crawl

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 (if you have different versions) on the page. If you do not do this, it can slow the crawling and discovery of your site, especially if it is a large site.

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Google Ads Adds Segmenting Option To PMax Asset Groups In Reports

Google Ads has added a new segment option to the reporting for Performance Max assets groups. Some advertisers are seeing the "segment" option within the PMax Asset Group Performance section of reporting.

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OpenAI Releases ChatGPT Search: Citations, Robots.txt Controls & More

After beta testing SearchGPT for a few months, OpenAI is now rolling out Search within ChatGPT for ChatGPT Plus and Team users, which will come to free users in the future. The first thing most of us will look at are the citations, links, will Search in ChatGPT drive searchers to our sites.

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Google AI Answers In Google Maps: Things To Do, Review Summaries & About This Place

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 where AI will give you answers.

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Google Tests Discover More Places & Explore Places Nearby

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 places nearby."

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Bing Tests New Local Knowledge Panel Design

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 photos and information, reviews from third party sites, a map, and other details.

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Google Menu Highlights Search Carousel

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 and showcases some of the items on that restaurant's menu.

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Microsoft Bing Advertising Revenue Up 18%

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 then, the last time it was up over 19% in a quarter before last quarter was 10 quarterly earning reports ago, in Q3 2022.

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Google Tests Scrollable Search Ads Categories

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 find any coverage of this new look, so I am covering it now.

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Google Tests New Local Places & Compare Sites Interface

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 regions but now some are seeing this in the US with this new user interface.

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Google Ads Raise Your Budgets Recommendation Gains Information

Google has updated the "Raise your budgets" recommendation within the Google Ads recommendations with more details and tips. I mean, no one wants to raise their budget unless they can make more money, so having more details on why you should raise your budget is useful.

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Google Search Snippet With Mentioned Products Carousel

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 for Reddit results, in the Discussions and forums section in Google Search.

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Google Business Profiles: Answer Questions About Your Inventory

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 in-store?"

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Google Search Console Performance Report Showing Almost No Data Today

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 something is stuck with Search Console right now.

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Google Search Ranking Volatility Again On October 26th & 27th & 23rd & 24th

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 hours, starting on October 26th and 27th. I mean, this is a lot of the same as my previous Google Search ranking algorithm update coverage.

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Google: AI Is Not Going Away, So Don't Be Left Behind

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) he isn't a fan of all the hype around AI, because it is making many feel insecure about their future.

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Google Other People Search Box

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 between this box and the other variations outside of the title.

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Fun: SEO The Board Game

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 a strategic game for 2 to 4 players where you play an SEO expert, purchase and optimize websites, build your digital empire, and compete for the title of top SEO kingpin.

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Programming Note: Offline For Simchat Torah On Thursday & Friday

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 24th and October 25th...

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Google: It's Tempting To Optimize For Tool Metrics; There's No SEO Shortcuts

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 and optimizing for those metrics won't directly lead to Google search ranking or SEO gains.

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Google Merchant Center Audience Insights Beta

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.

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Google Search People's Insights For Unprofessional Medical Advice

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 the same time, they can also provide help for people going through a rough time, to hear from others going through it.

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Expandable Google Knowledge Panels On Desktop Search

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 needs to have a down arrow to show more that expands on desktop to show more.

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Bing Search Adding Al-Enhanced Summary

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 multiple online sources. Find the source links used for this summary under "Based on sources."

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Google Generative AI Snippets Throughout Search Results

Google has been doing a lot with generative AI and I know some of you have seen featured snippets, some knowledge panels, local listings and other forms of generative AI in the search results. Here is an example of Google Search placing generative AI snippets and cards within the middle of the search results, in the featured snippets things to know like results.

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Google Tests People Also Ask More Results Centered Button

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 text link that says "more results" but here Google a query and a search icon enclosed in a button.

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Google Tests New Image Pack Design In Search

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 be query dependent but it seems newish to me.

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Google Search Translate Feature Can Show Images

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 the word baby into Spanish or French, Google will show baby photos but if you want to translate it into Hebrew or some other languages, it won't.

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Google Local Pack Map Tests Open In Maps Button

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 query.

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Semrush Acquired Search Engine Land, SMX & Third Door Media (Industry Reaction)

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 know, Semrush went public in March 2021 and has grown its business over the past 16 years to over 1,000 people and hundreds of millions of dollars.

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Google Tests Snippet Product Carousels For Amazon

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 sure.

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Programming Note: Offline For Sukkot On Thursday & Friday

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 and October 18th.

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Google Business Profiles Removes Health Insurance Accepted

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 insurance you accept before coming, Google would show that, but it seems Google is now removing that option.

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Google Tests Shaded Featured Snippet Background

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 also with product results. Now Google is testing it for featured snippets.

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Google Search Tests Angled & Off-Centered Design Elements

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 seems like an interesting test that should never see the day of light.

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Google Search Tests Top Links Title For Sitelinks?

Google is testing showing the term "top links" or "top links from..." in its search results snippets, that seem to give a title to the sitelinks shown under search result snippets. This is shown both on organic free search results and the search ads, Google Ads, in Google Search.

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Microsoft Unshipped 27 Bing Features

Did you know that Bing removed dozens of features? 27 Bing featured were "unshipped" according to the new CEO of Bing, Mustafa Suleyman, said on X. He wrote, "Simplicity is one of the core principles I am focused on. I am so proud that the Bing team has unshipped 27 features. Being brave enough to undo complexity is important."

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Google Adds Edit & Delete Button Links To Your Reviews

Google has added an edit and delete button link next to the reviews you added to a Google Business Profile listing. This gives the reviewer a quicker method to modify or remove the review they left for a business.

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9,000 Google Ads Campaigns Created Every Second???

Thomas Eccel posted a guess, trying to figure out how many Google Ads campaigns are created in a timeframe. He said if the ad campaigns are issued in sequential order, based on his calculations, 9,000 ad campaigns are created on Google Ads every second.

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Google Tests Quick View Button For Recipes That Keep You On Google

Google is testing placing a "quick view" button overlayed on the images on recipes within Google Search. The crazy part is that clicking on "Quick view" keeps you on Google while giving you a snapshot of the content from the publisher, without sending that traffic to the publisher.

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Google Search Tests Verified Labels For Product Results

Back in August we reported that Google was testing showing verified badges, verification labels, in the organic search results. Well, now Google is testing the verified label on the detailed product results overlay, on retailer listings.

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Google Store Ratings Now Available In India, Australia, Canada & UK

Google is rolling out the Store ratings feature beyond US Search. It is rolling out to searchers in Australia, Canada, India and the United Kingdom. Although, we've seen examples of Google showing them in Australia and other countries over the years, I guess as a test.

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Google Search Tests Most Mentioned Places Carousel

Google is testing a new local search carousel named "Most Mentioned Places." It seems to bring up local retail stores that have the product you are searching for. It shows local Google Business Profile listings, with the photo, and review summaries.

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Google Ads Improved Console Sidebar Navigation

Google has made a small but useful change to the Google Ads sidebar navigation. It made the background white on sub-navigational elements, which helps differentiate between main menu options and sub-menu options.

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Google Merchant Center Adds Video Generation & Amazon MCF Integration

Google announced two new features for Google Merchant Center (1) Video generation in Product Studio and (2) Amazon MCF integration with Merchant Center.

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Google Shopping "Researched with AI - Experimental" Answer

Google Shopping is testing a new AI Overview answer titled "Researched with AI - Experimental." This seems to pull together reviews for specific products based on Google Gemini AI.

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Google Merchant Listings Adds Certification Markup Support

Google now supports Certification markup support for merchant listings in the product structured data documentation. Google wrote, "starting in April 2025, we're replacing the EnergyConsumptionDetails type with the more robust Certification type, as the new type supports more countries and a broader scope of certifications."

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Google Search Product Detail Grid With Nearby Label

Earlier we reported Google was testing "most popular" and "best price" labels in the product detail grid within Google Search. Now, Google is also testing a "nearby" label in that same product grid detail view.

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Google Drops Support For Noarchive Meta Tag Directive

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 to keep a cache copy of your page. Since Google doesn't have a cache anymore, there is no need for Google to support this directive.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: October 4, 2024

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

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Google Tests Local Services Ads Without Attorney Photos

Google is reportedly testing showing Local Service Ads (LSAs) without a photo of an attorney or attornies. Instead, Google can show a photo from its business profile or law firm and not of its attornies.

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Google Search From The Web Carousel Cards

Google is testing another variation of "from the web" sections in its search results. This one is more for local queries, where Google shows a carousel of cards snippets titled "From the web." They can come up for [near me] types of queries but I am not able to replicate this.

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Google Tests Videos In Knowledge Panel Image Carousels

Google seems to be testing showing videos, videos from YouTube, in the image carousels within the knowledge panels. Generally, Google will only show images in this carousel but now Google is showing playable videos from YouTube.

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Happy 14th Birthday BingBot

Fabrice Canel from Microsoft posted on X this week that BingBot turned 14 years old. Yea, 14 years of crawling the web. Fabrice wrote, "Happy 14th Birthday, BingBot! You've been crawling ð·ï' the web and bringing us the best search results for over a decade. Next year promises even more innovation and excellence! Time to graduate and maximize crawl efficiency."

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Programming Note: Rosh Hashanah 5785 - Happy & Healthy Jewish New Year

This is a programming note that Thursday and Wednesday are Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and I will be offline the next two days. I will be offline on Thursday and Wednesday, October 3rd and October 4th...

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Bing Testing Replacing Ad Label With Sponsored Label

Microsoft seems to be testing replacing the hard to see ad label with a longer sponsored label in the Bing Search results. So instead of it saying "ad" next to the search ads, it is testing showing "sponsored" text next to the search ads.

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Sticky Google Search Console Performance Report Filters

Google has updated its performance reports in Google Search Console to have the filters you set, stick. Meaning, the next time you go back to the report, it should be where you left it, with all the filters you set. You can of course reset the filters and start from scratch with the click of a button that reads, "reset filters."

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Google Again On When To Use Noindex Or Canonical (Or Both)

Google's John Mueller was asked about if it is still okay to use noindex and canonicals at the same time and when to use one or the other. This is a topic we covered several times here over the years but I spotted a new Reddit thread with John's comments on it, so I figured I'd resurrect this topic.

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Google: Don't Use Generic Server / CMS Holding Pages For New Sites

John Mueller, a Google Search Advocate, said on Reddit, that he does not recommend you use generic server or CMS holding pages for new sites. Instead, either "keep DNS disabled or put up a custom holding page."

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Google Ads Outage This Morning Being Restored

Google Ads had an outage that started at around 3am ET on Tuesday October 1st. The issue is now mostly resolved, but many advertisers were unable to access their Google Ads accounts and campaigns for a few hours this morning.

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Google Search Console Recommendations Not Fully Rolled Out

About 8 weeks ago, Google announced Google Search Console Recommendations and rolled it out to a limited number of properties within the platform. Google said the roll out will be slow and yea, it is slow. Daniel Waisberg from Google confirmed on Friday that it is not fully rolled out yet.

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Google Local Panel Adds "About This Place" Section

Google is testing adding a new section named "About this place" to the local panel in the Google Business Profile listings within Google Search and Google Maps. This section shows you text and image reviews of this place in a stacked card format.

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Bing Short Videos Now With Details

Microsoft is testing adding more details to the short video carousel it shows in Bing Search. Now it is showing video length, descriptions, a swipe to see more and other changes.

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Spike In Removed Google Reviews On September 17th

Google seemed to have removed/deleted a ton of reviews from Google Business Profiles within Google Maps and Local search last week, around September 17th. This came a day or so before Google updated its Google Business Profiles review restrictions policy.

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Google Search Content Suggestions In Specific Languages Toggle

Google has this setting some searchers can manage that lets them turn on or off seeing content in a language that is popular in their region. The searcher can either leave the content language suggestion on or turn it off.

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Google Recently Viewed Movies Activity Card

Google now can show movies you recently viewed as an "activity card." I am not sure if this is based on a movie you actually went to see in the theatres, watched online or just based on you clicking on movie listings within Google Search.

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Google Search: States In The News

Google Search has this newish news or top stories carousel format that Google titled "States in the news." It shows you news or top stories from news publishers related to the query by U.S. state.

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Google Search Backstory Top Stories Section

Google Search has this news or top stories section titled "Backstory." It comes up from political queries, maybe other news queries.

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Google Maps Fake Review Notice On Business Profile

Google now places a notice or warning on some Google Business Profile listings within Google Maps when it thinks some of the reviews may be fake or fraudulent. We covered this notice when Google updated its reviews restrictions documentation but I wanted to highlight the notice more.

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Google Search Product Detail Grid With Most Popular & Best Price Labels

Google is now testing adding labels to the product detail side panel when you click on a product in the Google Search popular products grid. The labels spotted include a "most popular" and "best price" label in a blue background.

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Google Search Tests For You Label

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 and just using different names or maybe they are different.

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Google Search Tests Preferred Source Label?

Google may be testing a new search label named "preferred source" on the search results snippets. This is shown on organic search results, not search ads, and honestly, this seems off to me but I am not sure.

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Google Product Experts Program Not Going Away

There was some speculation that Google may fold the Google Product Experts program but that is not true. John Mueller from Google responded to those concerns on Mastodon and said, "I don't see the product expert program going away anytime soon."

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Google Cache Is Fully Dead

Google has now totally disabled the Google Cache from completely working. Earlier this year, Google removed the cache link from the search result snippets. Then a couple of weeks ago, added links to the Wayback Machine. Now, the direct link to see the Google Cache has been fully disabled.

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Google Describes Importance Of Page Image Is Embedded On For SEO

Google's John Mueller responded to questions around image SEO, specifically explaining that while the image itself and the alt text is useful, so is the page that image is embedded on. This is all useful for Google to know the relevance of an image based on a specific query.

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New Bing Places Support Contact Form

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 can be reached over here.

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Bing Searches You Might Like Box

Microsoft is testing new sections in the Bing Search results named searches you might like. This can show up as a box with search refinements between a set of search results or as trending searches on the right hand side of the search results.

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Study: 96% Of Google AI Overviews Links Go To Informational Intent Pages

Did you know that 96% of the links Google displays and shows in the AI Overviews link to content that has informational intent? A new study from seoClarity says this is the case, after analyzing over 1 million keywords in its data set.

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Google Ads Gains Negative Keywords, Insights, Reporting To PMax & Much More

Google Ads announced a number of new features and updates to the ad platform this morning at DMEXCO in Europe. These include negative keywords coming to Performance Max campaigns, new insights and reporting, expanding AI features and much more.

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Google Tests Expanded & More Discussions and Forums Results

If you didn't have enough Reddit and forum results in your Google Search results page, well, now Google is testing showing even more in the Discussions and Forums box. Generally, Google shows a short snippet of maybe three results, now Google is letting you expand them to see even more.

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Google Updates Google Crawlers & Fetchers Docs With Affects & Snippets

Google has completely reorganized its crawlers and user-triggered fetchers documentation. It used to be all on one page and now it is in several pages. Most of the changes were just moving content around but Google did add sections for what product each crawler affects, and added a robots.txt snippet for each crawler to demonstrate how to use the user agent tokens.

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Google Reviews Restrictions For Business Profile Policy Violations

Google has posted a new document about the way Google may apply restrictions to your Google Business Profiles over review or other policy violations. In the document, Google wrote that it takes "take fake and/or incentivized reviews and ratings on businesses very seriously."

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Google Asks On Social If You Will Use Gemini AI For SEO

In one of the more disassociated social posts Google has made in a while, Google's Small Business account posted a poll asking if you will use Gemini, Google's AI models, to help with your SEO, to help boost your search rankings.

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Google Search Tests Recent Posts Carousel

Google Search is testing a new recent posts carousel in the desktop and mobile search results. This carousel can show YouTube videos, TikTok videos, Reddit or other "hidden gems" of sorts.

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Google Search App Stopped Working Last Night

The Google Search App stopped working last night for a few hours. Google was quick to fix it in the middle of the night but by then, hundreds, if not, thousands of complaints flooded the support forums and social media.

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Google Tests AI Overview With Small "More" Link

Google is testing removing the large "show more" button and replacing it with a small "more" link at the bottom of the AI Overview snippet. Also, the AI Overview header and Gemini logo at the top left is being removed, or at least being tested being removed.

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Complaints On Google Ads Search Partners Network Fraud

I am seeing a spike in complaints from the PPC community around there being an increase in fraudulent traffic from the Google Ads Search Partner network. Many have seen an unusual spike in fraud from that network in the past week, say some advertisers.

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Google Testing For Reference Search Box

Google is testing a new search box named "for reference" which is placed under a set of search results and contains more news articles related to the query. This seems similar to some other features Google has tested over the years.

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Google Tests Search Result Snippets Without Breadcrumbs

Google is testing showing search results snippets without the breadcrumbs in the URL section of the snippet. Google has tested removing URLs and breadcrumbs completely before, but now Google is testing removing just the breadcrumb and leaving the URL.

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Google: Get Definitions & Translations As You Search

Google is now notifying some searchers of a translation feature within the search results. It says, "Get definitions and translations as you search. Select words to get definitions & translations without leaving the page."

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Google Replaced Cache Link With Internet Archive's Wayback Machine

After Google has angered tons of SEOs and searchers over removing the cache link from the search result snippets, Google decided several months later to add links to Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. This will give you snapshots in time of what that webpage looked like, but it is not powered by Google.

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Google Emails Advertisers On Local Services Ads Verification Requirements

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 their advertising accounts.

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Bing Local Pack Tests Review Source Icons Instead Of Review Stars

Microsoft is testing adding the source of the reviews in the Bing Search local pack, instead of showing review stars. So if the Bing Search local pack is showing reviews from Yelp, it would show the Yelp logo, and if it is showing them from Facebook, it would show the Facebook logo.

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Google Expands AdSense Auto Ads To French, Spanish, and Japanese

Google is expanding AdSense's Auto ads to support French, Spanish, and Japanese languages. Previously, Auto ads were worked for English and German languages only.

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Google Search Supports Ineligible Regions Property For Videos

Google Search now supports specifying where (which regions) a video is not allowed to be viewed in its video structured data and video SEO documentation. A new ineligibleRegion property was added to the Google video structured data documentation.

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Google Maps Showing Business Photos On Review Sentiments

Google is now showing business submitted photos from Google Business Profiles in the Google Local and Maps review sentiments section. So above the reviews, Google may show photos submitted by the business, related to those reviews.

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Google Business Profile Appointment Link Broken Notifications

Google is emailing some businesses when it detects that their Google Business Profile appointment link is not working. Google's email says, "Fix your business Google link."

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Bing May Use ProductGroup Markup In The Future

Microsoft Bing may use ProductGroup markup in the future for its "captions" in the Bing Search results. Fabrice Canel from Microsoft said while they do not support it yet, "it's on our radar" and "the team is closely monitoring its adoption."

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Bing Treats 308 Redirects Same As 301 Redirects

Fabrice Canel from Microsoft said that Bing Search treats 308 redirects the same as they treat 301 redirects. This is the same as what Google said back in 2021, although Google has been a bit wishy-washy on redirects over the years.

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Bing Product Search Results With See Details Button

Bing is testing a big blue "see details" button for some of the product listings in its search results. Normally when you hover your mouse cursor over the products, they expand a little but now they are also showing a blue button to "see details."

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Google Ads Audience Insights Missing For Some

There is another Google Ads bug, this time with the Audience insights going missing for some advertisers. Ginny Marvin, Google's Ads Liaison, said on X, "Audience Insights is not being removed" but rather there is a bug.

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Google Shopping & Merchant Center Interview With Irina Tuduce

Google published an internal interview on its Search Off the Record podcast with John Mueller and Lizzi Sassman (who you know) and Irina Tuduce from the Google Shopping team. Irina Tuduce has been with Google for 18 or so years and she provided a super technical overview of Google Shopping and Merchant Center.

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Google Ads To Opt Out New Accounts From Serving Ads On Parked Domains

Google Ads sent out a notice that it is changing its Content Suitability policy for Parked Domains in Google. Google will opt out new accounts from serving ads on parked domains starting next month, October 2024.

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Google Ads Requiring Gambling Advertisers With Games Certification To Recertify

Google Ads said that by November 2024, advertisers with the gambling and games certification must recertify or stop relying on the certification to advertise products in scope of the Gambling and games policy.

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Google Docs: Do Not Specify A Fragment URL As Canonical

Google has updated its search developer canonical documentation to specify that you should not set specify a fragment URL as canonical. Google added that bullet point to the best practices section of the document.

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Google Business Profiles Drops Q&A Feature In India (& Other Some Regions)

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 months ago, and the feature is still missing in that region.

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Google Image Search: From This Image

Google is testing a new feature, or search refinement, within the image search results that shows you "from this image." I suspect this shows you matches of other image search results, from the image you are currently looking at.

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YouTube SEO Questions Answered

A few months ago, we posted some answers about how YouTube ranking is affected by various variables and factors - YouTube SEO questions and answers, if you will. Well, the YouTube Liaison posted a number of short video answers around the YouTube algorithm and YouTube SEO over the past week that I wanted to share.

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Bing Knowledge Panel & Featured Answers Table Of Contents Animation

Microsoft recently added an animation or highlight effect on its featured answers or knowledge panels at the top of its Bing Search results. When you hover your mouse over the table of content on the left side, the section it corresponds to in the answer, will expand.

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Google Tests New Map Pin Shapes

Google is testing a new shape and maybe colors for the map pins they use in Google Search and Google Maps. The new shape is less of a pin/diamond shape and more of a circle shape.

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Google Tests New Shopping Search Design

Google is testing a new design for its mobile shopping search interface. The new design has a new Google logo, a gradient background theme, new headers, various sections and labels. It looks pretty cool but a bit less clean than the normal Google Search interface.

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Google Search You Visit Often Tests Accordion Design

Google is testing a new design and user experience for the "you visit often" labels. This time Google is giving you a way to see multiple sites you visit often in an accordion box user interface.

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Google Ads Change Bid Strategy Popup Dialog

Some advertisers see Google Ads show this request dialog popup asking them to change their bid strategies. This shows in the Google Ads advertiser console, which asks the advertiser to change their bid strategy from one option to another.

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Google Shopping Carousel More Like This Button

Google Search is showing the shopping results but now shows "more like this" buttons under the products it shows for some carousel groupings. When you click on that "more like this" button, Google will dynamically load more products like it beneath the product you clicked on.

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Tag Diagnostics & New Consent Management Setup In Google

Google announced what it is calling "strengthen your first-party data strategy with new tools." These new tools are Tag Diagnostics and a new consent management setup within Google Ads, Google Analytics, and Tag Manager.

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Yelp Sues Google Over Unfair Advantage In Local Search

Yelp has officially filed a lawsuit against Google for allegedly using its monopolistic powers to give Google an unfair advantage in local search and local search ads. "For years, Google has leveraged its monopoly in general search to pad its own bottom line at the expense of what's best for consumers, innovation, and fair competition," Yelp's General Counsel, Aaron Schur said.

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Google Ads Accidentally Releases Internal Tools

Tons of Google Ads advertisers are noticing a new button available in the Google Ads advertiser interface named "internal tools." There is a lock icon for the internal tools button and when you click on it, it has the headline "audience builder."

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Get Your Login Page As A Sitelink In Google Search Results

For many sites that have customer or client portals, including SaaS companies, the login page is the primary destination for a lot of searchers. It will help your customers bypass your homepage and go right to the login area. The question asked of Google is how do you ensure that login page shows up as a Sitelink in your Google Search results snippet.

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Google Now May Use Your OG Title For Title Links Search Snippets

Google has updated its title links search developer documentation to add that Google Search may use your og:title meta tag title for your title link in the Google Search results. The OG title is normally used by social sharing sites for the title of your posts, but Google may also use it for the title of your search result snippets in Google.

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Bing Images Search Refinement Cards

Microsoft now has these refinement cards or boxes directly in the Bing Image Search results interface. In these cards, Bing will show you a refinement option for your query with example photos you might find for that refined search query.

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Google Search Console Search Appearances Documentation Updated

Google has greatly expanded and clarified its documentation around how Search Appearances work within the Google Search Console reports. Google wrote on X, "We improved our documentation on Search Appearances supported in Search Console." Daniel Waisberg from Google said, "I've been asked about this 1000 times, hope you're all happy now."

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Google Analytics Missing Data From Yesterday/Data

There are a ton of complaints and a lot of concern around Google Analytics missing data in the normal overview report for yesterday and today. I see it also, I am seeing no data from this site and others in my GA4 reports for yesterday or today - although the real time reports work.

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New Report: Want Links In Google AI Overviews? Rank Well In Google Search.

Do you want to get links in the new Google AI Overviews that show up in Google Search? Well, a new report says all you need to do is rank well in Google Search organically and you are incredibly likely to have links in the AI Overviews.

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Google: Unanswered Comments Don't Hurt Your Google Search Rankings

Martin Splitt from Google said that having unanswered comments on your site or webpages does not negatively hurt your rankings in Google Search and is not a bad SEO thing. He said Google Search does not look to see of your comments get answered or do not get answered.

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Google Ads Bug Attributes Traffic To Legacy Smart Matching Type

Google has confirmed another bug with Google Ads where it accidentally attributed traffic to a match type that should not exist anymore - smart matching. Ginny Marvin, the Google Ad Liaison, confirmed the issue and said, "Advertisers will not be charged for these clicks, and we've reverted the change."

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Google Tests Verification Icons For Free Search Result Listings

After testing the blue verification icons and labels for ads in the Google Search results, now Google seems to be testing them on the free organic search results. Oh, and Google also tested them in gold, and Microsoft tested verification labels in organic free listings too.

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Google Discovered - Currently Not Indexed - Quality, Timing Or Server Speed

Google's Martin Splitt posted a video in his SEO Made Easy series on the topic of the Google Search Console "Discovered - Currently Not Indexed" page indexing report status note. In short, there are three primary reasons you'd see pages in this category, they are:

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Seems Like Google AI Overviews Are Impacted By Core Updates

Google core updates, such as the August 2024 core update, seem to directly impact if a site shows in the Google AI Overviews or not. Google did say quality is a benchmark for showing in the AI Overviews, plus we know featured snippets and many other search features are all impacted by Google core algorithmic updates.

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Google Your Related Searches Timeline On Sidebar

Google is testing a new search feature named "your related searches" that seems to be pinned to the sidebar of the Google Search results. It reminds me of the Chrome Journeys but this seems to be baked right into Google Search.

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New Google Maps Design Within Google Search Results

Google Search has a new design for the embedded map you see for both local pack maps and knowledge panel maps. The new map has a more subtle design, with blue roads, not yellow roads and other design differences.

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Google AI Overviews Also Gets Listen Button

Google has been placing listen buttons in the Google Search results in various locations, like knowledge panels and local packs. So it comes as no surprise to see them also in the AI Overviews.

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You May Also Need Google Search Refinements

Google Search is testing a new category of search refinements named "you may also need." These refinements show products that may be found in a specific e-commerce store.

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Google Tests Rounded Outlines Around Search Feature Snippets

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 if this is a variation of the snippet background highlights from the other day.

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Google Search Hidden Gems Refinement Box

Recently we saw a hidden gems stores section in the Google Search results, which seemed nothing like the hidden gems algorithm from last year. And now I am seeing another variation of that just named hidden gems, under a stores search refinement.

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Google Search Mentioned In Key Answers Box

Google Search has this new feature named "mentioned in key answers." This shows you which personalities, entities, within Google's knowledge graph, are mentioned in the search results in Google.

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Google's John Mueller Uploads Audio Robots.txt File

John Mueller from Google did it again with his site and this time uploaded an audio file, in wav format, for his robots.txt file. You can go to it and listen to him read out his robots.txt rules in his own voice. It is a valid robots.txt file but I suspect zero search engines can understand it.

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Google Highlighting Review Content In Search Result Snippets

Google is highlighting review content within its search results snippets for some queries that ask for reviews. At least, Google is testing this - since I cannot replicate it.

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Confirmed: Google Search Ranking Bug Impacting Large Number Of Results

This morning at 1:48 am ET, Google confirmed a Google Search ranking bug impacting a large number of the Google Search results. Google wrote, "There's an ongoing issue with ranking in Google Search that's affecting a large number of search results. We've identified the root cause and this issue is unrelated to the ongoing core update rollout."

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Google Tests AI Overviews In Incognito Mode (Not Signed In)

Google is testing showing AI Overviews for users not signed in to their Google account. Some users are seeing AI Overviews for searches when using Chrome in Incognito mode (i.e. private mode, not signed in).

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Google Confirms Tests Over 10 Shopping Ads In Mobile Search Interface

Google has confirmed it is testing more than 10 ads (some 18) in the Google Shopping ad box. Ginny Marvin, Google's Ads Liaison, said "This is a small experiment exploring different configurations for shopping ads to promote greater discovery."

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Google EMEA Product Experts Summit 2024 Recap

Summer's going by rather fast, but one event that's already come and gone has been this year's edition of Google's PE Summit for the EMEA region. It took place on June 20th and 21st in Zürich, Switzerland, and was hosted at Google's own offices as well as in a virtual format, similar to previous years.

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Google Search Console Only Shows 35% Of Your Data? It Depends, Says Google.

When Google announced the new Google Search Console recommendations, one of the examples of the recommendations was to bulk export your data because "Search Console only shows 35% of your performance data." Now, this is not new, we knew Google anonymized way too much of your data in Search Console, but now Google is showing how much in this example report.

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Apple Business Connect Adds Showcase Enhancements & Updates

Apple Business Connect has added a new feature named Showcase enhancements. A "Showcase" allows you to share up-to-date information with your customers, like seasonal items or promotions. Apple extended these showcases for longer periods and more characters.

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Google Connections For Knowledge Panels

Google can show the connections a person or entity have in its knowledge panel and break down those connections by category. In the example below, for Elon Musk, Google is showing the family connections, the work with connections and the people also search for connections.

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Google Won't Pause Keywords In Paused Campaigns Or Ad Groups

As a reminder, Google Ads has begun pausing low-activity keywords that were created over 13 months ago and have zero impressions over the past 13 months. But that does not mean Google will pause these if they are already part of paused campaigns or ad groups.

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Google Search To Get Better At URL Parameter Handling?

As part of the Search Off The Record podcast from Google on crawling, which we briefly covered on Friday, Gary Illyes from Google said he is investigating ways for Google to handle URL parameters better.

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Google Effingo - Insane Transfer Speeds Used By Google Search

Have you heard of Effingo by Google? Google actually spoke about it on their Google Cloud blog in May 2023. Now Gary Illyes from Google said it is used by Google Search and other areas of Google to do insanely fast data transfers across Google data centers.

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Google Search Listing srsltid URL Parameters From Merchant Center

Over the past couple of weeks, there has been an increase in complaints around Google Search listing URLs with the srsltid URL parameter tagged along to the URL, as the canonical URL in Google Search. In fact, Google matches on hundreds of thousands of these URLs now and does serve them in the search results under that parameter.

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Google Search Ranking Volatility August 9th and 10th (No HCU Progress)

Since Friday, August 9th, I have been seeing yet another intense spike in Google Search ranking volatility. This is based on the SEO chatter within the communities and of course, the third-party Google Search rank volatility trackers. And no, we still do not have a new core update officially released by Google but it is coming soon, weeks away...

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Bing Search Tests Opening Searches In New Window From Home & Pagination Bar

Microsoft is testing a weird change to the Bing Search results user experience. Bing is testing that when you do a search from the home page, that it opens the search results in a new window, instead of loading those results on the same tab you are on. Bing is also testing opening a new window for when you click to the next page of the search results.

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Google Search Snippets You May Like Label

Google is testing a new label for its search results snippets, this one is named "you may like." I am not sure how Google knows you may like this search result snippet, unless this is a variation of how Google names the "you visit often" label?

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Google Ads Million Dollar Credits Bug For Local Service Ads

Google notified some advertisers last night that they are expected to receive $16 million dollars and $6 million dollars in credits. I am sure others got similar astronomical credit notices. Don't retire anytime soon, it is a bug, and Google will fix the amount if they have not done so already.

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Google Ads Test: Call Extensions With Advertiser Name

Google is testing yet another call extension ad format, this one shows the advertiser's name below the clickable phone number. This gives a lot more visibility to the phone number and the CTA for the call extension.

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Google Ads Featured Options Search Interface

Google Ads may be testing a new search ad format named "featured options." This shows ad listings in this thing card layouts that should be related to events.

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Google Business Profiles Listings See Also Carousel Leading To Competitors

Google is testing the "see also" carousel on Google Business Profiles. This means, someone can be looking directly at your local listing on Google, maybe because they searched for your company name, and Google can be suggesting competitors right under your listing.

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Federal Judge Rules Google Is A Monopoly & Will Be Broken Up Or Face Serious Constraints

Judge Amit Mehta, a US federal judge ruled on Monday that Google is a monopoly. "Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly," Judge Mehta wrote in his 286-page filing (PDF).

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Google Local Knowledge Panel Interactive Card Interface

Google seems to have launched the interactive knowledge panel layout for local knowledge panels in Google Search. This design is from a couple of years ago but now seems to be rolling out for the local version of knowledge panels.

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Google To Allow Pubic Hair Grooming Ads In September 2024

Google will update its Google Ads policy on September 3, 2024, to allow public hair grooming services to be advertised on the Google Ads network, including Display, YouTube, and Search.

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Google Ads Reporting & Some Interfaces Are Down For Advertisers

Google Ads is currently having an outage for many of its reporting interfaces across Report Editor, Dashboards, and Saved Reports in the Google Ads web interface. Plus, The Products, Product Groups and Listing Groups pages are down across the web interface, API, and Google Ads Editor.

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Deep Dive On How Google Search Indexes JavaScript

The folks at Vercel and MERJ put together a super deep dive on how Google Search handles indexing JavaScript. They analyzed over 100,000 Googlebot fetches across various sites to test and validate Google's SEO capabilities. In short, Google Search handles JavaScript incredibly well, almost as well as normal web pages.

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Google Ads Launches New PMax Reporting Updates & AI Generation Tools

Google announced new Performance Max reporting updates and asset generation and image editing expansions. "We're adding asset-level conversion reporting to Performance Max, expanding asset generation to App and Display campaigns, improving image editing and much more," Google wrote.

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Google "Hidden Gem Stores" Search Feature

Google seems to be testing a new search feature named "Hidden gem stores." This shows you shopping and merchant listings from various stores and brands. This does not seem to be the Google hidden gems algorithm, but rather just a fancy title for a search feature box.

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Microsoft Bing Advertising Revenue Up 19% (Back To Growth?)

Microsoft reported its fourth quarter 2024 earnings and it showed that its search and advertising revenue was up 19%. The last time it was up over 19% in a quarter was 10 quarterly earning reports ago, in Q3 2022.

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New Google Ads Google Merchant Center Feed Integration In AI Image Editor

Google has a new Google Ads feature within Google Merchant Center feeds in AI image editor that enables you to import product images from your Merchant Center feeds into your Google Ads account. The images will then be stored and available for use in the Google Ads Asset Library. "You can leverage product images to generate new campaign images using AI-powered image editing in Google Ads," Google added.

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New Google Ads Format "For Your Consideration"

Google may be testing a new search ad format named "for your consideration." These ads, at least in the example below, show hotel websites that you can go to to find hotels in the area. This may work for other categories of queries, outside of hotels, but this is the example I see right now.

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Google May Replace X (Twitter) With Latest Posts From

Google Search may be replacing the heading for "X (Twitter)" posts with "Latest Posts from." This would be a step to removing more X branding from the Google Search results page.

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Google Search Console Performance Report Search Appearance Filter Bug (To Be Fixed)

Google Search Console has a bug with the Search Performance report, where if you want to filter by Search Appearance, it won't show you all the options. Google is aware of the bug and it should be fixed soon.

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Google Business Profiles New Generate Menu From Photo

Google Business Profiles has a new AI feature to let you upload a photo of your menu and Google will create your menu items for your restaurant based on that photo. This is a generative AI feature and is currently considered "experimental."

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Google Showing X Carousel Less Often For News Topics?

Google may be displaying the X (formerly Twitter) carousel in the search results less often for news related topics. A report from Newzdash shows the X carousel is showing up for about 12% of queries, when earlier this year it was showing for closer to 27% of queries in Google Search.

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SearchGPT - OpenAI's AI Search Tool

OpenAI has announced SearchGPT, its AI search tool that looks and feels a lot like ChatGPT but gives you more sources and answers through links. OpenAI wrote, "We're testing SearchGPT, a temporary prototype of new AI search features that give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources."

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Google's John Mueller: Don't Use LLMs For SEO Advice

Google's John Mueller said on LinkedIn he does not recommend you use LLMs (AI tools) for SEO advice. He wrote, "please don't use LLMs for SEO advice." "They learn from all the bad SEO information out there," he added.

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Google Search With Related Images Carousel Below Image Box

Google is testing showing a related images carousel right below an images box in the mobile search results. As you scroll through the search results, you are presented with an images box and if that is not enough for you, Google Search shows you a related images carousel right below that.

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Google Local Book Online CTA For Call Business

Google seems to be testing a new option for the Book Online call to action option that does not use an online booking service but rather lets you call the business directly. The button says "call business" and then will dial the business from your mobile phone.

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Apple Maps Web Version Launches Beta

Apple has launched a public beta version of Apple Maps on the web after launching the mobile app back almost 12 years ago on September 19, 2012. "Apple Maps on the web is available in public beta, allowing users around the world to access Maps directly from their browser," Apple wrote.

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Google Local Service Ads Shows Phone Number On Hover

Google Local Service Ads can now show the business's phone number in the ad unit when you hover over your mouse cursor over the ad. It will then dynamically expand the ad to show the advertiser's phone number.

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Google Outlines Videos In Search Results

Google seems to have changed how it shows large videos in the search results. I am now seeing them show these gray lines, outlining the video box, in the Google Search results.

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New Google Ads Sitelinks Interface

Google Ads has a new sitelinks interface, and functionality, for Performance Max campaigns. The new recommended sitelinks features are rolling out, plus there is a new numbered layout for the sitelinks.

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Google Ads Editor Version 2.7 Is Now Out

Google has released version 2.7 of the Google Ads Editor. This new update brings a number of new features and also deprecates a number of features. New features include AI-generated assets, account level content label exclusions, account-level negative keywords and more.

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Google Testing Save Button For AI Overviews

Google is testing the ability to save your AI Overviews to your Google Interests section. If you are opted-in to labs in Google, and you see AI Overviews, at the bottom of the AI Overview, you may see a new "Save" button.

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New Microsoft Advertising Brand Lists For Performance Max Campaigns

Microsoft Advertising is rolling out brand lists for Performance Max campaigns. "Brand lists allow greater control over brand image and ad visibility, including the brands you don't want your ads to be associated with," Microsoft wrote in its help documentation.

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Bing Tests Related Searches At Top - Below Search Bar

Bing is testing placing the related searches at the top of the search results page, directly under the search bar. The searches are exactly what you would see in the bottom but in a different format at the top.

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Google: ccTLDs & Language Do Help You Rank A Little Better In Local Country Region

Gary Illyes from Google said in the latest Google SEO office hours that using a ccTLD and the localized language on your page and website does help you rank a little better in the localized/regional version of Google. So if you want to rank better in Google in Korea, using a ccTLd such as .kr helps a little and using Korean text on your page helps even more.

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Google's On Knowing If Your SEO Team Is Doing Their Job

Google's John Mueller laid out a few ways to determine if your SEO team is doing the actual work they promised to deliver. While trusting your SEO team is important, John said you can also do the following to ensure the SEO team is doing their job.

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Google Merchant Center Next Gains Support For Supplemental Feeds

Google Merchant Center Next now finally supports supplemental feed/source support. Google promised us this would come early this year, but it didn't happen until early Q3 of 2024. That being said, feed rules still do not seem to be supported yet by Google Merchant Center Next and that was also promised by now.

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Google Local Panel: Search Products With Camera

Google is testing showing a button in some local panels, some Google Business Profiles, that reads "Search Products With Camera." This seems to be related to Google Lens and the new multisearch features.

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Google Merchant Center Next Coming To All Merchants

Google announced that Google Merchant Center Next, the updated version of Google Merchant Center it announced at Google Marketing Live in 2023, is now coming to all merchants this month. Google has already begun notifying merchants and advertisers of this via email and will continue to do so over the month.

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Google's Site Reputation Abuse Update Leads Gaming Affiliate To Reduce Financial Forecast

Catena Media, a publicly-traded online gambling information company, issued their Q2 earnings update a couple of weeks ago, saying they have reduced its revenues forecast due to the Google Site reputation abuse policy update.

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Google Ads Changed Broad Match To Intent Match In Japan

Google Ads has changed what they call broad match to intent match in Japan. So now it is called ã'¤ã³ãã³ãããã (Intent Match), it was called é¨åä'è' (Partial Match).

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Google Ads Query Refinements Under Ad Carousel

Google seems to be testing a query refinement ad option. Where Google is showing other search queries related to the ads it is showing under a sponsored ad carousel in the search results.

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Google May Allow Publishers To Exclude Content From Google Discover

Google may allow publishers to exclude some of their content from being displayed in Google Discover. Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, said he thinks that option would be useful and thus passed it on to the team to look into.

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Google Search Tests Back To AI Overview Button

Google Search is testing a way to jump back up to the AI Overview after you scroll past it. This button shows up after a searcher decides to scroll past the AI Overview and look at the normal search results. Google wants you to click the "Overview" button to go back to the AI Overview at the top, the one you decided to scroll past.

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Google Search Continues Tests Highlighted Snippets & Light Backgrounds

Google Search seems to be continuing to test highlighting words in blue in its search results snippets. Plus, Google is also testing showing light background color for some words in the search result snippets.

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Google: Removing Massive Disavow Lists Should Not Worry You

John Mueller from Google was asked if you should worry that massive link disavow lists can hurt you negatively and also if you remove the list that it might also hurt you. John said you should not be worried at all, when he was asked how worried should you be, he said "zero."

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Schema.org Redesign With Updated Validator

Schema.org has a new design, it seems like the design went live this week. The Schema.org validator also looks fresh and new. It is unclear if there were any other changes made, outside of the design update.

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Google Confirmed Ads Below Featured Snippet As Part Of Dynamic Ad Placement

It is not news that Google now mixes in ads within organic results, but I have to say it still feels super icky to me that Google does this. Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, confirmed that search ads can appear directly below organic featured snippets, as part of Google's "ongoing evolution of dynamic ad placement on search."

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Google Business Profiles Consumer Alerts Document

Google Business Profiles can include consumer alerts on them, which will notify those viewing your local listing on Google about a possible violation or suspension of spam. These alerts can show a banner, they can result in review posting restrictions and reviews being removed.

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Google Search Tests Thin Video Snippets

Google is testing a new video format for its search results in the mobile search results. This test shows thinner video search result snippets with smaller video thumbnails.

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Google: SEO Feedback On The Last Core Update Was Really Helpful

Google's John Mueller said in a video he posted yesterday that the feedback submitted and Google collected around the March 2024 core update has "been really helpful in evaluations and discussions." He added the Google teams have "been reviewing with the search quality and ranking teams."

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Google Expands Translated Search Results To More Languages

Google is now showing the translated search results feature in more languages, adding Arabic, Gujarati, Korean, Persian, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese to the list of of now 21 languages.

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Google Tests From Sources Across The Web Overlay

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 testing popping up an overlay that you can scroll through with more details.

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Bing Search Tests Labeling Images With Nutrition Details

Bing is testing adding nutritional details to images in its search results. It includes labeling food products with "high calcium," "lean protein," "anti-inflammatory," and other labels.

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Google Search Extracts Composite Images With Trained Algorithmic Media Types

Google Search now supports a new IPTC digital source type for images which seems to be about reading if an image was made in help with AI. Google added compositeWithTrainedAlgorithmicMedia to the IPTC photo metadata documentation this morning.

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Google Tests Country Label In Search Result Snippets

Google may be testing showing which country the site operates in with a country label attached to the search result snippet. In the example below, Google is showing a "South African" label with the country flag and the country written out at the top of the snippet next to the site name.

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Google Search Bug: Not Indexing or Serving New Content Again

Google Search is currently having yet another indexing bug, similar to what Google Search experienced just about two weeks ago on June 20th. Google is not indexing new content that was recently published in the past hour or so.

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Google: Ranking For Unrelated Keywords In Search? Make Your Titles & Content Clearer

Have you ever had a site that ranks for unrelated keywords, queries you do not want to rank for? John Mueller from Google said if you do, maybe you should make your title and content clearer if they are too amibiguious.

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July 4th Weekend Google Search Ranking Update & Volatility

Surprise, surprise, it was another weekend and we again see some more than usual ranking volatility from Google Search. Again, this reminds me of the weekend ranking bug Google had late last year into early this year. But who knows, maybe it is just a ranking system that shuffles things up for weekend searchers?

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Google: Request Indexing Does Not Change Canonicalization

Google's John Mueller said on that using the request indexing feature in Google Search Console's URL Inspection Tool does not change canonicalization. The question that was asked is if it can help speed up URL removal for a 301 redirected URL.

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Google: Using A CDN & Want One Robots.txt File, Redirect Yours To The CDN

Do you use a CDN for some or all of your website and you want to manage just one robots.txt file, instead of both the CDN's robots.txt file and your main site's robots.txt file? Gary Illyes from Google said that all you need to do is redirect your main robots.txt to the CDN and control it on the CDN.

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Google Updated Image SEO Best Practices For Embedded Images

Google has made a small update to its image SEO best practices documentation, specific to the "Use HTML image elements to embed images" section. The update seems relatively minor but the changes to the wording was done for a reason.

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Google Search Tests Long Search Bar Variations

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 and other variations.

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Google Search Console Performance Reports Catching Up But It's Not Done Yet

As you know, Google Search Console's performance reports were significantly delayed this week. But as of this morning, the reports are beginning to catch up. Google said last night it would take them "at least 2-3 days to fully catch up" and reprocess the data. So if you are seeing weird data, look away and come back on Monday.

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No - Reddit It Not Blocking Google Search

Today being July 4th, I normally would avoid writing stories here but there are a lot of rumors out there that Reddit is blocking Google Search from crawling and indexing its content. It is not true - Reddit is not blocking Google Search.

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Google Zero Click Study Now At 58.5% In 2024

Rand Fishkin has come out with his 2024 edition of the Google zero click study and it shows that in the US, zero clicks are now at 58.5%, which is down from 65% in 2021. The study says about 37% of Google searches lead to no action, 21.4% lead to another Google search and 41.5% lead to a click.

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Current Styles Google Search Carousel

Google Search has a new shopping-related carousel named "current styles." This shows up for some shopping-related queries, and if you search for a product, it might show you style variations that may be trending.

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Google Explains Why Search Console Reporting Delays Are Not In Search Status Dashboard

As of right now, Google Search Console is having a significant delay with its Performance reports and some are wondering why the status of the delay is not in the Google Search Status Dashboard like other search related issues.

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Google Ads New Brand Exclusion Won't Prevent Your Ads For Showing For Random Firms

The other day we reported about the new Google Ads brand controls. But as we gain more and more clarity, it seems it does not give advertisers all the controls they need.

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Microsoft Advertising Property Center & Lodging Campaigns Expands

Microsoft announced Property Center for Microsoft Advertising's lodging campaigns. This should make it easier for you to manage your Hotel Price Ads and Property Promotion Ads for your hotel or vacation rental property.

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Google Merchant Center Conversion Data Usage Changes

Google sent out notices via email to Google Merchant Center merchants about a change to how Google collects and uses conversion data that you share with Google. Google said it may use that data for new reporting and also for ways to improve Google Search experiences and services.

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Google Ads To Allow Fantasy Sports & Lottery Couriers Ads In Many States

Google has posted that it begin to accept and run ads for Daily Fantasy Sports and lottery couriers in many states within the United States. This change goes into affect on July 15, 2024 and advertisers must apply for certification.

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Google Search Console Working To Fix Search Performance Delays & Latency

Google has confirmed it is working to fix the delays and latency issues with the Google Search Console Performance reports. This happens to the performance reports and often other reports in Google Search Console every now and then and generally Google is able to get it to catch up over time.

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Google Explains Why Soft 404s Are Bad

Gary Illyes from Google explained two reasons why soft 404 errors are bad. Soft 404s are when a page returns a 200 status okay, but Google thinks that page should return a 404 page not found error. According to Gary, soft 404s are bad because they (1) limit crawl budget and (2) the pages won't likely show up in Google Search.

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Google Posts Reviews Troubleshooting & FAQs For Missing and Remove Reviews

A Google community manager, Alistair D., posted a Reviews troubleshooting and FAQs document in the Google Business Profiles forums. It goes through why reviews go missing, why reviews are removed and how to troubleshoot those issues with the Google Business Profiles tools.

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Google Search Tests Top Quality Store Badge Near Site Name

Google is testing placing the top quality store badge and icon next to the site name area in the Google mobile search results. This brings up that icon from the bottom portion of the snippet to the very top of the snippet.

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Prompt Injection Added To Bing Webmaster Guidelines

Bing added a new guideline to its Bing Webmaster Guidelines named Prompt Injection. A prompt injection is a type of cyberattack against large language models (LLMs). Hackers disguise malicious inputs as legitimate prompts, manipulating generative AI systems (GenAI) into leaking sensitive data, spreading misinformation, or worse, according to IBM.

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Google Search Ranking Volatility Over June 28th & 29th Weekend

On the heels of the completion of the June 2024 spam update this Thursday, June 27th, I am now seeing signs of an unconfirmed Google Search ranking algorithm update and volatility. It seems more heated than the week of this spam update rollout but less weak than you'd see with a Google core update.

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Google Product Studio Expands To More Counties, Adds File Uploads & New Themes

Google Product Studio, which is part of Google Merchant Center Next, now works in the UK, India, and Japan. Google also added file upload support to Product Studio and additional seasonal-themed templates.

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New Google Ads WordPress Conversion Google Tag Code

Google seems to be rolling out new WordPress specific conversion code for Google Ads. This seems like a Google Tag code with easier set up for WordPress sites.

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Google Chrome For Mobile Adds Local Chrome Actions, Search Shortcuts & Trends

Google has announced a number of new search-related features to its mobile version of the Chrome browser. These updates include new local Chrome Actions, new search shortcuts, trending in search suggestions and more.

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Google: Our Search Rankings Can Improve At Scale & System Level

Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, said it again, that "there's clearly more we should be doing" with ranking websites that deserve to rank better in Google Search. He clarified that this is not something Google does manually, on a per-site basis. Instead, Google does this at scale by updating its ranking systems and algorithms, he said.

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