Daily Search Forum Recap: January 31, 2024

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

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Google Ad Revenue Up 11% & Bing Ads Revenue Up 8%

Both Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising revenue were up this past quarter, year over year. Google ad revenue was up 11% and Microsoft Advertising revenue was up 8%. The previous earnings, Google ad revenue was up 9.5% and Microsoft ad revenue was up 10%.

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Google May Consolidate Ranking Signals To Canonical Partner URL Even If It's Not The Source

Lily Ray asked Google's John Mueller what does Google do with all the ranking signals from the content syndication partners when Google Search decides which URL should be the canonical. It seems Google will consolidate most, if not all, of those signals to the Google-selected canonical in this case.

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New Google Ads Bulk Actions Solutions Option

Google seems to be testing a new option under the Google Ads "bulk actions" named "solutions." Solutions gives you account summaries, ad performance and account anomaly detection options.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 30, 2024

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

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The New Google Hotel Results In EU With Digital Markets Act

Google has been launching changes to its search results in the European regions to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). We've seen tests of how this will change the search results for some time now but here is a step by step walk through of how the hotel search results changed in the EU.

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Bing Testing Microsoft Ads On Left Side Panel

Bing seems to be testing displaying ads on the left side bar of the Bing Search results. Previously, Bing had organic free listing details on that left side bar but now it seems they are testing showing Microsoft Advertising search ads on that panel.

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Google Ads Tests New Card Shaded Format

Google Ads may be testing a new ad format that look more like those perspectives, where the ads are in these tall boxes or cards and those cards are on shaded backgrounds. Have you seen these before?

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 29, 2024

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

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Report: Custom Google Business Profile Services Impact Rankings Too

A new report says that custom Google Business Profile services also impact rankings, maybe to a lesser degree than normal services. This report was from the folks at Sterling Sky who shared some limited data on the topic.

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Google Ads Reports Moving To New Location

Google seems to be testing moving the reports around in the Google Ads advertiser console. There is a bit of a debate amongst advertisers if this is a good change or not.

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Microsoft Copilot App Gains Support For Copilot Pro

A couple of weeks ago, Microsoft introduced Copilot Pro, the paid premium version of Copilot, formerly known as Bing Chat. And on Friday, Microsoft finally added support for Copilot Pro to the iOS app (with Android coming really soon).

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Google Puts "Add Note" In URL Bar & SGE While Browsing

Google has added the "add note" search labs notes feature to the URL bar and in SGE while browsing. This makes it way more visible to add a note to a document than before, by placing the add note button directly on the web page you are reading, and not just in the search result snippets.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 26, 2024

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web. Google is cutting their SEO starter guide in half...

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Google: HTML Structure Doesn't Matter Much For Ranking

Gary Illyes from Google said that the HTML structure for your web pages does not matter much for rankings. He said this on the latest Search Off The Record podcast, saying, "I know that some people like to think that HTML structure matters all so much for rankings, but in fact, it doesn't matter that much."

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Bing Home Page Swapping Out Bing Logo With Copilot Logo

Just like Microsoft has been testing swapping out the Bing Chat link with the Copilot link within the Bing Search results pages, now Microsoft is testing swapping out the Bing logo with a Copilot logo. This is all for the rebranding of Bing Chat to Copilot, which started two months ago.

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Huge Increase In Google Business Profiles Driving Directions

Earlier this week, we reported that Google said we should expect a decline in the number of driving directions reported in the Google Business Profiles performance reporting tool. Well, the opposite happened. Everyone is seeing a significant increase in the number of driving directions reported in that Google tool.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 25, 2024

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

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Google Search Drops Cache Link From Search Results (How To See The Cache)

After a couple of months of testing, it seems Google has now removed the cache link from the search results page. I no longer see a link to the Google cache within search result snippets but that doesn't mean you cannot access to cache, you can.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 24, 2024

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

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Google Business Profiles Performance Driving Directions Report To Show Less Data

Google has posted a notice within the Google Business Profiles performance report that it will stop sharing as much data under the driving directions report. Google said, "Starting in January 2024, you might see fewer direction requests."

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Google Search Snippet "Chat With A Live Agent"

Google is testing a "Chat with a live agent" button in the search result snippets. We have seen Google place the "Chat with a live agent" button in the local pack and local panels before but I don't believe we have seen it in a search result snippet.

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Bing Tests Bubble Style Search Bar Menu & Bullets For Sitelinks

Microsoft is testing two new changes to the Bing Search interface. One is a bubble style for the search bar menu and the other is using bullets for the sitelinks in the search result snippets.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 23, 2024

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

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Google Product Search Results With "Viewed" Label

Google is showing a "viewed" label on product results that you recently viewed or visited within the Google Search results. Google has also launched the "you visit often" label a month or so ago, so it is not surprising to see something similar on product listings.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 22, 2024

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web. Google's search ranking volatility was pretty calm this weekend, which is unusual...

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Google News Filter By Publisher Option

Google News now lets you filter news by publisher for a specific news search query. I think it works the same way as a site command, which Google News has supported for at least 17 years now, but now there is a button that shows some relevant publishers for the topic.

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Google Showing New Phone Number Buttons For Some Search Results

For years now, Google has shown phone numbers on some search result snippets when Google thinks you want to call that store. We have screen captures of this from 2016 and 2014. But now Google is testing a new button that is more button-like.

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Another Relatively Calm Weekend For Google Search Ranking Volatility

We have had intense Google search ranking volatility over the past few weeks over the weekends. That weekend trend kind of stopped when we had a mid-week Google update around January 9th/10th. And for the past couple of weekends, including this one, the volatility with the Google search results has been relatively calm.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 19, 2024

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

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Google News With Paid Real Estate Listings

I spotted a complaint where Google was showing a paid real estate listing in the Google News portal, not just the Google News search results. The issue was that the site that published the listing seems to have published it as a news article and the Google News filters didn't filter it out, as it probably should.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 18, 2024

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

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Google Search To Show More Third-Party Comparison Websites In Europe

Google announced it will be making changes to its search results to comply with the new regulation called the Digital Markets Act (DMA). This will result in some Google vertical search units being removed and third-party comparison site units being added to the search results.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 17, 2024

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

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Google Hotels View Market Comparison Pricing Feature

Google Business Profiles has a feature named view market comparison. Here Google is showing you how your hotel is priced against the competition in the area. It has a price comparison of your hotel rates and other properties.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 12, 2024

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web. Google Assistant dropped 17 features...

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Google Updates Structured Data Examples To Use Hashtags For @id References

Google has updated its structured data documentation to now use hashtags for @id references. If you don't use hashtags, it is fine, but Google said it is "schema best practice to use hashtags as resolvable in-page node identifiers in RDF."

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What's Google Ads Sensitive Event Policy

Google has posted a clarification of what it calls its sensitive event policy under the Inappropriate content policy within Google Ads. This applies to Google Ads, Google Merchant Center, Google AdSense, Admob and more.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 11, 2024

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

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Google Search Refine This Search Overlay Filter Now Live

Google seems to have rolled out the refine this search filter button that overlays a number of search filters. This seems to be the mobile version of what we saw on desktop and honestly may have been out for some time but I never covered what it looked like (or maybe I did and I am getting old).

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 10, 2024

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

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Google Sitemaps Ping Endpoints Officially No Longer Work

Google has officially deprecated the Sitemaps ping endpoints. Now, when you try to access it, Google responds, "Sitemaps ping is deprecated," with a link to the post about it going away.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 9, 2024

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

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Google Search Bug Returns Products For Zip Code Searches

If you search Google for some zip codes, Google may return some products from its shopping graph. One example, spotted by Adam Di Frisco, is to search for [orange county zip code] and you get that zip code listing but it also shows product thumbnails that you can click on to by that product.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 8, 2024

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

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Google Says Search Result Snippets Generated Primarily From Page Content

Google has made a number of updates to its how-to control your snippets in search results to clarify that the snippets are primarily generated using the page content. Google removed the section about rich results and structured data on that page.

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Google: We Don't Use Google Analytics Data For Ranking Even When In Search Console

Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, said that Google Search does not use Google Analytics data for ranking purposes, even when that GA data is connected to Google Search Console.

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Google Search FAQ Rich Results Drop Out Again

It looks like Google has stopped showing FAQ-rich results again. Yes, again. Google told us that FAQ-rich results in the Google search results will be shown for only authoritative sites. Then, around September 13th, they dropped out of the search results only to return again around two months later. Guess what, they are now gone again.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 5, 2024

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

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YouTube's Significant Drop In Google News Visibility

It seems that YouTube is not showing up in Google News as often as it use to. Will Flannigan, the SEO Editor at the Wall Street Journal posted a chart from The Trisolute News Dashboard showing the drop in visibility experienced by YouTube in Google News.

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Google Search Site Specific Product Categories

Google Search can show a browse by category for a specific site when you search for that brand. For example, when you search for [eBay], Google may show you some of the categories the sites has that you can shop for. I am not sure if this is new, but I've never seen this before.

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Copilot App To Get Plugin Support

As you know, Microsoft released the Copilot App for iOS and Android but it does not support plugins like the Bing App. But don't worry, Copilot will soon support plugins.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 4, 2024

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

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Google Search Testing Blue Colored Header Again

Google seems to be once again testing a blue-colored header on its mobile search results page again. We saw a blue header a year ago in January 2022. We saw a green subheader in 2020 and then, shortly after, multicolored variations.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 3, 2024

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

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Google Search "Get Style Recommendations" Swipe Left Or Right

Google added this "get style recommendations" feature to the search results months back but did you know you can swipe left and right on those style recommendations while on mobile search? Then after several swipes left and right, Google will give you a carousel of product results it thinks you may like.

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Google Groups To Fix Spam Issues By Removing Usenet Groups

Remember when we reported that Google Groups seems to have seen a visibility boost in Google Search, which resulted in a lot of spammy and sometimes dangerous information showing up in Google's search results. Bleeping Computer now reports that Google is ending support for Usenet groups on Google Groups to fight spam.

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Google Search Launches Graphical Weather Design On Mobile

After a few years of testing, it seems Google has launched the new more graphical and animated weather results in the mobile search results. Google now shows an animated graphic behind the weather details when you search for weather reports in Google Search on mobile.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 2, 2024

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

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Chat In Bing & Copilot Apps Are The Same

Last week, Microsoft quietly released the Copilot App for Android and iOS. Don't tell anyone but the Bing App and Copilot App use the same chat feature, the only difference is the Copilot App takes you directly to the chat interface and bypasses search.

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Search Engine Roundtable Version 5: Redesign & Platform

Today we have released version 5 of the Search Engine Roundtable. We have redesigned the site from the ground up while also revamping many of the site's backend and technical features. The site is now over 20 years old and the design was just over 13 years old - it was time for a redo.

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Google's John Mueller Providing SEO Support On New Years

John Mueller, Senior Search Analyst, and Search Relations team lead at Google, was again out there on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, providing SEO support for site owners, creators, publishers, SEOs, and others. He has done this on Christmas every year and also New Years every year.

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