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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Google Ads Tests tROAS Insight Box for PMAX & Standard Shopping

Google is testing a new ads insights box and report that shows target ROAS insights for Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaigns. The report shows if your actual ROAS is within the expected range. The Graph shows weekly ROAS averages, including projected conversions.

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Google News Sources & Google Publisher Center Bug Fixed

We knew Google would stop accepting publications into Google News Publisher Center, but Google also stopped showing news "sources" in Google News, stopped showing a follower count for those sources, and stopped providing access to Publisher Center features to news organizations. This bug was fixed by Google this morning.

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Google Credit Card Search Widget

Google Search now may show you a special search box for your searches related to finding a credit card. If you search for [credit cards], [best credit cards], [visa credit cards], and so on, you will get this new credit card Google Search widget.

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Google Mobile Search Tests More Sitelink Variations

Google is testing a number of sitelink variations within its mobile search results interface. They come in these variations: boxed in, pill-like shaped, some with arrows, some in black, and some in blue.

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Google Sitemaps Docs Updated: Lasmod Date Should Be Last Significant Update

Google has made a small note to the sitemap documentation to add that the lastmod date specified in the sitemap file "should reflect the date and time of the last significant update to the page." This change was made after I covered the topic of Google trusting or not trusting that lastmod field in your sitemap file.

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Google Automated Local Services Ads Lead Credits Coming

Google announced it is rolling out Automated Local Services Ads lead credits next month, which should "credit the same or more leads on average," than the old system. This will replace the manual lead credit methods, and use machine learning to process these credits going forward.

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Google Structured Data Carousel Guidance On How To Markup Multiple Items On Category Pages

Google has added a new bullet point in the structured data carousels (beta) help documentation around how to mark up categories with many items with that structured data. This is based on examples pages such as paginated content or infinite scroll.

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Google: When You Should Fix Pages 404 Status Codes

Google has always said that having pages that serve a 404 status code is normal; most sites have them, and when a page does not exist on your site, and someone tries to access it, a 404 is the proper response. But Gary Illyes from Google is now sharing some cases when you should fix pages returning a 404 status code.

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Local Service Ads Coming To Google Maps On iOS

Google is notifying some advertisers that use Google's Local Service Ads program that soon their ads will be shown on Google Maps. It will start with the iOS version of the Google Maps app and then expand to other platforms and surfaces from there.

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Google Search Bug: Not Indexing or Serving New Content?

Google Search may be having a new indexing or serving (or both) bug where it is now showing new content from sites that are creating new content. Sites like the Wall Street Journal, NY Times, CNN, Forbes, and others are showing very few new pages being indexed in the past hour by Google Search.

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Most Google People Also Ask Responses Are Wikipedia

Surprise, surpise... Wikipedia is the number one source of information that comes up when you click on the people also ask feature within the Google Search results. People also ask is just another variation of a form of featured snippets, so this probably makes sense.

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Google Map Pin Exploit Leads To Local Rankings Drop & Possible Suspension

A few months ago I posted about a possible bug with Google Maps where map pins were being moved around into one location. I later updated the post to suggest it was more of a spam or hack exploit. Yep, spammers are hijacking the location of businesses on Google Maps by moving their map pins, that results in local ranking declines and possible Google Business Profile suspensions.

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Google Search Tests Latest Deals With Deals In Past 24 Hours

Google is testing showing a "latest deals" section in the search results that says "Deals added in the past 24 hours." So Google Search is pulling in fresh new deals that it found within the last day or so for this new search feature.

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Google Search Tests Top-Quality Store and Shop Rating Labels Together

Google is testing placing both the "Top-quality store" and "shop rating" labels or badges on the same page of the search results, for the same search result snippets. Generally, Google Search would show one or the other and not both, but here Google is testing showing both of them.

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Google Local Panels Gains Menu Button

Google seems to be adding a "menu" button to the Google Business Profiles, the local panels, in the web search results. I think Google has tested this one and off over the years, but as Marcin Karwowski noted, it seems to be rolling out now to some businesses.

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New Google AdSense Privacy & Messaging For Users To Opt Out

Google has begun rolling out a new privacy and messaging feature for AdSense ads in some US states. This is to comply with California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, and Utah privacy laws. The feature allows the site to communicate to the user about opting out of the sale or sharing of their personal information.

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Google Search Tests Black Sitelinks

Google is testing another variation of its sitelinks design, this one uses black font colors for the sitelinks. Of course, Google generally uses blue for those links, because links are generally in blue underlined font.

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Google Maps Updates Fake Engagement Policy With More Detail

Google has updated its Google Maps contributor fake engagement policy to flesh out in more detail how the policy works. The new text is like 40% longer and seems to have received a nice refresh.

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Google Now Allow Some Opioid Painkillers Ads

Google Ads will update its Healthcare and medicines policy this month to allow advertisers to discuss opioid painkillers without promoting or selling them. The example given is that you can have ads to discuss public policy solutions for opioid painkiller abuse.

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Google Father's Day Weekend Search Ranking Volatility

Happy Father's Day - it looks like we are seeing some pretty significant ranking fluctuations and volatility within the Google Search results over the past day or so. Yep, yet another big Google weekend update of sorts - of course - not confirmed by Google.

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Google: Sometimes Search Experiments Conflict Causing Issues

In the last Search Off The Record podcast, Gary Illyes from the Google Search team said that sometimes issues can arise within the Google Search results due to two experiments that conflict with each other. He said at the 19:41 mark, "Very often there are experiments that need to be rolled back because two experiments might interact very badly with each other."

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I'm The Reason Googlers Don't Reply With Nuance

Did you know that SEO bloggers, like myself, are the reason you see fewer and less nuanced responses from Google Search reps? John Mueller from Google said so on Reddit, where he wrote, "Love the SEO news/bloggers, but it also means I can't reply to things with nuance publicly."

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Google Tests Larger Fonts For Main Snippet Title Link & Smaller Font For Sitelinks

Google is testing a larger font size for the main search result title link, followed by smaller fonts for that same snippet's sitelinks. This was spotted a few days ago by both Umair Khan on X and Lily Ray on X.

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Google: Disallow Crawling Of Action URLs (Buy Now, Sign Up, etc)

Google posted a public service announcement saying you should disallow Googlebot from crawling your action URLs. Gary Illyes from Google posted on LinkedIn, "You should really disallow crawling of your action URLs. Crawlers will not buy that organic non-GMO scented candle, nor do they care for a wishlist."

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Bing Tests Black Review Stars In Search Results

Microsoft is testing using black-colored review stars in its Bing Search results. This is instead of the yellow or orange review stars. I am not sure why they are testing it in black, but they are.

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Google Local Pack Photos With Labels

Google seems to be testing adding labels and descriptions on the photos within the local business profile listings. These are on both the carousel of images and on the detailed business profile page.

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Google Ads Adding New Optional Verification This Month

Google Ads announced it will add a new optional verification to verify the affiliation of the advertiser/individual with the organization they are verifying. This starts sometime this month, June 2024, but it is not clear to me what the new verification is exactly.

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Google Tests Shaded Site Name & Favicon For Search Results

Google is testing shading the background color in gray behind the favicon and site name and URL for the mobile search results. It brings a little bit more of a design flair to the ten blue links, don't you think?

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Google Home Activity Removed From Search

Google Search no longer shows "home activities" after launching the feature just under three years ago. Google has pulled down the home activities structured data from its search developer documents last night and wrote, "The home activity feature no longer appears in Google Search results."

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Programming Note: Offline For Shavuot On Wednesday & Thursday

This is a programming note that I will be completely offline for the holiday of Shavout/Shavous, from Tuesday night, June 11th, through late Thursday night, June 13th - I return Friday, June 14th...

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Google Search Console Performance Report Gains Merchant Listing Data For Image Tab

Google added deeper insights for those who use merchant listings to see how well their merchant listings are performing within the Google Image Search tab. A new search appearance filter works for the image filter in the performance report in Google Search Console.

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Google: We Either Trusts Or Doesn't Trust Your Sitemap's Lastmod Date

Now that Google is encouraging publishers to use proper lastmod dates in their sitemap files, what happens if your lastmod date is incorrect and shows the wrong date. Gary Illyes from Google said either Google trusts your lastmod date or doesn't, there is no in between.

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Google Tests Organized Search Results Page

Google seems to be testing categorizing or organizing the search results on the search results page. This is something Google announced it would do at Google I/O and also something Google has tested numerous times over the years.

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Apple Siri Getting Useful With Apple Intelligence & ChatGPT

Apple held its WWDC event yesterday and while I found Craig Federighi's helmet used for jumping out of the airplane in the Apple skydiving suit to be super entertaining, Apple ended with big news - a new Siri powered by Apple Intelligence (AI) and OpenAI's ChatGPT.

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Google On Fixing A Few Pages To Recover From Helpful Content Update 👎

John Mueller from Google responded to a question on Reddit about the likelihood of fixing just 10 pages out of 20,000 pages on a site, how that might help that site recover from the Helpful content update. The site owner said only 10 pages were hit by that September helpful content update, and asked if the 10 pages can hurt the other 20,000 pages on the site.

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Google Business Profiles Locksmiths Reinstatements Now Being Processed

Google paused Google Business Profiles restatements for the locksmith industry but has now resumed those requests and is working through the backlog now. Google paused them early last week and began processing them once again on Friday afternoon, June 7th.

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Google Tests Local Five Pack (Up From 3 Pack)

Google is once again testing showing five local results, a five-pack, instead of the typical 3 local results, a three-pack, in the search results local results section. Google tested this in 2021 and also had this for the SGE labs results and now it is being tested again.

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June 8th Weekend Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility

Hope you are all having a nice relaxing weekend because it seems like the Google Search rankings were super volatile again this past Saturday. I am seeing a spike in SEO chatter and the third-party Google tracking ranking tools are showing significant ranking fluctuations on June 8th.

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Google Ads Rolling Out New Ad Console Design Starting On August 30 (Goodbye Old Design)

In March 2023 Google began testing a new design for the Google Ads advertiser console. Google announced that it will start to roll out this new design to all advertisers starting on August 30, 2024 and will sunset the all design.

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Google Merchant Center Tests New Analytics

Google Merchant Center seems to be testing a whole slew of new analytics for the Merchant Center console. The data itself is not new but the UX is, and I am told the analytics is presented in a more user-friendly and easy-to-navigate manner.

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Microsoft Advertising To Import Google Ads Conversion Data Automatically

Microsoft sent emails to some Microsoft Advertising advertisers to let them know that if they have run an import from Google Ads to their Microsoft Advertising account, going forward, Microsoft will continue to automatically import your Google Ads conversion data to your Microsoft Advertising campaigns.

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Google Ads API Version 17 Now Available

Google Ads has released a major version release for the Google Ads API, version 17. Version 17 includes preparation for resource usage policy changes, page size changes, batch reporting changes, more PMax and match type reporting, plus much more.

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Microsoft Advertising To Move Smart Shopping Campaigns To Performance Max

Microsoft, in its monthly update, announced that it will be moving (or "upgrading" as they call it) smart shopping campaigns to Performance Max within the next couple of months. Microsoft said they sent out notices to advertisers via emails earlier.

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Google Fixed Issue With Site Names Not Appearing For Internal Pages

Google has fixed an issue with site names not appearing for some internal pages, this has been an issue since December 2023. I checked some examples, and they are indeed fixed - although Google said some fixes are still rolling out and those pages need to be reprocessed to be fixed.

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Google News "How These Stories Are Ranked" Header

Google News seems to be testing placing a header above news sources in the Google News follow interface, that says "how these stories are ranked." I personally cannot replicate it, but some are able to see it.

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Google Discussion Forum Structured Data Now Supports SocialMediaPosting Markup

Google has updated its discussion forum structured data help documentation to clarify that SocialMediaPosting markup is also supported. Google did say that SocialMediaPosting should be used for sites that are more of a "generic social media platform," versus a discussion forum.

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New Google Popular Products Search Refinements

Google seems to be adding a people also ask like search refinement/expander for the popular products on Google Search. Below the popular products section there is this section that shows other variations for your keywords.

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Google Business Profiles Tests Chat With SMS & WhatsApp

Just last week we reported that chat is going away from Google Business Profiles. Well, Google may be adding native SMS and WhatsApp messaging support for your Google Maps business listings.

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Google Fixed The Search Console Links Report

The Google Search Console link report now seems to be fixed. As we reported last week, we saw a decline in links being reported by the tool, followed by a huge decline a few days later. The tool now seems to be showing the previous link count before the tool had that bug.

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Google: We're Not Upset With Those Who Share Constructive Feedback Of Our Search Results

Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, said on X, "you or anyone who shares constructive feedback about our results should not feel like we'd be upset with them." He went on to explain that "complaints and feedback are opportunities."

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Google App To Rename Discover To Home & Browse?

Google seems to be testing renaming Google Discover to maybe Google Home or maybe Google Browse. I mean, it is not shocking Google would renamed Discover to something else. Discover was previously named the Google feed and I think before that it was Google Now.

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PSA: Google Doesn't Take Direct Action Over Violations Submitted Via Spam Reports

As a reminder, Google has reiterated that when Google receives a search spam report, it does not take direct action against the violation or violating site. Instead, Google uses that feedback to its spam detection systems that hopefully will take action algorithmically in the future against the violation.

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June 1st Google Search Ranking Algorithm Volatility

Google has been super volatile over the past several weeks and now I am seeing even more volatility touch down on the first day of June, this past Saturday. It actually was a pretty heated weekend, with many of the tools showing extreme volatility and the chatter within the SEO community was unusually high for a weekend.

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