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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