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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