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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