July 4th Weekend Google Search Ranking Update & Volatility

Surprise, surprise, it was another weekend and we again see some more than usual ranking volatility from Google Search. Again, this reminds me of the weekend ranking bug Google had late last year into early this year. But who knows, maybe it is just a ranking system that shuffles things up for weekend searchers?

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Google: Request Indexing Does Not Change Canonicalization

Google's John Mueller said on that using the request indexing feature in Google Search Console's URL Inspection Tool does not change canonicalization. The question that was asked is if it can help speed up URL removal for a 301 redirected URL.

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Google: Using A CDN & Want One Robots.txt File, Redirect Yours To The CDN

Do you use a CDN for some or all of your website and you want to manage just one robots.txt file, instead of both the CDN's robots.txt file and your main site's robots.txt file? Gary Illyes from Google said that all you need to do is redirect your main robots.txt to the CDN and control it on the CDN.

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Google Updated Image SEO Best Practices For Embedded Images

Google has made a small update to its image SEO best practices documentation, specific to the "Use HTML image elements to embed images" section. The update seems relatively minor but the changes to the wording was done for a reason.

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Google Search Tests Long Search Bar Variations

Google is testing a longer search bar, so I guess you can enter in a longer query into the search box. Google is also testing it in a gray color and other variations.

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Google Search Console Performance Reports Catching Up But It's Not Done Yet

As you know, Google Search Console's performance reports were significantly delayed this week. But as of this morning, the reports are beginning to catch up. Google said last night it would take them "at least 2-3 days to fully catch up" and reprocess the data. So if you are seeing weird data, look away and come back on Monday.

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No - Reddit It Not Blocking Google Search

Today being July 4th, I normally would avoid writing stories here but there are a lot of rumors out there that Reddit is blocking Google Search from crawling and indexing its content. It is not true - Reddit is not blocking Google Search.

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Google Zero Click Study Now At 58.5% In 2024

Rand Fishkin has come out with his 2024 edition of the Google zero click study and it shows that in the US, zero clicks are now at 58.5%, which is down from 65% in 2021. The study says about 37% of Google searches lead to no action, 21.4% lead to another Google search and 41.5% lead to a click.

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Current Styles Google Search Carousel

Google Search has a new shopping-related carousel named "current styles." This shows up for some shopping-related queries, and if you search for a product, it might show you style variations that may be trending.

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Google Explains Why Search Console Reporting Delays Are Not In Search Status Dashboard

As of right now, Google Search Console is having a significant delay with its Performance reports and some are wondering why the status of the delay is not in the Google Search Status Dashboard like other search related issues.

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Google Ads New Brand Exclusion Won't Prevent Your Ads For Showing For Random Firms

The other day we reported about the new Google Ads brand controls. But as we gain more and more clarity, it seems it does not give advertisers all the controls they need.

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Microsoft Advertising Property Center & Lodging Campaigns Expands

Microsoft announced Property Center for Microsoft Advertising's lodging campaigns. This should make it easier for you to manage your Hotel Price Ads and Property Promotion Ads for your hotel or vacation rental property.

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Google Merchant Center Conversion Data Usage Changes

Google sent out notices via email to Google Merchant Center merchants about a change to how Google collects and uses conversion data that you share with Google. Google said it may use that data for new reporting and also for ways to improve Google Search experiences and services.

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Google Ads To Allow Fantasy Sports & Lottery Couriers Ads In Many States

Google has posted that it begin to accept and run ads for Daily Fantasy Sports and lottery couriers in many states within the United States. This change goes into affect on July 15, 2024 and advertisers must apply for certification.

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Google Search Console Working To Fix Search Performance Delays & Latency

Google has confirmed it is working to fix the delays and latency issues with the Google Search Console Performance reports. This happens to the performance reports and often other reports in Google Search Console every now and then and generally Google is able to get it to catch up over time.

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Google Explains Why Soft 404s Are Bad

Gary Illyes from Google explained two reasons why soft 404 errors are bad. Soft 404s are when a page returns a 200 status okay, but Google thinks that page should return a 404 page not found error. According to Gary, soft 404s are bad because they (1) limit crawl budget and (2) the pages won't likely show up in Google Search.

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Google Posts Reviews Troubleshooting & FAQs For Missing and Remove Reviews

A Google community manager, Alistair D., posted a Reviews troubleshooting and FAQs document in the Google Business Profiles forums. It goes through why reviews go missing, why reviews are removed and how to troubleshoot those issues with the Google Business Profiles tools.

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Google Search Tests Top Quality Store Badge Near Site Name

Google is testing placing the top quality store badge and icon next to the site name area in the Google mobile search results. This brings up that icon from the bottom portion of the snippet to the very top of the snippet.

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Prompt Injection Added To Bing Webmaster Guidelines

Bing added a new guideline to its Bing Webmaster Guidelines named Prompt Injection. A prompt injection is a type of cyberattack against large language models (LLMs). Hackers disguise malicious inputs as legitimate prompts, manipulating generative AI systems (GenAI) into leaking sensitive data, spreading misinformation, or worse, according to IBM.

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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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