Daily Search Forum Recap: October 4, 2024

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...

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Google Tests Local Services Ads Without Attorney Photos

Google is reportedly testing showing Local Service Ads (LSAs) without a photo of an attorney or attornies. Instead, Google can show a photo from its business profile or law firm and not of its attornies.

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Google Search From The Web Carousel Cards

Google is testing another variation of "from the web" sections in its search results. This one is more for local queries, where Google shows a carousel of cards snippets titled "From the web." They can come up for [near me] types of queries but I am not able to replicate this.

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Google Tests Videos In Knowledge Panel Image Carousels

Google seems to be testing showing videos, videos from YouTube, in the image carousels within the knowledge panels. Generally, Google will only show images in this carousel but now Google is showing playable videos from YouTube.

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Happy 14th Birthday BingBot

Fabrice Canel from Microsoft posted on X this week that BingBot turned 14 years old. Yea, 14 years of crawling the web. Fabrice wrote, "Happy 14th Birthday, BingBot! You've been crawling ð·ï' the web and bringing us the best search results for over a decade. Next year promises even more innovation and excellence! Time to graduate and maximize crawl efficiency."

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Programming Note: Rosh Hashanah 5785 - Happy & Healthy Jewish New Year

This is a programming note that Thursday and Wednesday are Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and I will be offline the next two days. I will be offline on Thursday and Wednesday, October 3rd and October 4th...

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Bing Testing Replacing Ad Label With Sponsored Label

Microsoft seems to be testing replacing the hard to see ad label with a longer sponsored label in the Bing Search results. So instead of it saying "ad" next to the search ads, it is testing showing "sponsored" text next to the search ads.

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Sticky Google Search Console Performance Report Filters

Google has updated its performance reports in Google Search Console to have the filters you set, stick. Meaning, the next time you go back to the report, it should be where you left it, with all the filters you set. You can of course reset the filters and start from scratch with the click of a button that reads, "reset filters."

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Google Again On When To Use Noindex Or Canonical (Or Both)

Google's John Mueller was asked about if it is still okay to use noindex and canonicals at the same time and when to use one or the other. This is a topic we covered several times here over the years but I spotted a new Reddit thread with John's comments on it, so I figured I'd resurrect this topic.

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Google: Don't Use Generic Server / CMS Holding Pages For New Sites

John Mueller, a Google Search Advocate, said on Reddit, that he does not recommend you use generic server or CMS holding pages for new sites. Instead, either "keep DNS disabled or put up a custom holding page."

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Google Ads Outage This Morning Being Restored

Google Ads had an outage that started at around 3am ET on Tuesday October 1st. The issue is now mostly resolved, but many advertisers were unable to access their Google Ads accounts and campaigns for a few hours this morning.

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Google Search Console Recommendations Not Fully Rolled Out

About 8 weeks ago, Google announced Google Search Console Recommendations and rolled it out to a limited number of properties within the platform. Google said the roll out will be slow and yea, it is slow. Daniel Waisberg from Google confirmed on Friday that it is not fully rolled out yet.

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Google Local Panel Adds "About This Place" Section

Google is testing adding a new section named "About this place" to the local panel in the Google Business Profile listings within Google Search and Google Maps. This section shows you text and image reviews of this place in a stacked card format.

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Bing Short Videos Now With Details

Microsoft is testing adding more details to the short video carousel it shows in Bing Search. Now it is showing video length, descriptions, a swipe to see more and other changes.

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Spike In Removed Google Reviews On September 17th

Google seemed to have removed/deleted a ton of reviews from Google Business Profiles within Google Maps and Local search last week, around September 17th. This came a day or so before Google updated its Google Business Profiles review restrictions policy.

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Google Search Content Suggestions In Specific Languages Toggle

Google has this setting some searchers can manage that lets them turn on or off seeing content in a language that is popular in their region. The searcher can either leave the content language suggestion on or turn it off.

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Google Recently Viewed Movies Activity Card

Google now can show movies you recently viewed as an "activity card." I am not sure if this is based on a movie you actually went to see in the theatres, watched online or just based on you clicking on movie listings within Google Search.

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Google Search: States In The News

Google Search has this newish news or top stories carousel format that Google titled "States in the news." It shows you news or top stories from news publishers related to the query by U.S. state.

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Google Search Backstory Top Stories Section

Google Search has this news or top stories section titled "Backstory." It comes up from political queries, maybe other news queries.

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Google Maps Fake Review Notice On Business Profile

Google now places a notice or warning on some Google Business Profile listings within Google Maps when it thinks some of the reviews may be fake or fraudulent. We covered this notice when Google updated its reviews restrictions documentation but I wanted to highlight the notice more.

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Google Search Product Detail Grid With Most Popular & Best Price Labels

Google is now testing adding labels to the product detail side panel when you click on a product in the Google Search popular products grid. The labels spotted include a "most popular" and "best price" label in a blue background.

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Google Search Tests For You Label

This morning we covered these unusual "preferred source" labels in the search results. And now we are seeing "For you" labels in the search results. Maybe they are the same and just using different names or maybe they are different.

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Google Search Tests Preferred Source Label?

Google may be testing a new search label named "preferred source" on the search results snippets. This is shown on organic search results, not search ads, and honestly, this seems off to me but I am not sure.

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Google Product Experts Program Not Going Away

There was some speculation that Google may fold the Google Product Experts program but that is not true. John Mueller from Google responded to those concerns on Mastodon and said, "I don't see the product expert program going away anytime soon."

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Google Cache Is Fully Dead

Google has now totally disabled the Google Cache from completely working. Earlier this year, Google removed the cache link from the search result snippets. Then a couple of weeks ago, added links to the Wayback Machine. Now, the direct link to see the Google Cache has been fully disabled.

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