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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Google Ads Adding New Optional Verification This Month

Google Ads announced it will add a new optional verification to verify the affiliation of the advertiser/individual with the organization they are verifying. This starts sometime this month, June 2024, but it is not clear to me what the new verification is exactly.

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Google Tests Shaded Site Name & Favicon For Search Results

Google is testing shading the background color in gray behind the favicon and site name and URL for the mobile search results. It brings a little bit more of a design flair to the ten blue links, don't you think?

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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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