Google Search Settings Not Sticking; Dark Mode Sees The Light
There are numerous complaints in the Google Search Community Forums that the Google Search settings are not sticking. The most obvious example is when you have the dark theme set and Google toggles you to the light theme. But other settings are not sti…
Refine This Search & Broaden This Search Now Live In Google Search
After the announcement in September at Search On and months and months of testing, the Refine This Search and Broaden This Search features are fully live in US English Google Search results. This is not to mean the Things To Know and Things To Conside…
Daily Search Forum Recap: March 15, 2022
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Reviews are dropping out like crazy from the local business listings in Google…
Reviews In Google Local Going Missing Recently
There are tons and tons of complaints over the past week or so of reviews not posting or going missing in the local maps business listings. In short, people are leaving reviews but they are not showing up in the local and maps interfaces on Google.
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Google Page Experience Update Metrics Can Be Split Into Sections Of Your Site
When it comes to the Google page experience update and its metrics, Google may in some cases split up the scores/metrics it has into different sections of your site. It might go by template type, like all category pages, all product pages or it might g…
Google Search Console URL Inspection Tool Not Fully Fixed Yet
Two weeks after Google first confirmed an issue with the Google Search Console URL Inspection Tool, it is still not fully fixed. I will say that while I do see random complaints about the tool erroring out, I have not seen it error out myself. But sti…
Google: We Don’t Use User Engagement As A Search Ranking Factor
Google’s John Mueller said again that Google Search does not use “engagement” as a factor for ranking or other purposes in Google Search. Google Search does not know if your web page has a high or low level of user engagement metrics and even if it did…
Google Hotel Listings Attribute For Free Or Discounted Accommodation For Ukraine
Google has added a new attribute for some hotel listings to specify if they offer free or discounted accommodations for people displaced from Ukraine. This is a special attribute titles “accommodation for Ukraine” in the Google hotel listings.
Daily Search Forum Recap: March 14, 2022
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Happy Pi Day readers…
Google Brings Back Pi Day Easter Egg Calculator
If you search for Pi Day in Google Search you will see a calculator come up that has the pie logo sparkling. When you click on that, it will search for pie all by itself.
Google: Hreflang Does Not Give You A Ranking Boost
Google’s John Mueller said again that using hreflang will not help you rank better and does not change rankings for your site. All it technically does it replace the URL that ranks already with the regionally appropriate URL in Google Search.
Survey: Most SEOs Opt To Canonicals To Manage Faceted Navigation
Joe Hall posted a poll on Twitter asking what do SEOs use most to manage faceted navigation. The vast majority of SEOs responded that they use “proper canonicals tags.” Others responded they use robots.txt and then some said meta robots tag. But mos…
Google Favicon Crawler Now Uses Googlebot & Googlebot-Image Token
Google has updated its Google crawler help documentation to specific that the Google Favicon crawler now respects the Googlebot and Googlebot-Image robots rules. Previously, it seemed to just respect its own Google Favicon rules but that was changed o…
Google: The Google URL Parameters Tool Is Scary
Google’s John Mueller said (again) that the Google URL Parameters tool is scary. He said this on Reddit, and then suggested the person try to use noindex or robots.txt methods as an alternative because the Google Search Console reports will show you is…
Google Search Find Place Through Photos
A few years ago, Google began to roll out a local search feature to search photos of nearby places. Now Google seems to be calling this “find places through photos.” I am not sure if this is in addition to the old version or if this is just renaming t…
Vlog #163: David Melamed About The Earlier Days Of Search Marketing & The Immense Sharing In The Industry
David Melamed, who I’ve known for about 15 years or so, has been in the space for about that long or even longer. David Melamed is now a search marketing consultant for many companies. You can learn more about him on his website at davidmelamed.com. Da…
Google: Vehicle Ads Now Available To All US Advertisers
Google announced that the vehicle ads are now available to all US advertisers. Vehicle ads are a performance-focused, lower funnel ad format which allows auto advertisers to promote their entire inventory of vehicles to interested customers shopping fo…
Google Shows Buddhist Calendar Year For News Stories
Here is a screenshot of Google News on mobile showing a date that is not the Gregorian date but rather the Buddhist calendar date and year. I assume this is being pulled from some sort of setting override on the phone or in Google Search settings.
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Google Search Ads: No Products Found
Here is a weird Google issue where Google is showing a Google Ad slot in the search results that ends up leading to an error that reads “no products found.” It shows a person looking under a curtain for something, which is weird.
Google’s Danielle Marshak On How Google Understands Videos
In the latests Search Off the Record, Gary Illyes and Lizzi Sassman from the Google Search Central team had Danielle Marshak, a Google Search Product Manager for Videos, as a guest on the podcast. Danielle Marshak, who created a couple new SEO video he…