Google Spammers Using Open Date Edits To Hurt Local Businesses
In November, Google began supporting the option to specify when the business opens in the future. So if you are a new business and you want people to find you in Google local before you open, you can set a future open date for your business. But some …
Google Incentivizing Ad Partners To Use Automation
Kirk Williams posted on Twitter that he got an email from Google with new rewards and incentives if he uses more of Google’s ad automation features. He said he doesn’t have an issue with automation but the incentives should be tied to client goals, not…
Google Now Sending Consolidated Mobile-First Indexing Notifications
Google is now consolidating the notifications they send around sites being switched into Google’s mobile first indexing process. Instead of sending a single email notification per site that moved over, Google is now sending a single email with all the …
The Google Webmaster Blog Removes Comments Feature
Gary Illyes from Google announced on the Google Webmaster Blog that they disabled the ability to post or view comments on that blog. He said most of the comments ended up being off-topic or even outright spammy. So they decided to drop them completel…
Google Rolls Out Your Related Activity Card; Showing You Past Searches
Back in September we spotted Google testing a feature to show searchers a card of past searches and site visits based on those searches. Then Google later that month shared it would be coming. Well, Google is now finally rolling out what they are cal…
Google: Our SEO Success Is Not From Preferential Treatment
Last night, Google’s Sean O’Keefe shared some data on the Think With Google blog about how their SEO strategy leads to good results for the 7,000+ websites they manage. But then Google’s search team had to come out and clarify that Google’s SEO team d…
Google Will Discontinue Some Old Search Console Features
Google’s John Mueller confirmed this morning in a webmaster hangout at the 1:09 mark into the video that Google does plan to close down, discontinue, not port, every single feature from the old Search Console to the new Search Console.
Search Buzz Video Recap: Google Algorithm Updates, Knowledge Panel Hack, Consolidated Mobile First, SEO & More
This week we covered not just one but two different unconfirmed Google search algorithm updates…
Google Webhook For Google My Business Reviews Delayed, Working On A Fix
Kara from the Google My Business team confirmed Google is working on a fix for the delays in getting review data from the Google My Business API, specifically webhooks. Kara said “Our teams are working on the issue but they don’t have an estimate for w…
Google Search Results Rich Snippet With Asked X Years/Months Ago
I am not sure if this is a new snippet, but I don’t think I’ve seen it before where Google shows how many years ago the question was specifically asked in this format. Bhumika Kateliya shared on Twitter an example of this and I was able to replicate a…
Knowledge Panel Exploit Is Embarrassing For Google
A lot of news came out yesterday evening around an old Google knowledge panel exploit that let’s you manipulate almost any query to show any knowledge panel. Yes, this is embarrassing for Google but even more so because it is something that was report…
Google Search Algorithm Update On January 9th?
The Google search results and rankings have been pretty unstable the past week or so. There are a lot of fluctuations happening from earlier this week and also as of yesterday. Both the automated tracking tools and the SEO communities are taking noti…
Google My Business: Reconfirm Location Vs Verify Now
I am not sure what this is about but one local SEO is being asked to verify their business by clicking verify now or reconfirm location. I am not sure what the difference is and neither are any of the local SEOs in the Local Search Forums.
Google Local Listings Tests Your Match Scores
Google is testing a feature in the local listings, the local pack, that shows how closely the listings match you. It is a feature Google announced but did not launch back in May 2018 called “your match.” Through machine learning Google shows “a number…
Google AJAX Crawling Scheme Workarounds?
I spotted John Mueller of Google giving a Reddit user advice on how to handle helping Google index content that still uses some of the old AJAX crawling scheme that Google deprecated long ago. I don’t fully understand the advice but here it is.
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Google’s New Design For Lyrics In Search Results On Mobile
I don’t follow the lyrics search results too closely but back in 2014 Google added full lyrics to their search results. Since they added translation features to it last year. Now, according to Glenn Gabe they redesigned the mobile interface for the l…
Google: Geolocation Redirects Are Okay
This is not a new topic, we’ve been saying this for probably over a decade and even Matt Cutts posted a video answer on it in 2013. But hey – John Mueller from Google answered it again. You are allowed to do geolocation based redirects, directing US u…
Google Manufacturer Center With New Content, Analytics & Availability
Google announced they added some new features to the Google Manufacturer Center. They added a new section on Shopping product detail pages that has more content from your site. They added new and improved analytics. And they also expanded availabilit…
Google Rich Results Test Now With Code Editing
Google announced on Twitter yesterday that the Google Rich Results Test now lets you not just test live or sample code, but also let’s you make edits to code that you run and test it on the fly. So after you run it, you can then click into the code on…
Use 404s & Temporary Sitemaps To Speed Up Page Removal From Google
Have a lot of pages you want removed from the Google index and don’t want to use the page removal tool for each URL? Google’s John Mueller said you can try to 404 and noindex all the pages you want removed and then submit a temporary sitemap to Google…