Daily Search Forum Recap: October 13, 2025
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.
Google local results without the call button…
Programming Note: Offline For Simchat Torah On Tuesday & Wednesday
This is a programming note that Tuesday and Wednesday are Simchat Torah and I will be offline the next two days. I will be offline on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 14th and October 15th.
Google Local Results Without Call Button – Web Guide Or Bug?
Over the past few days, the local SEO community is pretty upset that Google appears to be testing removing the call button from the local results. I am not sure if this is a bug or part of the design of the new Web Guide interface that more people are…
Google’s Robby Stein On AI Not Replacing Search, AI Within Search, SEO For AI
Lenny Rachitsky interviewed Robby Stein, VP of Product at Google, who we cited here numerous times over the past couple of years. The interview covers how AI is not replacing search, search is not dead, how AI Mode will be incorporated within Google S…
Google Goldmine Search Content Ranking System?
Have you heard of the Google Goldmine Scoring System? It supposedly looks at your page, your content, and Google gives it a goldminePageScore, title tag factor, body factor, anchor factor, heading factor and more.
Google Adds Help Page For Discover Feed Source
A couple of weeks ago, Google added a new help page titled Discover feed source overview. This page discusses those cards in the Google Discover feed and when Google gets the source name wrong, like for those entity Discover pages.
Google Ads Auto-Apply Recommendations Setting Updated
Google has updated its Auto-Apply Recommendations setting within the Google Ads interface. The button moved to just above the regular recommendations section.
The Definitive Guide to On-Page SEO after the Google Leak
TLDR: Based on the revelations from the Google Content Warehouse, an effective on-page SEO strategy should be built around the following core principles (which I explore in this article): Optimise for the entire ranking pipeline. Engineer for “go…
What is ‘Firefly’? Google’s Scaled Content Abuse System: QualityCopiaFireflySiteSignal
Disclaimer: This is not official. Any article (like this) dealing with the Google Content Data Warehouse leak requires a lot of logical inference when putting together the framework for SEOs, as I have done with this article. I urge you to double-check…
The CRAPS System: How Users Shape Google Results
The ultimate ranking factor is the demonstrated ability to satisfy user intent, and the CrapsData model is the primary record of that satisfaction.
Read the full article here The CRAPS System: How Users Shape Google Results © Copyright 2006-2025 Shaun …
Daily Search Forum Recap: October 10, 2025
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.
Google Business Profiles has a new way to report review extortion scams…
New: Google Business Profile Report Negative Review Extortion Scams
Google has published a new help document on the topic of Google Business Profile negative review extortion scams. The document explains what they are, how to report the scam, what to expect and more importantly, what not to do.
Google Ads Missed Growth Opportunities Tab
Google is testing a new section within the Google Ads advertising console named “Missed Growth Opportunities.” This section shows you the “performance you could’ve achieved in the last year if you’d adjusted your bids and budgets for campaigns with gro…
GA4 Surge In Organic Search Traffic But Search Console Flat
There are a nice number of reports of GA4, Google Analytics, showing a huge surge in organic search traffic over the past couple of days, but Google Search Console is not showing any increase, it remains flat. Some are suspecting this is the result of…
Google Voice Search Now Powered By Speech-to-Retrieval (S2R)
Google has updated its Voice Search models to be powered by Speech-to-Retrieval (S2R). Google said this allows it to “gets answers straight from your spoken query without having to convert it to text first, resulting in a faster, more reliable search f…
Microsoft Ads Posts On How To Optimize For AI Search Answers
The Microsoft Advertising blog posted about how to optimize for AI Search Answers. I thought it was weird to see this on the Microsoft Advertising blog and not on the Bing Search blog, because (a) it is an ad blog and (b) it was written by Krishna Madh…
E-E-A-T Decoded: Google’s Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust
E-E-A-T, an acronym for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust, serves as a conceptual model for what Google deems valuable to its users.
Read the full article here E-E-A-T Decoded: Google’s Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, …
Google Search Ranking Volatility Heats Up October 7th & 8th
While I was offline, it seems the chatter within the SEO industry spiked around the topic of search ranking volatility. It is harder to confirm the volatility, now with the tools recalibrating, but it does seem something started around Tuesday, October…
Google AdSense Authorized Buyers To Replace Ad Networks Blocking Controls
Google announced it will replace the “Ad networks” blocking control from Brand safety within in AdSense with a new “Authorized Buyers” blocking control. This will start on November 6, 2025, the company said.