Daily Search Forum Recap: December 26, 2024
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’s December 2024 spam update is still heated…
Google December 2024 Spam Update Burns Through Christmas
The Google December 2024 spam update seems to have burned through the Christmas holiday, with high volatility on Christmas eve and day. I saw comments from site owners and creators about how devastated they were through the holidays and it was gut-wren…
Google Merchant Center Now Allows Some Inconsistent Languages Across Site & Feeds
Google has relaxed its inconsistent language policy within Google Merchant Center to allow some languages between your product feed and your website language not to match. Google wrote, “we are relaxing the supported language policy to allow some diffe…
Why Apple Wants To Be Involved In Google’s US Antitrust Case
Apple has issued a motion of intervention in the DOJ vs Google antitrust case, specifically in the remedies side to help Google fight the default search agreement it has with Apple. Why is Apple doing this? Primarily because Apple wants its $20 billio…
Google Ads Bug May Lead To Broad Match Quietly Being Turned On
There may be a bug impacting some Google Ads advertiser accounts that will quietly switch your campaigns to have broad match turned on, even when that campaign may have used phrase or exact match. This can happen when you switch from non-conversion ba…
Googlers Working Christmas & Christmas Eve (2024 Edition)
Every year I like to cover how I spot Googlers, like John Mueller, but yes others, working and communicating with the SEO community on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. This year is no different, with John Mueller, Martin Splitt and even Gary Illyes res…
Google Ads Policy Disapproves Ads Pointing To Sites With Manual Actions
Google Ads updated its abusing the ad network policy to say it will disapprove ads can take “actions on ads relating that might violate Spam Policies for Google Web Search.” Specifically, if an ad’s destination points to a page removed from Google Sear…
Google Ads New Asset-Level Conversion Data in Performance Max
Google Ads seems to be rolling out new asset-level conversion data in Performance Max reporting and campaigns. You can use the conversions and conversion value columns to get an overview of asset performance.
Google Search Rolls Out AI Organized Restaurant Results
Google has officially rolled out AI organized results for restaurants related queries. We’ve launched a new way to get dining recs on Search. If you’re looking for something like ‘restaurants with a view Chicago,’ you’ll get a results page organized wi…
Google Ads PMax Campaigns To Brand Guidelines Enabled After January 20
Google Ads is making a change to new Performance Max campaigns that are created in the Google Ads web interface. Starting on January 20, 2025, these campaigns will have brand guidelines enabled and require business name and logo brand assets to be lin…
Google Launches Merchant Center Next Glossary
Google has posted a new help section for Google Merchant Center, a Merchant Center Next Glossary. This glossary defines key Merchant Center terms and links you to related articles with more detail about each term.
Crawling December: CDNs and crawling
Content delivery networks (CDNs) are particularly well suited for decreasing latency of your
website and in general keeping web traffic-related headaches away. This is their primary purpose
after all: speedy delivery of …
Google December 2024 Spam Update Deindexing & Deranking Some Sites Hard
On Thursday, December 19th at 12 pm ET, Google began its release of the Google December 2024 spam update. It seems like that update kicked into gear the day or so after it was released, but honestly, it is hard to tell if the damage is from the spam up…
Google Offers Its Required Remedies In DOJ Antitrust Case
Google has offered up its remedies over its antitrust case with the Department of Justice – it was forced to, it didn’t want to. Google said it will appeal the Court’s decision but the process requires that we first file proposed remedies.
Google Knowledge Panels Gain Payment Options
Google is now showing payment options on some retailer’s knowledge panels. This comes after Google started asking for the payment options a business accepts in Google Merchant Center, although, it might be unrelated (we don’t know).
Google Ads Tests Search Ads Without Ad Descriptions
Google Ads seems to be testing showing search ads in the Google Search results without ad copy, without the ad description text you added to your ads. I guess Google wants to see what type of impact this has on ad performance.
Bing Search Tests How To Pick Section
Microsoft is testing a new section in Bing Search titled “How to pick.” It helps you figure out what product you should pick, by breaking down the options and configurations.
Google Ads For Performance Max Brand Control Adds Shopping Ads Override
Google Ads added a new brand control override for Performance Max campaigns that lets you override the exclusion for Shopping Ads. The check box is under the brand exclusions section and reads, “Allow Shopping ads on searches that mention excluded bran…
How to Use Chrome to View a Website as Googlebot
The author’s views are entirely their own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
Google Kwanzaa Decorations Are Live For 2024
And now we have the Kwanzaa decorations live in the Google Search results. Just search for [Kwanzaa] to see them. Google also went live with the Christmas decorations today and the Hanukkah decorations last week.