Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Spam Update Details, Google AI Organized Results, Google Ads Manual Actions and Updates, Apple Joins Google & Christmas Helpers
Google’s December 2024 spam update was completed yesterday at 2pm ET, but it had a busy and volatile week, burning through Christmas and the week. Google rolled out new AI-organized search results for restaurants. Google Ads is testing…
Google Search Nearby Stores Map Without Local Pack
Google Search is testing showing a “nearby stores” section that has an embedded map with a “more options” button that leads to a local pack. This is instead of showing the local pack immediately, instead you need to click on the “more options” button t…
Is SEO Always Changing? Not Really But Details Do.
I always find it funny how I have so much to write about, day in and day out, on the topic of SEO and search marketing. I mean, fundamentally SEO hasn’t really changed much over the years, but maybe the details have…
Google Local Service Ads Test Extra Call Out Extensions
Google is testing showing a section under the Local Service Ads for call out extensions or other extensions. This increases the visibility of these already super-visible Local Service Ads.
New Google Ads Brand Report
Google Ads has quietly launched a new brand report. The brand report “is a dedicated brand advertiser experience that provides you with deduplicated reach and frequency metrics across your campaigns,” Google wrote.
Bing Tests Squared Off Search Bar
Microsoft is testing a squared off search bar on the Bing home page. Normally the search bar is curved around the edges but for some reason Bing wants to try a more edged off approach.
Google’s Big December 2024 Spam Update Finished Rolling Out
Google has completed the rollout of the December 2024 spam update after a seven-day rollout cycle. This update started on December 19, 2024 and 12 pm ET, and was completed on December 26, 2024. This was a broad spam update, not a link spam update and w…
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…