• Daily Search Forum Recap: March 25, 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 is begging SEOs to stop trying to show Google things and work on showing their users things. Google is testing the Search Generative Experience in the wild to a subset of US users. Google says publishing more content doesn't improve site quality. Google is testing products and product sites in the search bar. Google shares how to remove a...

  • Google Begs SEOs To Stop Showing Google Things; Show Visitors Things Instead

    Google's Search Liaison responded to a series of posts on Twitter, leading him to beg SEOs to stop trying to "show Google" things, explaining that the process of doing things to your site to rank better in Google is the opposite of the advice Google is giving. Instead, show things to your users/visitors that those people will like.The whole series of posts and responses are kind of sad. I mean, Google has been saying this for a while, build what your users want and not build stuff that you...

  • Google Tests SGE AI Overviews In The Wild (Subset Of US Users)

    On Friday, Google began to test SGE-based AI overviews in the real Google search results. That means you may see AI overview snapshot answers in Google search results without being opted into the Google search labs experiment. This is being tested on a small subset of searchers based in the U.S., Google told me.Want to know more about SGE, see my original story on Google Search Generative Experience. Keep in mind, the original Search Labs end date was December 2023, but then Google simply...

  • Google: Publishing More Content Doesn't Improve Quality For Faster Indexing

    A couple of weeks ago, Gary Illyes and Lizzi Sassman of Google had Dave Smart as a guest on the Search Off The Record podcast and they spoke about crawling. In one part, they said again that the quality of your site can impact how fast and how much Google will crawl your website.It is a topic we covered numerous times, so I decided not to cover it again.So yes, Google will likely crawl your site more often if Google feels your pages are important and quality enough. Plus, of course, if it needs...

  • Google Tests Products & Product Sites Search Bar Filter Tabs

    Google is now testing placing "product sites" as its own search bar filter tab in the search results. Also, Google is testing replacing "Shopping" with "Products" in that search bar.This was spotted by Shameem Adhikarath on X - he shared a video but here is a screenshot from that video:We first saw a product sites box in the Google Search results when Google was testing its DMA changes to the search results for the EU. Note, there is structured data for it as well.Now, Google is testing showing...

  • How To Remove A Subdomain Of A Subdomain Via Google Search Console

    Let's say you have a subdomain of a subdomain, such as sub.sub.domain.tld, how do you remove sub.sub.domain.tld from Google while keeping sub.domain.tld in the Google search results. The answer is to verify the sub.sub.domain.tld property directly in Search Console and remove just that property.This question came up on Reddit where the user asked, "I have a domain property GSC for my main site (which is a subdomain itself) and I want to use the removals tool to remove a number of sub-subdomains...

  • Daily Search Forum Recap: March 22, 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. It seems that no sites hit by the September Google helpful content update have recovered yet, but there is still more time for the March core update to reverse those. Google Analytics updated its conversion metrics to better match with Google Ads. Microsoft is buying ads on Google Search to drive searches on Bing Search. Bing's people also ask...

  • Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Spam Update Done, Patience With Core Update, Helpful Content Recoveries, Yahoo Search Coming & New Head Of Google Search

    This week we covered that the Google March 2024 spam update is done rolling out. Google says to wait for the March 2024 core update to be done before making changes. Google will collect feedback after the core and spam updates are done. We have yet to see any September 2023 helpful content recoveries, but there is still time to go. Google said publishing content in bulk is not considered spam. Google is having issues again with showing images in the search results. Google replaced the...

  • Report: No Site Hit By The September Helpful Content Update Recovered Yet

    As you know, the September 2023 helpful content update was brutal to many small site owners, bloggers, SEOs and others. Some of these folks were desperately waiting for a recovery and were hopeful that this March 2024 core update (which is still rolling out) would result in a recovery. But it does not appear that any site has yet recovered from the ranking declines they saw in September 2023.I have personally not heard of anyone say they recovered from that September 2023 helpful content update...

  • Google Analytics Conversion Metrics Updated To Match Google Ads

    Google announced changes to Google Analytics to help the conversion metrics match across Google Ads and Google Analytics. Google will rename legacy conversion to key events, and there are new cross-channel conversion performance reporting beyond Google Ads will be added to the Advertising workspace in GA4.Google said, "key events in Google Analytics that will replace what currently exists as conversions for behavioral analytics." "With this update, a conversion will be the same whether you’re...

  • Microsoft Buying Ads On Google Search To Drive More Searches On Bing

    Microsoft is buying Google Ads to promote its search engine, Bing, on Google Search. I think this has been going on a long time, but you can trigger Bing Ads on Google Search through the Google Ads system for some queries. Glenn Gabe posted about it several days ago on X, he wrote, "Inception for Search Engines -> Bing running Google Ads, driving users to Bing search results, which leads to affiliate content."Here is what it looks like:When you click on the ad in Google Search, you are taken to...

  • Bing Search With Ask Copilot In People Also Ask Section

    Microsoft has been pushing Copilot within Bing Search a heck of a lot. Now Microsoft is showing a chat icon that says "Ask Copilot" in the People also ask section of the Bing search results.When you click on the button, it scrolls you up to the top and actives Copilot in the top of the screen.This was spotted first by Khushal Bherwani a few weeks ago, he posted about it on X. Here is a screenshot:He posted a video of how it works:🆕 Bing with a new feature: while on hover, pop-ups show Ask...