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.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- February 2020 Google Webmaster Report
The past 30-days or so in the Google webmaster universe was pretty intense. The bigger items were the confirmed and super big January 2020 core update, the favicon and black ad label release on desktop and then a step back on that, and Google deduplicating featured snippets. But there was a lot more than just those three big items. - Google My Business Warning: Unpublished Business Profile Will Be Deleted
Google has been sending out email notices to Google My Business users that their unpublished business profiles will be deleted within 30 days. Most of the time this is fine, but if you do not want your unpublished listing to be deleted, then you must verify the listing within 30 days. - Google: If You Need To Manually Submit Pages To Index Then You Need To Improve Site Quality
With the Google Search Console manual submission issues with getting pages into the index, John Mueller from Google said on Twitter "If your site relies on manual index submission for normal content, you need to significantly improve your site." - Google Knowledge Panel "See The Connection"
Google is showing "see the connection" on some knowledge panels for famous people. This reminds me of the Google bacon number feature from years ago but different. Here you can see Google showing a box to see the connection between the person you searched for and someone else. - Google Fixes Search Console Verification Via Tag Manager Bug
Google had a bug with the method of verifying your web site or property within Google Search Console through Google Tag Manager. This has now been fixed according to Google and those who had issues might need to now reverify their properties now. - Astronauts Visit Google Chicago
Here is a photo of someone who looks like that myth buster guy dressed up in a NASA space suit. In fact, supposedly Google hosted an event in the Chicago office where astronauts attended. The event O
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Automate your Google Ads conversion imports with Zapier, Google Ads Help
- Emojis in Display URL @seroundtable https://t.co/Mu0FuxwG5Z, Josh on Twitter
- Favicon updates can take a bit of time -- it sounds like you've set them up properly, so they'll update over time., John Mueller on Twitter
- If you're changing URLs every year, it looks like you're the one playing the update games :-), John Mueller on Twitter
- When you download data from Search Console, where do you *primarily* open/import it?, John Mueller on Twitter
- It could have an effect. We might canonicalize the other domain and it may take time for us to switch back, for example., Martin Splitt on Twitter
- Looking for a brand name and saw some nice product images. Is this a new feature at bing? How could we use this? @CoperniX cc @rustybrick https://t.co/1xTFNazd0r, Maximilian Wenzel on Twitter
- Sure. Also, hreflang is a per-page annotation, it's fine to just use it on a part of a site anyway., John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Filter, sort, bulk manage product groups in Microsoft Shopping soon
- Video: Jennifer Van Iderstyne on agency types & multimedia SEO
- How to get client buy-in to try new PPC tactics
- Amazon’s booming ad business grew by 40% in 2019
- Google Search Console fixed a bug with Google Tag Manager verification
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
- Alphabet discloses YouTube, Cloud revenues for the first time, CNBC
- Alphabet reports Q4 2019 revenue of $46.07 billion, 9to5Google
- Announcing Google.org's new safety grants in Europe, Google Blog
- Data Protection Commission launches Statutory Inquiry into Google’s processing of location data and transparency surrounding that processing, Data Protection Commission
- Top Antitrust Official Is Said to Recuse Himself From Google Inquiry, New York Times
Links & Promotion Building
- 9 Tips on Creating a Kick-Ass Content Strategy -, Koozai
- Analyze Competitors for High-traffic Content Ideas, Practical Ecommerce
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
- Ask the Google Assistant to find your keys with Tile, Google Blog
- February security patch rolling out to Google Pixel, factory images & OTAs live, 9to5Google
- Siri, Google Assistant, other smart assistants lacking in emergencies, Mashable
SEO
- A case study of 2,000 Featured Snippets about deduplicating, Kevin Indig
- Rank & File: What do we do about Featured Snippets?, iPullRank
- The January 2020 Core Update: Affiliate Sites, Pet Health, Trust Issues and Spam likely reassessed by Google., Marie Haynes Consulting
- SEO for Podcasts: What B2B Marketers Need to Know, Online Marketing Blog
PPC
- 3 Major Differences Between Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising, WordStream
- How Bid Adjustments are used by Bidding Method, Adalysis
- Can SEO and PPC Work Together? - In Search SEO Podcast, RankRanger
- Exclusive: Google kept scam fishing license ads up for months after being told about them, states say, CNN
- Product Groups & Shopping Campaigns, Microsoft Advertising
Other Search
