Welcome to April, the real April, not April 1st, and with that, I have the monthly Google webmaster report for you all. This is a big one, so get comfy and start reading. We had the product reviews update start rolling out, we had the page experience update for desktop finish rolling out and several unconfirmed updates. This includes a Spring update and two other unconfirmed web search updates, plus a local search update that may have reversed the December local search update.
Google expanded its use of MUM and BERT AI in search and touted reducing irrelevant results by over 50% and pushing out over 5,000 changes in search last year with a whopping 800,000 experiments - and you wonder why I have so much to write. Google Maps blocked a 100 million fraud and abusive edits and more.
Google released a new highly cited and come back later sign in Google Search. Google has a much more visual design for some mobile queries and refine and broaden this search is fully rolled out. Google also released the trusted store badge for those merchants who score highly with the shopping experience scorecard.
Google Search Console will kill the killer URL parameter tool this coming month. But in bigger news, Google Analytics 4 will replace Universal Analytics 3 next year.
It was a wild wild month and that it just a quick summary of the organic changes in Google Search. Here are some of the more important stories I think you should review, in case you missed one:
Google Algorithms:
- March 2022 Google Product Reviews Update Rolling Out - Everything We See So Far
- For Google Updates, The Product Reviews Update III Is Not That Huge - So Far
- Now Seeing Volatility For The Google Product Reviews Update (v. March 2022)
- Google Page Experience Update For Desktop Done Rolling Out
- Spring 2022 Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update
- Google Search Ranking Update Weirdness On March 11th
- Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On March 4th - Unconfirmed
- Google Local Search Update On March 23rd 'Corrects' Vicinity Update
- Google Now Using MUM For Detecting Personal Crisis Searches & BERT For Detecting Shocking Content
- Google: We Reduced Irrelevant Search Results By 50% & Made 5,000 Changes In 2021
- Google Search Console To Kill URL Parameter Tool On April 26th
- Google Structured Data Error Reporting Gets More Descriptive Names & Context
- Google Search Console Rich Results Report To Enforce Event Locations
- John Mueller Gives A Hard Lesson To An SEO On Google Ranking & Spam
- Google SafeSearch Filter Can Now Update Faster
- Google Page Experience Update Metrics Can Be Split Into Sections Of Your Site
- Google Talks About de-SEOing The Search Central Web Pages
- Google Visual Stories Showing On Page One For Competitive Keywords
- Google: Nofollow Is Not A Dampening Factor
- Does Redirecting Links That Lead To 404 Pages Gain Google SEO Value?
- Google Again: Product Prices Not A Ranking Factor But Explains Why...
- Google Explains Why Google Does Not Crawl & Index Every URL
- Google: Keep Old Redirected URLs In Sitemaps Files Temporarily
- Google: Site Moves With Redirects In Place Only For 3-Months Is Too Short
- Google Looked Into An Eco-Friendly Search Ranking Boost
- Google: Machine Or AI Generated Content Still Not High Quality
- Quality: Site With Quality Issues Switched Domains, Saw Temporary Google Ranking Boost & Dropped Again
- Google: We Don't Use User Engagement As A Search Ranking Factor
- Google Favicon Crawler Now Uses Googlebot & Googlebot-Image Token
- Google's Danielle Marshak On How Google Understands Videos
- Google: We Mostly Just Ignore Widget Links And Not Penalize For Them
- Google: Indexing Issues Can Be Old Spam Related But Likely Not Adult Content Related
- Google Search Results Rolls Out Much More Visual Design In Grid Formats & More
- Google Search Highly Cited Stories & Come Back Later For Evolving Results
- Refine This Search & Broaden This Search Now Live In Google Search
- Google Search With Discount Coupon Codes In Shopping Pack
- New Google Trusted Store Badge Based On Shopping Experience Scorecard
- Google: We Have Mechanisms To Verify Merchant Experience Scorecard Metrics
- Google Testing Lower Price Icon In Search Shopping Results
- Google Tests Image Search Pack That Loads Images On Right On Click
- Google Offers Carousel In Search Result Snippets
- Google Continues Expandable Tab Search Result Snippets Test
- Google Search Tests Light Gray Search Box
- Google Search Adds Jewish Shabbat Times Again
- Google Tests Removing Estimated Number Of Search Results
- Reviews In Google Local Going Missing Recently
- Google Maps 2021 Blocked 100 Million Fraudulent & Abusive Edits & More
- Free Google Hotel Listings Expand To Search & Maps, Adds Reporting & Controls
- Google Hotel Listings Attribute For Free Or Discounted Accommodation For Ukraine
- Google Business Profile Emergency Help Attributes
- Google Search Tests Healthcare Provider Appointments & Booking
- SMS Messaging Support Returns To Google Business Profiles?
- Google Search Local Business Listing Tests More About Button
- Google Adds Business Profiles Managers Controls In Web Search
- Google Search Find Place Through Photos
- Google Shopping Filter By "Smaller Stores"
- Reaction Towards Google Killing Google Analytics 3 For Google Analytics 4
- Run In Parallel The Old Google Analytics UA Tracking Code With New GA4 Code
- Google Merchant Center Integration Live For Some In Google Analytics 4
- Google: Google Analytics 4 Won't Be A Search Ranking Boost
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