January 2020 Google Webmaster Report

Jan 6, 2020 - 8:33 am 4 by
Filed Under Google Updates

Chalkboard4 WebmasterReport Magnified 1900px

Here is the first Google webmaster report of 2020, the January 2020 report is pretty packed. We had Google confirm in December that there was a local search update in November, now local search uses neural matching. BERT rolled out internationally in December throughout Google search. We had numerous unconfirmed Google search algorithm updates throughout December as well. One may have been related or associated with confusion with a Google Analytics bug but we are not sure.

Google News no longer needs content from Google News publishes, it can source it from the web in general. The new GoogleBot name started to roll out this past month. Google Search Console improved the messaging interface, discover reports are fast and there were numerous bugs throughout the month with Search Console.

Oh and Larry and Sergey had enough - they have stepped down from their roles and made Sundar CEO of it all.

Here is last month's recap if you missed that. Here is the stories somewhat categorized for the past 30-days:

Google Algorithm Updates:

Google SEO: Google Search Console & Analytics: Google Local: Google User Interface & Search Changes: Google Business:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: July 18, 2025

Jul 18, 2025 - 10:00 am
Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google June Core Update Done, Local Ranking Update, AI Mode Updates & AI Calling Businesses

Jul 18, 2025 - 8:01 am
Google Maps

New Google Business Profile Check Edit Status

Jul 18, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google: Login Service Pages Are Hard To Rank In Search

Jul 18, 2025 - 7:41 am
Google

Google AI Overviews For Movie Queries

Jul 18, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Rolling Out Smart Bidding Exploration To Some Advertisers

Jul 18, 2025 - 7:21 am
Previous Story: Google Reminds Us To Fix Internal Links That 404