Daily Search Forum Recap: January 9, 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 says author bylines do not help you rank better. Google spoke about the Japanese keyword hack and what you need to know. Google's perspective filter is dominated by Twitter, YouTube and Reddit, a study shows. Google Search Console crawl rate setting is now gone. Google is shutting down websites made with Google Business Profiles, without long term redirects. Google product structured data supports suggestedAge property. There is this weird bug with zip code searches in Google showing products.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Google: Author Bylines Don't Help You Rank Better; Google Doesn't Check Credentials
  Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, in response to another SEO hit piece by The Verge said that author bylines and bios do not help a site or piece of content rank better. Sullivan also added Google also does not check out the credentials for ranking purposes.
• Google On The Japanese Keyword Hack
  Google's John Mueller posted a comment on Reddit describing what is often referred to as the "Japanese keyword hack," he said. It is an automated process that looks for vulnerabilities in your CMS to inject content on your website.
• Report: Google Perspectives Dominated By Twitter, YouTube & Reddit
  John Shehata posted some data he gathered through his NewzDash service regarding the Google Perspectives search feature. He shared some interesting data, probably nothing that will shock you, but Twitter, YouTube and Reddit are the primary sites featured in the Perspectives filter.
• Google Shutting Down Google Business Profiles Websites - Redirects Only A Few Months
  Google announced it is shutting down Websites made with Google Business Profiles. They will stop working on March 1, 2024 and will only redirect to your Google Business Profile listing until June 10, 2024. After that, anyone who tries to go to that listing will get a dead page.
• Google Product Structured Data Also Now Supports suggestedAge Property
  Google officially supports the suggestedAge property as an alternative to suggestedMaxAge and suggestedMinAge within its product structured data. Google says they added this support to make it more flexible for people to specify age ranges for a product.
• Google Search Console Crawl Rate Setting Is Officially Gone
  Google has finally done away with the crawl rate setting within the legacy Google Search Console. It now redirects to the blog post about the feature going away.
• Google Search Bug Returns Products For Zip Code Searches
  If you search Google for some zip codes, Google may return some products from its shopping graph. One example, spotted by Adam Di Frisco, is to search for [orange county zip code] and you get that zip code listing but it also shows product thumbnails that you can click on to by that product.
• Google Waterfall Staircase In Mountain View
  Here is a photo from the new Google Mountain View, California office area of a staircase with water dripping down them. It is like a waterfall staircase of sorts. Here is another shot of it I found on Instagram.

Other Great Search Threads:

• Snippets are automatically created from page content, which can include comments., John Mueller on X
• Still in the process of being rolled out., Mikhail Parakhin on X
• The Google Business Profile posts 'now you see it, now you don't show' continues with this treatment of the business profile - where ALL the posts ever posted by the business scroll forever and ever, Claire Carlile on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

• Google is allowing select sites to delay phase out of third-party cookies
• Instacart to start serving ads on Good Food Holdings shopping carts
• TikTok launches new ad performance measurement tools
• How AI will affect the future of search
• Advanced AI prompt engineering strategies for SEO

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

• Web analytics is badly broken , MarTech

Industry & Business

• OpenAI and journalism, OpenAI
• Microsoft OpenAI Ties Face Potential EU Merger Investigation, Bloomberg

Links & Content Marketing

• Link Building for Lawyers: 10 Strategies to Help You Win in SERPs, Moz
• Cultivate Content Leadership, Content Marketing Institute

Local & Maps

• How to report incidents on your trip in Google Maps or Apple Maps, Popular Science
• Alphabet To Boost Google Maps With 3D View Update, Yahoo Finance

Mobile & Voice

• Apple releases Xcode 15.2, AppleInsider
• Apple Vision Pro available in the U.S. on February 2, Apple
• iPhone AI and Siri 2.0 will launch in 2024, says Morgan Stanley, AppleInsider
• Volkswagen says it’s putting ChatGPT in its cars for ‘enriching conversations’, The Verge
• Apple tells developers not to call their AR and VR apps AR or VR apps, Engadget
• Assistant with Bard looks genuinely useful in these leaked screenshots, Android Police

SEO

• Highly Visible and Low Quality (or Unhelpful) – A Most Dangerous SEO Combination, GSQI
• How Google perfected the web, The Verge
• How to leverage Google Merchant Center for competitive advantage, Discosloth
• Screaming Frog Log File Analyser Update – Version 6.0, Screaming Frog
• SERP Scraping & Keyword Grouping in Google Sheets, SammySEO

PPC

• What Is a PPC Campaign? The Complete Guide for Beginners, Semrush
• How to reduce CPC: Facebook & Google Ads, Bitvero

Other Search

• Despite free access to GPT-4, Microsoft’s Copilot app hasn’t impacted ChatGPT installs or revenue, TechCrunch
• Dumbest Google Result of the Week: ‘JFK Death Penalty’ Brings Up Some Kid’s Middle School Essay, Gizmodo
• Getty and Nvidia bring generative AI to stock photos, The Verge

Feedback:

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