Daily Search Forum Recap: January 22, 2024

Jan 22, 2024 - 4:00 pm 0 by

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's search ranking volatility was pretty calm this weekend, which is unusual. Google has terminated its contract with Appen, one of its largest sources of Search Quality Raters. Google says its flexible sampling solution doesn't make gated content leaky. Google is testing nearby events and deals. Google News lets you filter by publisher. Google is showing phone number buttons in the search result snippets again.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

  • Google Drops Thousands Of Search Quality Raters In Latests Cuts
    The big news from the weekend is that Google has terminated its contract with Appen, one of the largest sources of its third-party human search quality raters sources. Appen announced this in this PDF, saying it received notice of this on January 20th, and the contract ends on March 19, 2024.
  • Google: Our Paywalled & Subscription Structured Data Method Is Not Leaky
    Google's flexible sampling solution that replaced the first-click-free solution for gated, subscription or paywalled content launched in 2017. Since then, many publishers use the structured data to communicate to Google the full content that is behind the content gate. Some are calling this solution "leaky" in which Google responded saying it is not.
  • Another Relatively Calm Weekend For Google Search Ranking Volatility
    We have had intense Google search ranking volatility over the past few weeks over the weekends. That weekend trend kind of stopped when we had a mid-week Google update around January 9th/10th. And for the past couple of weekends, including this one, the volatility with the Google search results has been relatively calm.
  • Google Search Local "Nearby Events And Deals"
    For the past few weeks Google has been testing out a new local search box titled "Nearby events and deals." This box contains links to local stores and places that have events and/or deals in the area.
  • Google News Filter By Publisher Option
    Google News now lets you filter news by publisher for a specific news search query. I think it works the same way as a site command, which Google News has supported for at least 17 years now, but now there is a button that shows some relevant publishers for the topic.
  • Google Showing New Phone Number Buttons For Some Search Results
    For years now, Google has shown phone numbers on some search result snippets when Google thinks you want to call that store. We have screen captures of this from 2016 and 2014. But now Google is testing a new button that is more button-like.
  • Google Brazil View (with Coffee)
    Here is a photo I found from the Google office in Brazil, a roof top view of the local business district there. Looks calming but a bit hazy at the moment.

Other Great Search Threads:

Search Engine Land Stories:

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

Industry & Business

Links & Content Marketing

Local & Maps

Mobile & Voice

SEO

PPC

Search Features

Other Search

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