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 said it might have its own way of sending traffic to publishers with its AI chat, Bard, features. Google spoke a bit about recovering from the helpful content update. Google Ads gains automatically created assets, and customer acquisition goals but drops "Search Interest" targeting and "Presence or Interest" exclusions. Google said authorship, links and disavows are a lot less important than SEOs think. And Microsoft Bing AI Chat launched the quality update this morning.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Bing Chat AI v96 Live: Less Hallucinations & More Responses
Microsoft fully launched the quality updates in version 96 of Bing AI Chat on February 28th. It is a tad late, but it is live and reduces cases where Bing refuses to reply and instances of hallucination in answers. - Google's Gary Illyes: Authorship, Links & Disavows Less Important Than SEOs Think
Gary Illyes from Google gave a keynote and a Q&A session yesterday at PubCon and while the keynote was pretty vanilla stuff, the Q&A did reconfirm a lot of what has been said in the past around authorship, links and disavowing links. - Google Ads Adds Automatically Created Assets & Loses Some Location Targeting Settings
Google Ads now supports automatically created assets, and the new customer acquisition goal is fully live. But also, in March, the "Search Interest" targeting and "Presence or Interest" exclusion will no longer be available in Google Ads. - GoogleHas Its Own Way To Send Traffic To Publishers Through Bard/Chat
Google Bard and its chat-based search features that have yet to be seen in the wild may have their unique way of sending publishers traffic, unique from Bing's AI Chat feature. According to some Twitter coverage of his talk, Gary Illyes from Google said this at PubCon yesterday. - Google's Gary Illyes On Recovering From The Helpful Content Update
Gary Illyes from Google said in his Q&A session yesterday at PubCon that while recovering from a Google helpful content update is possible, you can't always get back to where you were. - Boat At The Google Kirkland Office
We have seen people inside this boat at the Kirkland, Seattle office a couple of times but here is a photo more of the outside that I recently found on Instagram. Google has also row boats in the Lond
Other Great Search Threads:
- Gary says that for some reason, the weather report tools seem to pick up infrastructure changes Google makes, not just ranking changes. #pubcon, Ryan Jones on Twitter
- Y'all did that when you built the stuff., John Mueller on Twitter
- Taking things out of context is one of the most underrated SEO tactics., John Mueller on Twitter
- TBH I don't see it as something which would cause mid-term/long-term issues. It'll be more like a bump in the road. Just don't use the change of address tool for something temporary, John Mueller on Twitter
- There's no need to avoid search console errors. Removed pages are removed pages. Use the proper HTTP result code., John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Google launched 2 new asset creation and customer acquisition tools
- A guide to keyword cannibalization in SEO and how to fix it
- Why content strategy matters most
- Bing AI Chat testing setting the tone of the responses
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- Top 10 Things That Will Break on 1st March When GA4 Auto-Migrations Start, Measure Minds Group
- Ultimate Google Analytics 4 (GA4) Audit Tool, Online Metrics
Industry & Business
- Alphabet Needs to Replace Sundar Pichai, The Information
- Brussels focuses Apple probe on app restrictions, Financial Times
Links & Content Marketing
- 5 Ways ChatGPT Will Change the Future of B2B Content Marketing, Online Marketing Blog
- What is Link Juice and How to Get More of it: Part 1, 3Q/DEPT
Local & Maps
- Waze has removed its iOS widget, 9to5Google
- Android Auto briefly takes some smart Maps direction from CarPlay, Android Police
- Google Maps vs. Apple Maps vs. Waze: Which Is Best?, Make Use Of
Mobile & Voice
SEO
- 9 SEO Experts share their most-used SEO tools of the year, Matt Tutt
- 9 Years of the Google Algorithm, Moz
- Running SEO on the right operating system, Kevin Indig
- SEO Split Test Result: The Impact of Removing SEO Copy on Ecommerce Category Pages, Semrush
PPC
- How To Create Data Feeds In Google Merchant Center, Go Fish Digital
- Microsoft Starts To Define How Advertising Works In Search And Bing Chat Queries, MediaPost
- Google's post-cookie test sparks warning of more delays, Ad Age
Other Search
- Google Layoffs Prompt Employees to Ask Bard AI Chatbot About Them, Business Insider
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