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.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Google My Business Dashboard Unlock Your Plan & Complete Your Tasks To Reach Your Goals
A few weeks ago I spotted a thread at the Local Search Forums where someone shared a new user interface for the Google My Business Dashboard or a newsih business being verified in GMB. Now Google kind of gamifies the process of completing your Google My Business profile with incentives. - Google: We Want To Do Better With Dates In Snippets
Yesterday, as we covered, Google posted helpful information around how, when and why Google shows dates in the search results snippets. They provided best practices and tips. But Danny Sullivan of Google came in later to explain they didn't simply post this without the intent that they want to do better with these snippets. - Google Increases Number Of Image Thumbnails In Mobile Search Results
It appears that Google has increased the number of times they are showing image thumbnails in the mobile search results snippets. A report by RankRanger, which I covered yesterday at Search Engine Land, shows that 75% of the search results they track have at least one image thumbnail in the results - which is up from 40%. - Google Tests Portrait Mode Tall Top Stories Layout
Google seems to be testing a portrait mode, i.e. taller mode, for the top stories in the mobile search results. Valentin Pletzer shared some screen shots with me on Twitter and you can see, some are videos and some are just tall images as opposed to square or wide images. - World Wide Web Google Logo For 30th Anniversary
Today on Google's home page is a Doodle, a special Google logo, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web. You have a pixelated Google logo with an old fashion desktop computer from 30 years ago as the Doodle. - Wonder Woman Pixel Art In The Google Dublin Sky Bridge
Check it out, this is from within the sky bridge at the Google Dublin office. Someone put up Wonder Woman pixel art. How cool is that. There are a few photos of it on Instagram already.
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Crawl Control is one of my favorite features in @Bing Webmaster Tools! Most folks have a fixed, constant amount of server capacity, so it makes sense to let crawlers roam free when your users are asleep and limit crawl activ, Frédéric Dubut on Twitter
- Getting stuff into the index for most sites isn't really that much of a problem; we crawl & index, there are sitemaps, feeds, PSHB, etc. Where do you see problems that you'd be willing to use another API for?… https://t.co/i, John Mueller on Twitter
- K-12 artists, there’s just one week left to submit your #DoodleForGoogle ideas! Show us what you hope for and have the chance to be featured on our homepage → https://t.co/aXCsT7s8gj… https://t.co/hZUM8AoOLu, Google on Twitter
- New mobile friendly📱 SEO audit in the @____lighthouse Chrome extension and on https://t.co/kzkvJE0pUI - tap target spacing! Tap targets (links, buttons) need extra space around them so taps don't accidentally hit neighbor, Google Webmasters on Twitter
- To me, it should be something that adds value to my life, especially information, guidance, a product or whatever that I wouldn't get elsewhere. To Google, our raters are given a giant document on how to identify good content., Danny Sullivan on Twitter
- Google testing for index types?, WebmasterWorld
- In this case, the hreflang isn't set correctly. The US version points at /en-us/ but canonical is /en-us (no slash). There's also no link back from the GB version. FWIW to check, I use https://t.co/VBsEWVHyMo & https://t.co/im, John Mueller on Twitter
- Sure, links are important but have you heard of having a website that actually functions., EJ Barnes on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Making the leap from automatic….to intelligent marketing automation
- Report: 65 million US smart speaker owners, smart displays quickly gaining traction
- Google launches marketer-friendly Google Ads API query builder
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
- Cutting Down on Conferences - Preventing Saturation & Preserving Sanity, Polemic Digital
- Google Approved $45 Million Exit Package for Executive Accused of Misconduct, New York Times
- Google's Page Allegedly Awarded $150 Million Rubin Payout, Bloomberg
- Google must be broken up due to its 'overwhelming' power, News Corp says, The Guardian
Links & Promotion Building
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
- Announcing the AMP Conf Lineup!, Accelerated Mobile Pages Project
- Prioritizing mobile speed & accessibility, Think with Google
SEO
- Google Discover: 3 Implications for Organic Search, Seer Interactive
- Google Webmaster Hangout Notes: March 8th 2019, DeepCrawl
- My Search Results were Hacked (How to Detect and Fix it), Chris Garrett
- New commenting plugin option, a book release, and a WordPress milestone, Yoast
- Why Conversion Mapping and SEO Go Hand in Hand, Street Fight
- In Search SEO Podcast 18: How to Effectively Create & Utilize Content Pillars, RankRanger
- Yoast SEO 10.0: Meet the new SEO analysis, Yoast
PPC
- Introducing the Google Ads Query Builder tool, Google Ads Developer Blog
- New Update for Google Call-Only Ads Allows for Additional Lines of Text, Seer Interactive
- The Definitive Guide to Ecommerce PPC on Google, Amazon, & Bing, WordStream
- Learn what’s trending in travel searches, Bing Ads Blog
