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:
- Search News Buzz Video Recap: Zero Google Click Study, Final Mobile First Indexing, Page Experience Rollout & Search Console News
This was an interesting week, let's start with the Sparktoro study claiming 65% of all searches done on Google do not lead to a click to a website. Then Google responded saying this is a misleading statement. This all led to a lot of debate on... - New Google Structured Data & Debugging Tools For Practice Problems & Math Solver Search Results
Google has new structured data markup for the practice problems and math solver search results. We first saw these results in the Google Search results back in late December 2020. Now, Google has officially launched this feature and with that launch has added new markup and reports in Search Console to debug these markup. - Google: Don't Re-block Pages After You Allowed Them To Crawl To See Noindex Tags
Gary Illyes from Google said it is an "silly idea" to re-block or re-disallow pages after you allowed them to crawl that page in order for Google to see the noindex tags on that page. I apologize for the title of this story, it was a hard one to write. - Can Google Add Annotations To Search Console Reports?
Annotations are great in Google Analytics and other tools. You can make a note in the reporting tools on a specific day or data point what happened that you think caused the blip in the data. So if you do a huge redesign one day, annotating that in your reporting tools can be useful when you look back at the data years later. - Google: First Party Data Includes Subdomains, ccTLDs and Vanity URLs Owned By The Company
Ginny Marvin, now of Google, said on Twitter that Google considers subdomains, country TLDs and vanity URLs owned by the same company would be considered a first party context. One caveat is that Google has a 5 domain limit per first-party set for vanity URLs. - Google Adds Free Property To Dataset Structured Data Docs
Google has added isAccessibleForFree to the datasets structured data help document. This new property tells Google Search if the dataset is accessible for free or if you need to pay to access the data. - Semrush At New York Stock Exchange
This photo of Olga Andrienko, the VP of Brand Marketing at Semrush, standing proud at the New York Stock Exchange yesterday morning before the company gores public makes me feel so proud of the search - Programming Note: Offline For Passover On Monday - March 29th
This is a programming note that I will be 100% offline Monday, Marc h 29th for the Passover holiday. Technically, I will be offline straight from Friday night through Monday night, so if anything blows up over the weekend, I won't get to it until Tuesday.
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Quick thread about zero-click data and Google's response. 1) Both my research with @SimilarWeb and Google's blog post said the same thing—Google is sending out more traffic to websites than ever before. That's good news for, Rand Fishkin on Twitter
- The Microsoft @Bing team has created a vaccination answer so you can watch the progress of vaccines roll out in each country and in each state in the US. View it by searching "COVID vaccination" or by visiting the #MicrosoftB, Jordi Ribas on Twitter
- If you're the site owner of SEO of https://t.co/2fyf4U235o, of course it's worthwhile to understand the robots.txt file. If it's not your website,, John Mueller on Twitter
- This week on #SearchOffTheRecord, have a listen to the Q&A portion of Search Central LIVE 🤖 @JohnMu @g33konaut & @methode answer questions about title tag length, AMP, and many more! 🎧 → https://t.co/B, Google Search Central on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Optimize Smart Shopping campaigns: Manage turnover and margin
- Microsoft proposes method to automatically submit URLs from WordPress to search engines
- Google adds practice problems and math solver structured data and Search Console reports
- Keep your presentation actionable and 5 other tips for a successful virtual session; Thursday’s daily brief
- Microsoft Advertising introduces more automation via ad suggestions with auto-apply
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- 7 Custom Analytics Reports, Hallam
- How to analyze data and create reports in Data Studio with Michele Kiss, Super Metrics
- Using Predictive Audiences in Google Analytics 4, Conversion Uplift
- What is Lead Conversion Rate and How to Optimize It?, Databox Blog
- 7 Dead Simple Ways to Reduce Bounce Rate, Moz
Industry & Business
- Semrush IPO: Founders Letter, SEM Rush
- Sundar Pichai’s testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Energy & Commerce, Google Blog
Links & Content Marketing
- Alliance Linking: A Case Study, Majestic Blog
- What is a Content Creator (How to Become a Successful One)?, SEM Rush
Local & Maps
- Why Chat Matters to Google, Near Media
- Google Maps Slammed by Campaigners for Unmoderated Antisemitic Comments on Auschwitz Site, Algemeiner
- H&M store locations vanish from China maps amid boycott over Xinjiang cotton, Fortune
Mobile & Voice
- Amazon Debuts Redesigned Fire TV and Alexa Voice Remote, Voicebot
- Apple goes on AI shopping spree to make Siri smarter, Cult Of Mac
SEO
- Brilliant Basics: Mastering On-Page SEO, Receptional
- How to create an effective retail SEO strategy, Vertical Leap
PPC
Other Search
- Local students team up to help small businesses go online, Google Developers Blog
