Daily Search Forum Recap: April 3, 2019

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 Explains 301 Redirects Are Not Links But...
  Google's John Mueller said that while 301 redirects are not seen by Google as links, the links pointing to the redirected page can pass through to the destination page. But 301s are primarily used for canonical purposes by Google he said.
• Google Trick For Sites Not Ready To Be Listed In Google
  I'll start off by saying I wouldn't necessarily classify this as a trick but John Mueller of Google called it a trick. If your site gets indexed and ranks in Google but you aren't ready for that to happen, you can use the site-removal tool in Search Console to remove it and then cancel that request when you are ready to have it show back up in Google.
• Google Tests Icons In Search For Maps, Images, Videos & Top Stories
  Last week we reported that Google was testing a new top bar with icons next to the search filters for maps, videos, images, etc. Now I am seeing additional reports of Google testing the icons not just in the search bar but also in the search results page.
• Google Expands AMP Stories To Google Arts & Culture
  Google's Satyajeet Salgar posted on Twitter that the Google search team launched a new feature with the Google Arts and Culture to bring their content to the AMP Stories format in search. AMP stories launched over a year ago to provide a more interactive experience in search around certain knowledge panels.
• Google Search Console Enhancement Reports Data Change
  Google posted on the data anomalies page for the Search Console tool that "for most enhancement reports, data is now being collected from more pages than previously reported. Because of this, you might see an increase in issues and affected items/pages on these reports."
• Google Festivus Conference Room
  Did you know that Google's New York City office has a conference room labeled "Festivus" - if not, you shouldn't be surprised. If you search for [festivus] all year round, you get the festivus pole in

Other Great Search Forum Threads:

• schema.org v3.5 released https://t.co/o1pCfYHcfn @danbri…, Aaron Bradley on Twitter
• Facebook Could Pay Publishers For News Content, WebmasterWorld
• Following my announcement of search project. Do you know that it is extremely easy for us to detect PBNs (unlike for some other crawlers, e.g. Googlebot, he he)? Most of them are blocking our crawler so we don’t even need, Dmitry Gerasimenko on Twitter
• Google is not showing aggregate rating on SERP, Local Search Forum
• No, feel free to use the privacy settings as you want them.…, John Mueller on Twitter
• No, just because they're listed doesn't mean they're important.…, John Mueller on Twitter

Search Engine Land Stories:

• Aimclear’s Mark Traphagen on content marketing, thought leadership and ‘religiously sharing what you know’
• The anatomy of an SEO robocall scheme
• Who’s speaking at SMX Advanced?
• Local-Services ads appearing in Google Home voice results

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

• How Data Analytics Can Help a Business Grow, Analytics Insight

Industry & Business

• Google requiring temporary workers, contractors get health care coverage, parental leave, TheHill
• Step into the Spotlight as a Community Speaker at MozCon 2019, Moz

Local & Maps

• Best Navigation Apps: Google Maps vs. Apple Maps vs. Waze vs. MapQuest, Gadget Hacks
• Spotify for Android testing Google Maps integration, more, 9to5Google
• WP Google Maps Plugin Vulnerable to SQL Injection Exploit, Search Engine Journal

Mobile & Voice

• AMPproject.org moves to amp.dev, AMPHTML Blog
• Hey Google, talk like a Legend, Google Blog
• McDonald's Canada functionality comes to Google Assistant, Mobile Syrup

SEO

• How Deep is Google’s Love?: Where the In-Depth Articles have Gone (and What it Means for You), Five Blocks
• How to Diagnose and Solve JavaScript SEO Issues in 6 Steps, Moz
• SEO This Week Episode 113 - Update Analysis, Ahrefs, Link Tax, Digitaleer
• The Winners and Losers of Google’s “March 2019 Core Update”, Search Metrics
• Why You Should Learn SEO Yourself & Avoid Major Pitfalls, Ezoic Blog

PPC

• Google Analytics and Google Ads: A Powerful Pairing, Google Blog
• Google Shopping Product Feed Optimization: How to Optimize Your Data Feed for Better Ad Performance, Go Inflow
• Python 2 Deprecation in Ads API Client Libraries, Google Ads Developer Blog
• Drive customers to action with Action Extensions, Bing Ads Blog