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 Home Smart Displays How-To Tutorials, Like Recipes
Google has been showing recipes, like step by step on how to make certain dishes, on Google Home Hub or smart displays for years. But now it seems Google is showing tutorials on these smart displays if you have how-to markup. - Bing URL Submission WordPress Plugin Outreach By Microsoft
Microsoft Bing is sending emails to some site owners after installing the new URL submission WordPress plugin. The email is to let these site owners know of a "large number of failures in submission of URLs" to the Bing index. This is leading to searchers "not seeing your domain on priority in the index." This does not sound great but it seems Bing is on top of it. - Google Tests New Interface For Local Q&A Box?
I think this is a new interface for the old Google Local Q&A box that launched sometime in 2017 or so. Here is the new look that Valentin Pletzer spotted and posted about on Twitter. - Google Sending Work From Home Telecommute Markup Notifications
Google is sending out some emails to those websites that have job listings and can support work from home job positions. As you know, back in February 2018, Google added markup support to its job schema for telecommute ad a job location. Now, with COVID-19, Google is asking those with this schema to annotate your remote jobs with the job location as telecommute. - Google Drops The Wear A Mask. Save Lives. Doodle
Today on Google's home page was suppose to be a special Google Doodle, a special Google logo, to get people to wear masks. It showed the different letters in the Google logo, wearing different types of masks and then social distancing. Here is the GIF: - Matt Cutts & Danny Sullivan In Another Time
Here is an old photo from 2014 of Matt Cutts when he was working at Google and Danny Sullivan when he was not working at Google together. They are at some event and Danny is showing Matt his Microsoft
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- CES Goes All-Digital for 2021, WebmasterWorld
- Google Removes Over 70 Chrome Extensions For "Spying" on Users, WebmasterWorld
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook set to preview antitrust defenses before Congress
- Google rolling out LSAs and ‘Google Screened’ to select professional services nationally
- How are marketers improving remote team communication?
- Bing Webmaster Tools gets a new robots.txt tester
- Google’s tools now recognize “Web Story”
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- Enhanced Measurement Feature in Google Analytics App + Web, Online Metrics
Industry & Business
- Google’s Top Search Result? Surprise! It’s Google, The Markup
- Pichai argues ‘Google’s continued success is not guaranteed’, 9to5Google
- Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai: Google has plenty of competition, CNBC
- Former Google Engineer Argues Prison Term Is a ‘Death Sentence’, Bloomberg
- Google in Talks to Take Over More Search Tasks on Samsung Phones, Bloomberg
Links & Content Marketing
- What is B2B Content Marketing? 7 Successful Examples, Ahrefs
- 5 Unheralded SEO Tools for Content Marketers, Online Marketing Blog
- Broken Link Building, Koozai
Local & Maps
- GMB Primary Category Effects Features Available - Choose Carefully, LocalU.org
- New Google Screened Categories Available for Local Services Ads, Local University
- BMW's update with wireless Android Auto is rolling out, Engadget
Mobile & Voice
- Google quietly refreshes Nest Hub retail box, 9to5Google
- Introducing the Eleventy AMP Plugin, The AMP Blog
SEO
- Should you optimize your content for questions?, Yoast
- The REAL Cost of SEO: A Practical Guide to SEO Pricing and Services, BruceClay
- Why Digital PR & SEO is a Marathon, not a Sprint in 2020, State of Digital
- How SEO helped businesses survive COVID-19, Vertical Leap
- How to Optimize for Featured Snippets (Part 1), RankRanger
PPC
- Merkle Q2 2020 Digital Marketing Report Released, Merkle
- The Psychology of Inclusion, Microsoft Advertising
Search Features
