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's Danny Sullivan said the helpful content update is a big deal but it is just not a big shake-up to the search results. We may see the new Google featured snippets design and callouts. Google Ads top content bid strategies is going away next month. Google said crawl spikes are not signs of an update, again. Google is testing a new office hours format, I wonder if people will like this format better...
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Danny Sullivan: Google Helpful Content Update Is Big But Not A Huge Shake-Up
So many of you, including myself, are wondering why Google would make such a big deal of an upcoming update when the update itself is not that huge of a shakeup to the search results. There is an interesting back and forth between Glenn Gabe, an SEO consultant, and Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, about just that. - New Google Featured Snippet With Multiple Answers, New Design, Callouts & More?
I am wondering if the screenshots below are the new featured snippet callouts Google spoke about almost a month ago. You can see bolded callouts, multiple answers for a featured snippet block, and a newish design that looks a bit like the knowledge panel design test we saw earlier. - Google Ads Top Content Bids To Stop Working October 2022
Google Ads has stopped supporting the top content bid adjustments and in October 2022 will migrate campaigns using content bid adjustments to automatically default to 0%. - Google: Crawl Rate Spikes Not A Sign Of The Helpful Content Update Rollout
Google's John Mueller was asked if a spike in crawler activity would be a sign that the helpful content update is rolling out. John said no, as expected because he said no to this question numerous times on previous updates. - Google Tests New Format For SEO Office Hours - Do You Like It?
Historically, I mean for over a decade, John Mueller was the single person answering questions from SEOs on the Google SEO office hours segment. Recently John announced changes to the format and it seems like once again, John is making changes to the format. - Outdoor Google Bowling
At the Google Boulder Field day event, they had bowling. So here is a real Google bowling, not the PPC kind, by real Googlers at a Google office.
Other Great Search Threads:
- Addressing the criticism of Ahrefs, Reddit
- Bug where managers & owners of a GBP couldn't answer Q&A as the brand seems to be resolved. I tested as the owner and the manager of the SS account. As long as you access the Q&A via the SERP/NMX - you can now, Carrie Hill on Twitter
- First time seeing Google auto-including 'Performance Insight' annotations on account performance dropdowns., Greg on Twitter
- Just because one page on a site ranks well does not mean all pages will. That's kinda expected., John Mueller on Twitter
- Like I mentioned, that report has nothing to do with manual actions. We just don't report on all pages in aggregate reports, and the sample can change over time. That's normal., John Mueller on Twitter
- Would you like to know what experts advise about managing multi-regional and multilingual sites? In this episode of #AskGoogleBot, @JohnMu shares best practices for multilingual pages. Watch it here., Google Search Central on Twitter
- You can, but I'd try to avoid cloaking like this, since it opens the room for problems that are really tricky to debug. Our systems tend to learn irrelevant URL parameters, you can help wi, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- How to create, analyze and optimize Dynamic Search Ads
- Google will update ad Destination requirements policy in October
- Bill Slawski’s SEO by the Sea website to live on
- Google top content bids are going away in October
- Google: Best to have a primary language one a page and not mix languages
- Microsoft launched 5 new ad products and updates
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- Why Google Search Console & Google Analytics Data Never Matches, iPullRank
- GOV.UK monitoring to move to Google Analytics 4, UKAuthority
- Web Tracking with Google Analytics 4, DataDrivenInvestor
Industry & Business
- Registration Now Open for Pubcon Austin 2023, Pubcon Pro
- Why Google says AIs shouldn't be issued patents, POLITICO
- Google 'pro-competitive', says Sundar Pichai, sees vibrant tech market, Business Standard News
- Google CEO says he hopes to make company '20% more' efficient, hints at potential cuts, CNBC
- Google CEO Sundar Pichai interview at Code Conference, The Verge
- Sundar Pichai Says Google ‘Pro-Competitive’, Bloomberg
Links & Content Marketing
- Branded Content Examples, Content Marketing Institute
- Why Ottawa’s efforts to get Google and Facebook to pay for news content misses the mark, The Conversation
Local & Maps
- How to Search Through a Business' Google Reviews, SearchLab Digital
- More ways to drive sustainably and save money with Google Maps, Google Blog
Mobile & Voice
- Google announces Pixel hardware event for October 6, 9to5Google
- Nest Hub Max 'Quick phrases' can skip 'Hey Google', 9to5Google
- What’s new for businesses in Android 13, Google Blog
SEO
- 5 Steps to Boost Your Video SEO, RankRanger
- How to Generate Data-Driven Copy for Ecommerce Category Pages with GPT-2, iPullRank
- SERP analysis using 3 Python scripts, Oncrawl
- When to Stop SEO, Leverable SEO
- Will SEO Be a Thing in 20 Years? | The SEO Weekly: Episode 36, iPullRank
- NLP SEO: What is it and how does it work?, Rank Ranger
PPC
- Grassroots Marketing Examples to Create Amplifying Campaigns, PPC Expo
- Why Apple's digital ad business is gaining an edge over Google and Facebook, Yahoo Finance
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