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 launched a new user agent to let you block your content from Bard or other AI Google projects, its named Google-Extended. Google rolled out new algorithm updates for SGE and the about this result feature as well. Google Ads email shows pressure from ad VP on the Chrome team. Google local chat with an agent is expanding. Bing Chat history for personalized answers seems to only work on Edge. Wix now supports IndexNow. And I posted the weekly video recap.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Google-Extended Is The New Google Crawler To Block Bard Or Google AI
Google has announced a new Googlebot, a new Google crawler, named Google-Extended that you can use to control if your content can help improve Bard and Vertex AI generative APIs or future Google AI products. So if you want to disallow Bard from using your content, you specify so in your robots.txt with the user agent Google-Extended. - Google Local Chat With A Live Agent Rolling Out?
In May we reported Google was testing a "chat with a live agent" button for some local panels within Google Search. Well, that feature might be rolling out more fully now. - Google Rolls Out Updates To The Search Generative Experience Including Algorithm Improvements
Google has rolled out some updates to the Search Generative Experience (SGE) the company announced on its blog. One update is that SGE should now respond with higher-quality, more accurate responses, the second update is to write responses on sensitive topics based on Google's quality and safety principles. Google also released the about this result feature for AI SGE responses. - Bing Chat History For Personalized Answers Only For Edge Now
Last week, we reported about the new Bing Chat personalized answers feature that uses your chat history to give you a more tailored answer to your queries. But that might only work in Edge, Microsoft's browser. - IndexNow Added To Wix
Wix now supports IndexNow, the Microsoft initiative to make indexing more efficient and faster. With that, Microsoft said, "more than 60 million websites are publishing over 1.4 billion URLs per day to the IndexNow API." - Google Ads VP Emails Chrome & Search Team For Ranking Tweaks & Query Injections From Chrome
A new email was leaked as part of the DOJ investigation, this was was from Jerry Dischler, the Vice President of Google Ads. The email was to Prabhakar Raghavan, who leads up all of search including Google Search and Google Ads but also to the leads of the Chrome team. - Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google September Helpful Content Update Done, SGE Updates, Links Not A Top Ranking Factor, Bing Hiding Ads & Google’s 25th Birthday
This week in search, Google finished rolling out the September 2023 helpful content update, which seemed to target SEO-first, search engine-first content in a big way. Google won't be rolling back that update, if you were wondering... - Human Art At Google
Here is a photo from the GooglePlex, the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. You can see a side view of this art project shows a human silhouette of sorts. I have not seen this yet but
Other Great Search Threads:
- 25 Years of Google PPC?, WebmasterWorld
- Cross-linking is a great idea - you could also do it from the blog post to LI, to encourage more people to follow you there, growing both channels., John Mueller on Mastodon
- It's usually less of an issue there as the meaning doesn't fundamentally change. "{{something}}" is (I think) a valid URL, so you're going from setting to another. Adding/removing text is more of a more subtle. It changes the indexing content, but not whe, John Mueller on X
- Oversearching is not bad: the system is trying to make sure there is no news about this topic, no new meaning for the word. If Searching results are not useful - it just discards them, there is latency penalty, but we are trying to minimize it., Mikhail Parakhin on X
- PS... Reminder that if you add both a disallow rule for a certain path in your robots.txt file and also a noindex rule for the files under that path, search engines will only ever see the disallow rule because they're not allowed to crawl those files., Gary Illyes on LinkedIn
- This has been making the rounds since decades. If there were something to gain from it, there would be clear & obvious case-studies showing it & we'd document it as such (since it's a technical thing). I wouldn't lose any sleep over it., John Mueller on X
- At times we may ask businesses to verify their identity or business operations again. For example, you may be asked to re-verify your identity or business operations if there are significant changes in your Google Ads, AdsLiaison on X
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Google introduces Google-Extended to let you block Bard, Vertex AI via robots.txt
- Google Search Generative Experience adds About this result feature
- $84 billion of ad spend lost due to ad fraud in 2023
- Why it’s time to reevaluate your match type and bidding strategy
- Understanding explicit vs. implicit searches: The key to dominating local SEO
- What to do when performance tanks in PPC
- How to communicate Google core updates to executives
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- Introduction to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) | GA4 FTW!, Measure Minds Group
- 5 Google Analytics Reports Every PPC Marketer Needs To Know, Search Engine Journal
Industry & Business
- Google Antitrust Trial: Microsoft Wanted Bing Default Search on Apple, Bloomberg
- Microsoft executive says Google deals kept Bing small, Nasdaq
- Google trying to seal testimony as antitrust trial enters third week, CBS News
- Microsoft reportedly pitched Apple on buying Bing to no avail, The Verge
Links & Content Marketing
- How To Find Gaps in Your Content Strategy, Content Marketing Institute
- 5 Highlights You May Have Missed at CMWorld, Content Marketing Institute
Local & Maps
- How To Download Apple Maps For Offline Use, Robots
- The Latest iPhone Update Gives Google Maps Users a Good Reason to Switch to Apple Maps, AutoEvolution
Mobile & Voice
- Apple research could bring us smart clothes, bags, or sofas, appl
- ChatGPT Does Its Best Siri Impression; SAP Joins the Ranks of AI Assistant Providers like Google, Amazon and Microsoft, The Information
- New Assistant At a Glance widget starts appearing on more Android phones, Android Central
SEO
- Can AI do multilingual SEO translation and localization?, Wix SEO Hub
- Google Loophole Lets Drug Dealers Hijack Nearly Any Website to Sell Narcotics, Business Insider
PPC
- Bing Chat responses infiltrated by ads pushing malware, blee
- Changes in dynamic ad targets reporting, Google Ads Developer Blog
- How Can I Test a Small Google Ads Account on a Limited Budget?, ZATO Marketing
- How to Find Keywords for Blog Using Keyword Research Tool?, PPC Expo
Other Search
- UK pushes for greater access to AI’s inner workings to assess risks, Financial Times
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