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 has posted a page that documents the visual elements of the Google Search results page, which is helpful. Google also finally made a Google Status dashboard for Google Search. Google said time spent on page is not a ranking factor. Google said disallowing crawling of your site won't lead to your pages being removed from Google Search quickly. Google said returning a 500/503 status code on your robots.txt can lead to your site being removed. And the Chanukah decorations are up at Google Search. And yes, there was a Google link spam update this afternoon - more on that tomorrow...
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- New Google Search Status Dashboard Tells Us When Crawling, Indexing Or Serving Goes Down
I always wondered why Google had status dashboards for hundreds of other products across Gmail, Drive, Google Ads, etc., but not for Google Search - its most important product/service. But that all changed today when Google launched its Google Search Status Dashboard report. - Google Gives Official Names Of Some Search Features With Visual Elements Gallery
Google has launched a new visual elements of Google Search gallery that documents some of the more popular search features in Google Search. Now we no longer have to guess or make up names for some of the Google Search features. - Google Again: Time Spent On Page Is Not A Ranking Factor
Google's John Mueller repeated it, the time spent on a page by your users is not a factor Google uses for ranking. Time spent on the page is not a Google ranking factor, he said, "It doesn't," meaning Google doesn't care about time spent on the page for ranking purposes. - Google: Disallowing Crawling Is Not A Super Fast Way To Deindex A Site
John Mueller of Google said in a post on Reddit that disallowing Googlebot to crawl your site would not immediately lead to the site being deindexed. He added that "it would take quite some time for the whole site to drop out," and the home page may not be dropped at all. - 500/503 HTTP Status Code On Robots.txt Can Remove Your Site From Google Search
Gary Illyes from Google said on LinkedIn that if your server returns a 500/503 HTTP status code for an extended period of time for your robots.txt file, then Google may remove your site completely from Google Search. - Google Hanukkah Decorations Are Live For 2022
I've been checking for the past week, multiple times per day, and just now, Google has launched the Chanukah/Hanukkah decorations for the 2022 season. Chanukah starts this Sunday night, so I was expecting it to come soon, and it is here with a family around a table playing dreidel. - Google Chef Cooks Thanksgiving Turkey At Google
Here is a photo from Thanksgiving at one of the Google offices. A Google chef made a turkey at the Google office for some Googlers. The turkey looks amazing. I love turkey. 🦃
Other Great Search Threads:
- If the robots.txt file returns 404 that's seen as a sign that there are no crawling restrictions., John Mueller on Mastodon
- Google added new beta attributes when leaving a review, Local Search Forum
- Bravo to our APAC award winners for their passion and dedication to the Help Communities all year long!, Google's Product Experts Program on Twitter
- Won the Mentorship Award. #PES22, Kenichi Suzuki on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Google launches visual elements gallery documenting 22 elements on the Google Search results page
- 2 new Google data-driven attribution features
- After the content audit: 7 steps for improving content
- 6 SEO considerations for a successful international expansion
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- GA4 Migration and Implementation, Omi Sido
Industry & Business
- Alphabet’s ‘Other Bets’ Come Under Pressure as Health Focus Grows, The Information
- Google asks court to toss out federal antitrust lawsuit, Yahoo Finance
- States Demand That Google, Apple Raise Content Ratings for TikTok, Wall Street Journal
- Google ready to layoff 10,000 employees? Here's what CEO Sundar Pichai said, BusinessToday
- Supreme Court asks for Biden administration's views in Google copyright case, Reuters
Links & Content Marketing
- Support the B2B Buyer Revolution With Digital Content, Content Marketing Institute
- What are "nofollow" links?, Wix SEO Hub
Local & Maps
- Law Firm Sues Google to Unmask User Behind One-Star Review, New York Law Journal
- Local Marketing Confidence Survey 2023, BrightLocal
Mobile & Voice
- Apple should be fined $6.4 million over iOS 14 privacy, says French advisor, AppleInsider
- Google Lens just became slightly less accessible on Pixel phones, XDA Developers
SEO
- 5 Ways to Better Partner with Your SEO Clients, Rank Ranger
- Figuring out finicky 404s, Google Search Central YouTube
- Inclusive language and SEO: Does inclusive language help you rank?, Yoast
- Infographic: Google algorithm updates in 2022, Oncrawl
- The Value of Near Me Search Optimization in 2023, Advice Local
- Top 10 SEO FAQs Answered by Bruce Clay, Bruce Clay
- 11 Best SEO YouTube Channels to Level Up Your SEO Game, 99 Signals
- How big of an SEO problem is duplicate content?, SERP's Up SEO Podcast
PPC
- Deprecation of New Smart Display Campaign Creation in the Google Ads API, Google Ads Developer Blog
- How to Perform Niche Keyword Research Effectively?, PPC Expo
- Using data-driven attribution, Google Blog
Search Features
- 18 Google Scholar tips all students should know, Google Blog
Other Search
- Helping robots learn from each other, Google Blog
- How we’re making music creation easier on the Web, Google Blog
- Morgan Stanley weighs in on ChatGPT and the risk to Google's search business, CNBC
Feedback:
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