Daily Search Forum Recap: January 9, 2020

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: FAQ Schema Must Be On Page, Not In External PDF
  Google's John Mueller said you really cannot use FAQ schema for PDF documents. John said on Twitter "It needs to be visible on the page, and reflect the primary object on the page" when he was asked if a PDF can be used.
• Google: As Search Engines Get Better At Intent, Keyword Research Won't Go Away
  Earlier this week, Frédéric Dubut, the PM of overall Bing's core search team, said that 2020 will be the year where keyword research becomes obsolete, you can read exactly what he said there. Well...
• Google Local/Maps With "In Between" Links To Other Businesses
  Google Maps and Local can show in a business listing profile the address but near the address it sometimes shows other businesses nearby. Well, now it can also show where that business is sandwiched in between other businesses.
• Bing Pages Launches To Promote Your Public Persona
  Bing has quietly launched Bing Pages, a beta program that lets users manage their presence on Microsoft products such as Bing and Outlook.com. You can access it over at https://www.bing.com/bp/gettingstarted
• Google Search Console Crawl Stats Report Data Fixed
  Google seems to have fixed the stalled data in the crawl stats report within Google Search Console. A couple of days ago we reported that it was stuck at December 30th, but as of this morning, it has now been updated to show data as recent as a few days ago - which is normal.
• Google Slides At CES
  Google set up a set of slides that goes into a bunch of white balls in a ball pit at the big CES show. Here is a photo of it from TechCrunch. I wonder how many people at the show went on the slides?

Other Great Search Forum Threads:

• Chrome 80 Update To Have Quieter Permissions UI for Notifications, WebmasterWorld
• Goodbye (1/3) https://t.co/A7pvei6SH6, Aaron Bradley on Twitter
• New episode on my Search Console Youtube series 🎬: Performance report! Watch it to learn how to monitor and optimize your site's performance in Google Search 💪 https://t.co/UBYMIBrJhl, Daniel Waisberg on Twitter
• Sonos Sues Google Over Patent Infringements, WebmasterWorld
• Today is a very special day for us: it marks two years since we first introduced the new Search Console 🥳. So we’d like to take the opportunity to thank you, our users 🙏! And happy new year 🎉!, Google Webmasters on Twitter
• Twitter Plans New "Conversation Participants" Settings, WebmasterWorld
• Site saw a massive drop with the September 2019 core update. I hope he can turn it around -> CollegeHumor collapses after parent company pulled its funding, laying off more than 100 employees, and leaving a longtime executive, Glenn Gabe on Twitter
• We just don't index everything on the web, that can be completely normal. Making sure that a site is of high quality, unique & compelling can help our systems to focus more on it, for example., John Mueller on Twitter

Search Engine Land Stories:

• Here’s some data to help you understand how to rank better with your brand name
• With Bing Pages, brands can manage their profiles across Microsoft products, including Bing Search
• Google handles reconsideration requests in batches
• Video: Brian Dean on growing YouTube subscribers and the nofollow link change
• Google’s John Mueller on intent research vs keyword research for 2020

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

• 3 New Google Data Studio Features That You Need To Know, Metric Theory
• Data-driven UX with Google Analytics, UX Collective
• The Beginner‘s Definitive Guide to Google Analytics, SEM Rush

Industry & Business

• ‘I Simply Cannot Justify Staying Here’: Google Engineer Encourages Workers To Avoid Pittsburgh Over Air Quality Concerns, CBS Pittsburgh
• Google may be looking to jump start its cloud competition with Salesforce acquisition, OnMSFT

Local & Maps

• TomTom co-founder: Free driving maps on phones come at the expense of your privacy, inews

Mobile & Voice

• Apple Says App Store Set Single-Day Spending Record of $386 Million on New Year's Day, MacRumors

SEO

• Find Competitive Keywords, Ranking Distributions, & Common Questions: 3 Workflows for Smarter Keyword Research, Moz
• IndexWatch: The UK SEO Winners of 2019, SISTRIX
• Three Effective Strategies To Combat Zero-Click Searches On Google, Forbes

PPC

• Why Should I Buy My Brand Keywords?, Location3 Media
• Expanded Transparency and More Controls for Political Ads, About Facebook

Search Features

• Bing loses out to DuckDuckGo in Google’s new Android search engine ballot, The Verge

Other Search

• 20/20 Vision: Google Expands its Update Communications, Searchmetrics
• Iran missile attack: Google, YouTube produce trusted search results, USA Today