Daily Search Forum Recap: January 20, 2021

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 Continues Injecting Links Into Featured Snippets
  Last November, I reported that Google was testing showing links in a featured snippet that links not to the featured snippet site but to a third-party web site. Well, Google has continued that test and here is another example.
• Google Expandable Knowledge Panels More Visible
  Google seems to be expanding showing its expandable knowledge panels user interface. What is meant by expandable knowledge panel is that the right hand side knowledge panel you see in the search results sometimes can show expandable and collapsable menus to show more segments of information.
• Google Search Custom Date Range Is Now Fixed
  If you go to Google.com and do a search and then try to restrict your search by custom date, you were out of luck over the past few days. The calendar dialog box would not let you click or select any dates. This has been a bug for the past few days and Google has just resolved it.
• Google Search Indexing Tiers
  In addition to the language indexing diversity, Gary Illyes from Google said in the Search Off the Record podcast that Google uses different indexing tiers. He said the search company "might use different kinds of storages to build the index." Some of the index goes on cheaper storage and some go on more expensive storage to be served and accessed faster.
• Google Diversity With Indexing Languages For Search
  Gary Illyes from Google said in the Search Off the Record podcast that the search company makes efforts to ensure it indexes a diverse set of languages. Gary said that Google is "paying quite a bit of attention into ensuring that every language has the same potential indexing-wise."
• New Googlers Getting Noogler Hats 8 Months In
  Here is a new Googler, a Noogler, who said he just received his Noogler propeller hat. It seems he started working at Google 8 months ago, back in June. He works in the Zurich office, so maybe it take

Other Great Search Forum Threads:

• Accepted Health Insurance Feature on Google My Business, Local Search Forum
• We don't differentiate whether it's on a cloud storage service or not -- if it's publicly accessible, allowed to be crawled & indexed, and findable through crawling, we may index it., John Mueller on Twitter
• DuckDuckGo Reaches 100 Million searches/day, WebmasterWorld
• Not necessarily (they're essentially independent results just shown together), and sometimes it can be a bit confusing :-/. Using hrefla, John Mueller on Twitter
• Titles are a bit unique (also because we often do magic with the titles we show). FWIW we do render that page for search, so I think anything you see there is independent of rendering. It's an interesting, John Mueller on Twitter
• To be frank, most people don't read those outreach emails. Mark as spam and move on., John Mueller on Twitter

Search Engine Land Stories:

• DuckDuckGo’s focus on privacy-minded users pushes it past 100 million searches in a single day
• The SMX Report agenda is live!
• Google crawl stats report now showing more crawls
• Video: Phillip Thune on finding good writers and writing good content

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

• Four steps to get started with the next generation of Google Analytics, Google

Industry & Business

• Behind the Google-Facebook deal that is the focus of an antitrust suit., New York Times
• Changing the narrative around mental health at work, Google Blog
• Help build a digital future in Central & Eastern Europe, Google Blog
• Scoop: Google is investigating the actions of another top AI ethicist, Axios
• Trump pardon: Levandowski for Google self-driving tech theft, 9to5Google

Links & Content Marketing

• Content Writing: How To Write and Order Different Types of Content, SEM Rush
• Using Answer The Public For Quick & Effective Content Ideas, Koozai

Local & Maps

• The 9 Best Sales Forecast Templates for Growing Your Local Business, WordStream

Mobile & Voice

• Google Assistant and Alexa Were Invisible and Everywhere at CES 2021, Voicebot

SEO

• 70% of Marketers Say Their Investment in Video will Increase in 2021, KoMarketing
• Keyword Difficulty: How to Measure Ranking Possibility, SEM Rush
• How to Create an SEO Dashboard, RankRanger
• The New Era of SEO Automation: Bridging the gap between marketing and engineering, DeepCrawl

PPC

• Google Ads and Bing PPC Audit Checklist: How To Audit Your PPC Campaign, Know Agency
• How to Find Related Keywords and How to Use Them, SEM Rush

Other Search

• Shame, suicide and the dodgy loan apps plaguing Google’s Play Store, WIRED