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 Mistakenly Sending Emails To Verify Sites In Search Console
Google is emailing users to verify their sites in Google Search Console. The issue is that this is going to people who do not have any way of verifying those sites because they are not the site owner. - Google Drops Review Snippets For Lawyers
It looks like Google has stopped displaying the rich results review snippets for attorneys and lawyers in the Google search results. Joy Hawkins showed a screen shot from January 10, 2021 with ratings showing in the Google search results and then on January 26, 2021 they are gone. - New Google My Business Insights Platform & Device Breakdown
Google My Business seems to be adding to the Insights section new metrics that businesses can use for analytical purposes. The new metrics is called platform and device breakdown that show you the devices people used to find your business in Google Search or Maps. - Google Can Penalize A Network Of Sites For The Same Manual Action
Let's say you run a legit network of sites under one umbrella company. Those sites have different content but the content is in the same framework and structure because I assume they use the same content management system and overall site structure. Guess what, if Google assigns a manual action to one site and knows it is part of a larger network of sites, it can apply that manual action across the other sites in the network. - Google Ads Tests "Site" Label In Search Ads
Here is a small and subtle test that probably will irritate some advertiers. Google Ads is testing placing a label named "Site" between the Ad label and the URL of the search ad in the mobile results. Patrick Garde shared a screen shot of this with me on Twitter. - Microsoft Advertising Filter Link Extensions: More Links In Ads On Bing
Microsoft announced a new Microsoft Advertising search ad extension named Filter Link extensions. These Filter Link extensions enable advertisers to show many different link extensions in their ad snippet, as opposed to one. - Logos Disappearing From Google Local Listings
There are a number of reports in the Local Search Forum that businesses are seeing their logos disappear from their Google local listings in search. I currently see mine so maybe it was a temporary glitch and it is now fixed. - Google Poland Massage Chair
Yesterday we saw robots at the Google Poland office, and part of the same set, I saw this massage chair at that same office. We have seen massage rooms and even someone getting a massage, but I have
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- BrightEdge Crawler, WebmasterWorld
- Twitter's API Opens Its Complete Archive To Qualified Academic Research, WebmasterWorld
- With a 301 redirect you're telling everyone (including search engines) that a URL has changed & that the content has moved. That's a completely normal thing to do, no problem with that :), John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- Google Analytics 4: The New Analytics Property You Need, rTraction
- How to Automate Screaming Frog With Google Data Studio, Screaming Frog
- URL Query Parameters In GA, Search Discovery
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
- Report: Manufacturing Marketers Seeing Early Success with Content Marketing, KoMarketing
- Start 2021 Off With A Superior Content Calendar, BrightEdge
- Study: Who Has the Largest Index of Links?, Perficient Blogs
- How to quickly find your most linked to pages in ahrefs, Koozai
Local & Maps
- Apple Sued Over Navigation App, Is Google Maps Next?, AutoEvolution
- Google Maps improves discoverability in Indian Languages with automatic translation, Digit
Mobile & Voice
- Web Stories, not Web Teasers, Google Blog
SEO
- Biden and Harris have cleaned house at the White House, Content King App
- SERP Feature Rank Tracking, RankRanger
PPC
- Report: Q4 2020 Google trends for the B2B eCommerce industry, Vertical Leap
Search Features
- GotConn Privacy Search Engine Launches, Bill Hartzer
- How to Find... anything. #2: How to find recipes and nutrition information, SearchReSearch
Other Search
- Stabilizing Live Speech Translation in Google Translate, Google AI Blog
