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 Right Side Featured Snippet No Longer Deduplicated - For Now...
Google has come through and has now stopped deduplicating the featured snippets that show up on the right side. That is until Google moves the right side featured snippets to the top left position. Google said they would do this temporarily until Google does move those featured snippets. - Did Forbes Google Search Traffic Just Completely Die?
A senior writer at Forbes, shared some data on Twitter showing that Forbes.com has seen a huge and very concerning drop in traffic from Google organic search. He said traffic is "down circa 10x" starting January 27th at 11pm ET. He posted this on Twitter saying "Seeing huge hits to Forbes ranking and traffic (down circa 10x) since the new Google search algorithm was applied. Any idea if there's a problem? Some (usually popular) articles not reaching 100 views in 24h." - Tons Of Google My Business Suspensions
Google My Business has performed more and more business suspensions recently according to local SEO experts. In fact, the appeal form seems to have a notice that says there is a high volume of questions around suspension notices. - Vlog #41: Lisa Barone About Writing About SEO & Implementing Strategies To Help Clients Win
Lisa Barone (@lisabarone) invited me, well, I invited myself, to her office, Overit, up in Albany, New York. It was my first time in a Church, although her office is no longer a church. In any event, Lisa and I go way back... - Google: Mixed Languages In URLs Are Fine For Search
Google's John Mueller said it doesn't hurt you to used mixed languages in your URLs but it might confuse users who look at your URLs. John was asked on Twitter "Mixing language in url path" is it bad? John said "I don't see a problem with that." - Google Chrome In Google Search Tests Hiding URLs In URL Bar
So domains are the most important part of the URL, eh? Well, here is Google Chrome testing hiding the Google search URL from displaying and instead just showing the query you entered into Google. - Feats Of Engineering Google Silver Box Award
Here is a random photo I found online, it is of an award named "Feats of Engineering 2019" and has the G logo at the top. It is a silver box and Lin who posted this on Instagram said this is a "Google
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- I need your feedback! Do you like to see structured data examples on the page, fully expanded, or do long examples make it harder to read through (they make the page too long)? Check out these mocks, and then vote in the poll, Lizzi Harvey on Twitter
- An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google, Hacker News
- Huh "refine by assistant support" is a new one to me https://t.co/m9LlaIIO6a, Dan Shure on Twitter
- Just to follow up here, we reviewed a lot of these reports internally with the team to find out more. There is no, John Mueller on Twitter
- New Off-Facebook Activity" Tool is Live For All Users, WebmasterWorld
- Yes I’ll follow up on that as well. Apologies for the image., Danny Sullivan on Twitter
- I don't see search being able to cope particularly well with that many domain shifts. That's not a common situation..., John Mueller on Twitter
- If you're creating guest posts and dropping in links, those aren't really natural links, are they?, John Mueller on Twitter
- Just because links aren't used doesn't mean you have to disavow them. Lots of links on the web aren't used, that's normal. On the other hand, if you spammed sites to create lots of profile links, that, John Mueller on Twitter
- Per our analysis of the top 200 results it appears that Google is not replicating the URLs used in Featured Snippets within the organic results AT ALL! #SEO #FeaturedSnippets https://t.co/ZBfOwHAKeJ, Rank Ranger on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Beyond Google and Facebook advertising: 17 ad platforms you should try
- DuckDuckGo has other ideas for Google’s EU search choice screen
- Free Search Marketing Expo passes are here!
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- New Enterprise IT Controls for Data Studio, Google Blog
- The Custom HTML Tag Guide For Google Tag Manager, Simo Ahava's blog
- Using Data Studio to Convert Multi-currency Reports, Practical Ecommerce
Industry & Business
- Google Developing New ‘Unified’ Communications App for Businesses, The Information
- Google Wants to Pour Money Into San Jose. The City Has a Few Demands., Wall Street Journal
- Leaving Google, Brad Fitzpatrick
- What Do Amazon, Google and Salesforce Have in Common? In-House Music Groups., Wall Street Journal
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
- New Google Assistant available with three-button navigation scheme, Mobile Syrup
- Siri or Alexa can't help quit drinking and smoking, get confused by questions on drugs, find researchers, MEAWW
SEO
- 2020 Prediction Month: Identifying Macro-Marketing Trends in SEO - Collin Colburn // Forrester, Search Metrics
- Pop-ups, Overlays, Modals & Interstitials Best Practices, Seer Interactive
- Five retail SEO tips for converting traffic into customers, Vertical Leap
- Google Webmaster Hangout Notes: January 24th 2020, DeepCrawl
PPC
- How telcos are embracing a digital transformation, Google Blog
- Learn How to Create PPC Campaigns for Addiction Treatment Facilities, WordStream
- Merkle Q4 2019 Digital Marketing Report Released, Merkle
- Update to Political content policy (January 2020), Advertising Policies Help
- Google Ads Call Tracking - What, How and Why?, Hallam
Search Features
- Google Translate is getting a transcribe mode for lectures, speeches, Engadget
- Search Preference Menus: Improving Choice With Design, DuckDuckGo
- Bing Implements UX Change to Reduce Missed Clicks, Search Engine Journal
