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.
Reddit blamed Google's search algorithms for not meeting its expected user growth - yea, no joke. Google Search is now faster, about 60 milliseconds faster. Google can show future dates for snippets, or is it a bug. Yahoo Search is testing AI Answers with links. Google Ads customer match lists will expire after 540 days in the coming months.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
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Reddit Blames Google Algorithm Changes For Weak Than Expected Growth
So after Google literally paid Reddit for its content and then ranked them incredibly well in Google Search and its search features, Reddit during its earnings call blamed Google's search algorithm for not hitting its expected user growth. -
Google Search Faster By About 60 Milliseconds
Google announced it is testing new pre-fetching methods that increase the speed (Largest Contentful Paint - LCP) of the first two results by 67 milliseconds and for the results after those by about by 9.5 milliseconds. -
Google Ads Customer Match Lists To Have 540 Days Expiration Date
Google sent out notifications to Google Ads advertisers with upcoming changes to customer match lists. Google will set a new maximum membership duration of 540 days for customer match lists starting on April 7, 2025. -
Yahoo Search AI Answers Now Showing Link Sources
Initially, when Yahoo Search launched AI-generated answers, they did not contain sources or links. Now it seems Yahoo is adding "Learn more" links to these AI answer boxes in Yahoo Search. -
Google Search Snippet Showing Future Date: Bug Or Feature?
Google Search is showing a snippet that has a date in the future. Normally the snippets have dates from the past; such as this content was found by Google X days or Y hours ago. But this one is now showing "in 7 days" from now. -
Irish Music Band Welcomes Googlers Back To Dublin Office
Here is a photo from last month of an Irish music band playing music at the Google office in Dublin. They posted this image on Instagram and wrote, "First full day back at the office. For Google. We did our best to cheer them up."
Other Great Search Threads:
- Hackers are using Google Tag Manager (GTM) to inject credit card skimmers into E-commerce sites. At least 6 compromised sites identified so far. Here's what we're seeing., Matt Johansen on X
- Have you used the Custom Reports builder in Google Analytics? From the Reports tab in the left hand nav, you can create fully custom reports. Once created be sure to add them to a Collection so that they will appear on the Left Hand, Carly Boddy on X
- One of my best pieces of link building advice is incredibly simple, but the concept landed me another great opportunity today so I was inspired to write this. I've probably done this 100+ times now. Here it is: Reach out and, Glen Allsopp on X
- OPENAI ROADMAP UPDATE FOR GPT-4.5 and GPT-5: We want to do a better job of sharing our intended roadmap, and a much better job simplifying our product offerings. We want AI to “just work” for you; we realize how complicated our m, Sam Altman on X
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Google Ad Manager, Campaign Manager 360 hit by disruptions
- Google Analytics Report Collections: What you need to know
- YouTube citations in Google AI Overviews surge 25%
- How to fix ‘Blocked by robots.txt’ and ‘Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt’ errors in GSC
- Everything you need to know about Target CPA bidding
- Google Search now uses Speculation Rules API to make search faster
- Why interactive content is key to AI-optimized search success
- Google Ads tightens brand guidelines
- How to optimize your 2025 content strategy for AI-powered SERPs and LLMs
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- How to Create Custom Reports in GA4, SEOTesting
- Marking marketing metrics meaningful, SERP's Up SEO Podcast
Industry & Business
- Google CEO Pichai Sees ‘Useful’ Quantum Computers 5 to 10 Years Away, Bloomberg
- Google says U.S. faces power capacity crisis in AI race against China, CNBC
- Groups begin to Boycott Google, Search Engine World
Links & Content Marketing
- The Wile E. Coyote Approach To Content Guidelines, Content Harmony
Local & Maps
- Are Google Maps incident reports too distracting? [Poll], 9to5Google
- Google Maps testing new weather-related incident report options, 9to5Google
- Waze update on Apple CarPlay makes it easier to navigate, 9to5Google
Mobile & Voice
SEO
- 12 Client Onboarding Tools To Scale Your SEO Agency, Moz
- 6 Free Google SEO Tools to Boost Your Search Visibility, Semrush
- Can ChatGPT Deep Research Do An SEO Audit?, Local SEO Guide
- Discovered - Currently Not Indexed In Google Search Console, SEOSLY
- Enhance your Public Alerts to surface on Google Search, Google Search Central YouTube
- Google’s Ploy to Nab Traffic BACK from Your Site: Not So Easy to Spot, AIMCLEAR
- SEO Forecasting at Scale, Stephanie Briggs
PPC
- Google Ads Admins Can Now Enforce Business Email Access, PPC News Feed
- Search Theme Insights Live, PPC News Feed
Search Features
- Google will use machine learning to estimate a user’s age, The Verge
- The AI Shopping Agents Are Coming (Part 1 in 2 Part Series), JumpFly
Other Search
- Beyond Basic Search: How AI Giants Are Carving Distinct Territory in the Search Landscape, BrightEdge
- Changes to cultural moments in Google Calendar, Google Blog
- How Mountain Dew Won the Super Bowl with 46% Brand Visibility across ChatGPT, AI Overviews, and Perplexity, iPullRank
- Open Borders: How Google Is Letting Foreign Finance Results Mislead U.S. Consumers, Wallethub
- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shares plans to bring o3 Deep Research agent to free and ChatGPT Plus users, VentureBeat
Feedback:
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