Daily Search Forum Recap: March 11, 2024

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.

We saw the Google core update potentially do its first drop on Friday and then into Saturday but then it went quiet on Sunday and Monday. Google will be replacing FID with INP in its Core Web Vitals tomorrow (unrelated to Core updates). Google said it is a bad idea to double down on AI content now. Google says the use of AI for some articles but not saying which articles is the lowest form of low quality content. Google Local Service Ads can show competitors in your local profile listing. Bing Webmaster Tools may go from 6 months of data to 24 months of data.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Google March 2024 Core Update Ranking Changes Have Begun
  Today is the first day I have seen solid evidence of serious ranking volatility and changes related to the big Google March 2024 Core Update. As a reminder, the Google March 2024 Core Update officially started on March 5, 2024 and will take up to a month to fully roll out, we are expecting numerous ranking changes during the next few weeks.
• Reminder: Google Core Web Vitals Replaces FID With INP Tomorrow (March 12)
  This is just a friendly reminder that Google will replace First Input Delay (FID) with Interaction to Next Paint (INP) as a Core Web Vital metric tomorrow, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. This has nothing to do with the Google March 2024 Core update that is currently rolling out at the same time, but I am confident this will confuse SEOs even more since "core" is in the name of both of these changes.
• Google Explains Doubling Down On AI Content Now May Be A Bad Idea
  There is a thread on Reddit asking site owners how they are dealing with the new various Google updates and the associated traffic drops. One Redditor responded that he would go from 500 articles to 5,000 articles written using AI to make up for the traffic drop. In which Google's John Mueller responded, "this is a bad idea."
• Google: Sites Using AI For Some Articles But Don't Specify Which Is Lowest Quality Pages
  The updated Google Search Quality Raters guidelines last week and added an example of that it considers the "lowest quality pages." In section 4.7 it states the only mention of using AI and writes, "The website terms of use states that "some articles" are generated by artificial intelligence and may have errors or be out of date; there is no indication to which pages this statement applies. The information in this article is not trustworthy and is Lowest E-E-A-T."
• Google LSAs Shows Competitors In Your Google Business Profile Listing
  Imagine you pay for an advertisement, someone then clicks on that ad and is then able to see local competitors. Is that ad worth buying? Well, Google Local Service Ads that bring up your Google Business Profile can show nearby competitors in your Business Profile listing.
• Bing Webmaster Tools May Provide Up 24 Months Of Data
  Currently, Bing Webmaster Tools will give you up to six months of data, but Microsoft may extend that up to 24 months. Fabrice Canel from Microsoft said on X, "We will consider extending to 2 years."
• Google Hong Kong Lobby Decor
  Here is a recent photo of the lobby at the Google Hong Kong office. The Google logo on the brick wall seems to be made up of some sort of wire mesh. And then there are some Chinese items around.

Other Great Search Threads:

• Announcing Meridian, a new open-source MMM (Marketing Mix Model) MMMs used to be complex, cumbersome and out of reach for many businesses. Fortunately MMMs are becoming much more accessible – and just in time as observable d, AdsLiaison on X
• Schema's value to Google was based on the search features it presented based on schema, not the semantic content it could get from schema. It had to do that other ways because schema was never used universally enough to allow that, Joel Headley on X
• I'm keeping tabs on ~200 sites hit by the HCU. Most of the biggest losers have essentially been wiped off Google, and it's getting worse with this update. Declines of -90% or worse in many cases. But a small batch of sites are see, Lily Ray on X
• Welp, Google's March Core Update crushed Travel Lemming an additional 65+% already 📉 We honestly tried our best (see my tweet below for receipts) @glenngabe says the HCU is punitive. This feels like cruel & unusual punishment thoug, Nate Hake on X
• Article complaining about being outranked on Google is now NOT even on FIRST PAGE, Gagan Ghotra on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

• Google Interaction to Next Paint coming to Core Web Vitals this Tuesday
• TikTok warns ‘predetermined’ vote on U.S. ban will ‘damage millions of businesses’
• Reddit pilots new tools to help brands boost engagement
• The latest jobs in search marketing
• 5 biggest challenges for PPC marketers in 2024
• Google issues search ranking penalties through manual actions
• Climate change SEO survey: Making the web more sustainable

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

• Who Sends Traffic on the Web and How Much? New Research from Datos & SparkToro, SparkToro

Industry & Business

• Sam Altman to Return to OpenAI Board of Directors, The Information
• Review completed & Altman, Brockman to continue to lead OpenAI, OpenAI
• EU Commission's use of Microsoft software breached privacy rules, watchdog says, Reuters
• Thomson Reuters has $8bn war chest for AI-focused deals, says chief, Financial Times (Sub)

Links & Content Marketing

• Content Reporting Guide: Essential Metrics, Tools, and Examples, Semrush
• PSCU Study Adds New Urgency to Credit Union Innovation, Pymnts
• What Are the Latest Content Marketing Strategies?, WebProNews

Local & Maps

• Germany vs Google: How Street View Won the Privacy Battle in Europe's Most Private Country, PetaPixel
• Google Maps makes drive time on Android Auto bolder, 9to5Google
• What Did the Apple Car Look Like? Inside Apple’s Planned Self-Driving Vehicle, Bloomberg

Mobile & Voice

• Google Lens update will save your searched images to access later, PhoneArena
• 7 Google Gemini prompt ideas to try this weekend, Tom's Guide
• iOS 18 Rumor Recap: Smarter Siri, Design Changes, and More, MacRumors
• Siri creator says it’s about to become a ‘real force’ in the AI race against ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini, Tom's Guide

SEO

• E-E-A-T Quick Wins — Whiteboard Friday, Moz
• Keyword Clustering: Probably The Best Guide You'll Ever Read, Keyword Insights
• The 2024 Google Core and Spam Update Breakdown, iPullRank
• E-E-A-T: Mastering Google's Evolved Quality Standards, LeveL343
• Google's March 2024 Core Update, SEO for Google News
• SEO for Government Websites, Women in Tech SEO
• Technical SEO Considerations for News Publishers, Sitebulb
• Optimizing Your Architecture Website Design with Keywords, Bitvero UK Ltd

PPC

• Are Amazon and other ad tech vendors serving ANA members’ ads on “Made for Arbitrage” websites in 2024?, Adalysis
• Optimizing Google Ads without Keywords, Practical Ecommerce

Other Search

• Microsoft blocks terms that cause its AI to create violent images, CNBC
• Two years later, deep learning is still faced with the same fundamental challenges, Gary Marcus
• Elon Musk says xAI will open-source Grok this week, TechCrunch
• Google Is Getting Thousands of Deepfake Porn Complaints, WIRED

Feedback:

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