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:
- Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Web & Local Algorithm Updates, Free Hotel Listings & Microsoft Bing Visual Updates
2021 has been insane with unconfirmed Google search ranking algorithm updates and this week is no different with one over last weekend and one kicking off on Wednesday through Thursday. Heck... - Google Local Tests Estimated Prices Near You (Local Service Ads)
Google Local, I believe part of the local service ads product, is testing a feature to show estimated prices near you for specific types of queries. Anubhav Garg spotted this box for a query on [roofing companies hackensack] which showed estimated prices for a roofing job in that area. - Bing Local Panel Questions & Answers Box
Microsoft Bing now shows for some businesses a questions and answers section within the business's local panel in the search results. Colan Nielsen spotted this and posted about it on Twitter. This Q&A box, unlike Google, pulls from the questions and answers from the website directly. - Google: Pages With Core Web Vitals May Have Tiny Ranking Advantage
Martin Splitt of Google gave me a softball yesterday when he said on Twitter "all things being equal (spoiler: they never are), a page with CWV field data may have a tiny advantage over one without." In short, if your page has core web vitals field data, it might benefit you over pages that do not have this field data. - Google Search Console Job Posting Rich Results Report Change
Google made some changes to the rich results report for the job posting structured data. You can obviously access this report in Google Search Console under the enhancements section if Google detects job posting structured data on your site. - Google: Site Going Offline For Longer Than A Day; Upload A Static Version
We know that Google recommends using a 503 server status code for your your website goes offline or down temporarily for less than a day. But what if you know your site will be offline for days? John Mueller of Google said try to see if you can upload a static, HTML and temporary version of your site and/or most important web pages. - Googlebot Coaster at Google Tel Aviv
Here is a photo from 2019 of a coaster from the Google Tel Aviv office. Yes that is a photo of Googlebot on a wooden coaster held by the one and only Lizzi Harvey of Google.
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- I think people over-index on 302 vs 301. Purely from a relevance / search quality POV there's no reason to differentiate, but it can result in different canonicalization (same signals, just different URL cho, John Mueller on Twitter
- iProspect, one of the world's biggest SEO agencies, seems to have just deleted its entire domain. Thousands of indexed pages...gone. No 301s, just holding pages and 404s 👀 https://t.co/e4maMokTsf, Stephen Kenwright on Twitter
- That continues to be an unnatural link, which would be against our webmaster guidelines. (I'm also kinda surprised by directory listings ...), John Mueller on Twitter
- A desktop-only site is fine (it's essentially the same content on mobile as on desktop, it might just be hard to read). If there's less content for mobile users, that would be problematic though (we, John Mueller on Twitter
- The part I'm kinda worried about is the scope-expansion: SEO didn't move from desktop to mobile, both are relevant. Looking at https://t.co/KRXHushJLk shows, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- ‘Google Analytics of physical world’ Placense to scale in UK, Business Cloud
- How to understand your Google Analytics, Fieldsports Channel
Industry & Business
- Google paves way to monetize Pay users’ data in India, TechCrunch
- Helping publishers thrive in today's privacy environment, Google Blog
Local & Maps
- Google Maps getting a more powerful to edit roads, 9to5Google
- Take a virtual tour with a professional pizza enthusiast, Google Blog
- Three new ways anyone can update Google Maps, Google Blog
Mobile & Voice
- Google adds quality guidelines for Assistant smart devices, 9to5Google
- I Broke Amazon’s API to Make Alexa Start a Conversation You’d Never Want to Have, OneZero
SEO
- How Long Does SEO Take to Produce Results?, BruceClay
- How to Select Meaningful B2B SEO Keywords, Moz
PPC
- Responsive Search Ads Are the New Default in Google Ads: What You Need to Know, WordStream
- Sunset grace period for existing v2 users of the Content API for Shopping, Google Ads Developer Blog
- Seasons of change spark seasons of search, Microsoft Advertising
- What is PPC Advertising and How Effective is It?, Business 2 Community
Search Features
Other Search
- Policy changes and certification requirement updates for Smart Home Actions, Google Developers Blog
