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 Search Ranking Update Flutters April 28th & 29th
There may have been a Google search ranking algorithm update over the past couple of days; on April 28th and 29th. There is chatter within the SEO industry and some of the tools are showing pretty heavy signs of an update. - Google Advice On Old Content On News Sites: Remove, Noindex Or Leave It
Google's John Mueller was asked for advice on what to do with old articles published on a pop culture publishing site that has nearly 25 years of content on it. Of course the answer is it depends; you can either remove the content, noindex the old articles or just leave it and let Google handle it. But what should you really do? - Tidbits: Interview With Nathan Chalmers, Bing Search Relevance Team
Jason Barnard does these awesome interviews on his YouTube channel and one he just recently released was with Nathan Chalmers, the Program Manager, Bing Search Relevance Team at Microsoft. Here is the video interview and the tidbits summarized by Glenn Gabe on Twitter. - Google: We Do Not Use Google Analytics For Indexing
Google has said this many times, in many different ways, Google does not use Google Analytics for web search. John Mueller of Google said the other day that Google does not use Google Analytics for indexing purposes. - Google Tests Underlining Searches Related To
Google has been testing a lot of variations to the look of the "searches related to" feature. Now Google is testing underlining the results, and the other day, Google was testing three columns instead of two. - Google Fairy Light Wall
At the Google Sao Paulo office in Brazil there is this fairy string light wall with the Google logo, all illuminated with LED lights. I think this was set up for some event some time ago, but it is n
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Lightning Talk premiere is here - If you have JavaScript questions or want to learn about how Googlebot uses links to discover pages on the web, join @g33konaut in 15 minutes for our first Lightning Talk on Li, Google Webmasters on Twitter
- The removals tool should not be used for site-moves -- it doesn't change indexing at all., John Mueller on Twitter
- There are lots of cases where search engines don't agree on what the most relevant results are :). That alone wouldn't be a reason for me to assume there's some kind of bug. If you're seeing really bad search r, John Mueller on Twitter
- That wouldn't be related. But I do kinda worry that you need to submit URLs to get them indexed -- maybe it's worth working on the site overall, rather than spending time submitting URLs ma, John Mueller on Twitter
- Veryfing GMB Account During the COVID-19 Crisis, Local Search Forum
- Yep! Protocol & machine name (hostname/domainname) are not case sensitive, the rest is. Some systems try to be helpful and "fix" upper/lower case for you, but technically it's case-sensitive., John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Google removed 2.7 billion bad ads, nearly 1 million ad accounts in 2019
- Facebook Q1 earnings: Investors excited about ‘signs of stability’ in ad revenues
- Why updating your messaging is the best strategy right now [Video]
- Facebook expands test for in-stream ads on Live
- Microsoft Advertising UI: What’s new (so far)
- The right way to apply JavaScript to your links for SEO
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- 8 Custom Alerts Every Ecommerce Site Should Set-Up, Erudite
- Get insights and take action on changing customer behavior, Google Blog
- Leveraging Google Analytics for Small Business, Bounteous
Industry & Business
- Why Furloughing Your Digital Team During the COVID19 Crisis is a Bad Idea and What You Should Do Instead., Search Metrics
Links & Content Marketing
- How to Build an Effective Content Strategy?, Pole Position Marketing
- 5 Examples of Effective B2B Content Marketing in Times of Crisis, Online Marketing Blog
Local & Maps
- Custom maps bring us closer during coronavirus, Google Blog
- GMB Products vs GMB product posts - A historical guide, plus how they work NOW, Local University
- The Ultimate Guide to Google My Business for 2020, SEM Rush
Mobile & Voice
- 'Google Smartwatch' appended to full Wear OS brand name, 9to5Google
- Google Home for iOS lets you set separate Assistant volume, 9to5Google
- Introducing Voicebot Research - The Most Comprehensive Data on Voice Assistants and AI, Voicebot
SEO
- Clarks International SEO Migration - Struggling to Land on its Feet, SISTRIX
- Determining a SEO campaign’s Total Addressable Market (TAM), Search Metrics
- Google Webmaster Hangout Notes: April 14th 2020, DeepCrawl
PPC
- Announcing v3_1 of the Google Ads API beta, Google Ads Developer Blog
- Covid-19: Consumer Insights for Europe - Microsoft Advertising, Microsoft Advertising
- Improving the accuracy of Publisher Ads Audits for Lighthouse mobile reports, Google Ads Developer Blog
- Partners: Building Trust, Marketing with Purpose, Microsoft Advertising
- Stopping bad ads to protect users, Google Blog
Search Features
Other Search
- Keeping spam off the Chrome Web Store, Chromium Blog
- YouTube 'Products in this Video' test is rolling out for some, 9to5Google
