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 Console Stops Reporting On Scroll To Text
Google has stopped displaying the scroll-to-text data in the reporting within Google Search Console's performance report. It started showing this August 2020 but now Google is no longer showing this information in Search Console. - Google AdSense Pauses Related Search Experiments
Google announced that is is temporarily pausing the ability to create custom search style experiments for your related search styles in your Google AdSense account. Google said it hopes to bring this feature back by early July 2021. - May 2021 Google Webmaster Report
Last month in the Google webmaster, SEO and search world was pretty busy to say the least. We had a few unconfirmed Google updates but on top of that we had the product reviews update rollout and the delay of the product experience update. - Verizon To Sell Yahoo & AOL For $5 Billion After Buying Each For ~$5 Billion
In 2015 Verizon bought AOL for about $4.4 billion while AOL was under Tim Armstrong's leadership. Then in 2016, Verizon bought Yahoo for about $4.83 billion while Yahoo was under Marissa Mayer's leadership. Now, in 2021, Verizon is selling 90% of both companies to a private equity firm for a total of $5 billion. - Most SEOs Use DNS Or HTML Verification In Google Search Console
Google offers numerous ways to verify your website with Google Search Console. Jackson Lo asked on Twitter which is your preferred method and without surprise, most SEOs said that they prefer DNS and HTML tag verification over the others. - Google: Rel External, Noopener & Noreferrer Do Not Impact Your SEO
Google's John Mueller confirmed that using a rel=external, rel=noopener and/or a rel=noreferrer have no impact on your Google search rankings or SEO. John said on Reddit that there is "no effect" by adding those link attributes to your hyperlinks. - Taiwan Burger At Google
Here is a photo from Chef Dragan Maksimović, a sushi chef who I guess worked at Google back in 2018. He took a photo of his Taiwan burgers, Taiwanese hamburgers, and posted them on Instagram.
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- It looks like that featured snippet is pointing at a page with a critical examination of those stats that I gather have circulated in the past. That's probably helpful; highlighting the particular figu, Danny Sullivan on Twitter
- Happy U.S. Teacher Appreciation Week! 🍎 Listen to five real stories from our nation's educators and their students in today's interactive #GoogleDoodle, made in partnership with @StoryCorps 📚 → https://t.co/37lElin, Google Doodles on Twitter
- Hreflang doesn't affect rankings - it only changes which URL we'd show from your site. If your site is not ranking well in specific languages / locations, hreflang will not improve that. For ranking, we'd use hel, John Mueller on Twitter
- If you're using a IP-based redirect from the root, you need to set the root as the x-default. Also, for indexing we often pick one version, but that doesn't mean the x-default won't show up (the displayed U, John Mueller on Twitter
- It doesn't matter to us if a URL maps to a subdirectory or a file - it's just an address. Often the URL doesn't map to a physical directory structure anyway. (The only time it matters is if you have dire, John Mueller on Twitter
- And definitely: small things add up. It's rare that you'd need "100ms" to make it over the threshold to needs improvement or good, but many of those 100ms can add up., John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Best rates on SMX Advanced end Saturday – act now!
- Instant match rates in Google Ads and when content isn’t king; Monday’s daily brief
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- Google Analytics 4 Properties-Everything You Should Know, Business 2 Community
- Demystifying Multivariate Testing, Search Discovery
- How to Track Your SEO Efforts Using Google Analytics, Musselwhite Marketing
Industry & Business
- Alphabet Is Discriminating Against Its Voting Shareholders With Its Buyback, Seeking Alpha
- Apple hires ex-Google AI expert Samy Bengio, AppleInsider
- Apple hires former Google AI scientist who left after ethics turmoil, Engadget
Links & Content Marketing
- Who Will Amplify This? And Why?, SparkToro
Local & Maps
- How to Get Review Notifications When You Manage Over 100 Google My Business Listings, Sterling Sky
- How to report a traffic incident with Apple Maps in iOS 14.5, TechRadar
- Indoor Mapping, Advanced Bike Routes: How to Use Google Maps' New Features, Gear Patrol
- Seattle and California cycling directions appear on Apple Maps, iLounge
Mobile & Voice
- Android Auto bug hits pause on music when opening apps, 9to5Google
- Compared to Google Assistant, Siri scored very poorly in a recent test, PhoneArena
SEO
- Does Having GMB Posts Help or Hurt Google Rankings? Ben Fisher Explores for LocalU.org, Local University
- Tools To Measure Core Web Vitals (The Full List), SEOSLY
- Why Location Matters to Google (and to Your Brand): Our Advice on Forbes, Five Blocks
- How To Implement Schema Markup To Increase E-A-T, Schema App
- Page Level Query Analysis at Scale, Moz
PPC
- Sunset of the Ad Manager API v202005, Google Ads Developer Blog
- The Query Builder Blog Series: Part 5 - Determining Field Selectability, Google Ads Developer Blog
- Product updates for May: Customer Match, Microsoft Advertising
Search Features
- Celebrating Hisaye Yamamoto, Google Doodle
