Daily Search Forum Recap: May 14, 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.

Google I/O was today, will have a number of stories tomorrow covering the search announcements including AI Overviews going live. Google confirmed it did massive deindexing last February. Google said "buckle up" 6 months ago, claiming a lot of search quality issues would be resolved. Now, Google is saying it has more to work on and took in the feedback. Google may resurface the idea of an automated action viewer to see if an algorithm is negatively impacting the site. Google teased a video Gemini assistant feature 40 minutes before the OpenAI announcement. Google Ads suspended account limitation changes are coming soon.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Google Search Confirms Deindexing Vast Amounts Of URLs In February 2024
  Gary Illyes from Google confirmed that Google has "suddenly" dedindexed a "vast amount of URLs" from the Google Search index this past February. He said this was done because Google's "perception of the site has changed."
• Google's Buckle Up Comment On Search 6 Months Later
  Six months ago, I covered the famous (non) "buckle up" comments about the changes coming to Google Search over the next several months. Well, Andy Simpson posted a recording of Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, who said these comments and I thought it would be good to listen to them now - 6 months later.
• Google: We Read Your Feedback On Search Quality & Changes To Come
  Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, said yesterday on X that he has read the feedback from the community related to the March 2024 core update and the general feedback about search quality over the past few months. He said there are places where Google can do better, but it won't happen overnight.
• Google Automated Action Viewer In Search Console Might Happen?
  For over a decade now, I've been talking about Google adding an automated action viewer to Google Search Console to accompany the manual action viewer. This would provide a way to see if a Google Search ranking algorithm negatively impacts your site's performance.
• Google Tried To Steal OpenAI's Thunder 45 Minutes Prior To OpenAI's GPT-4o Announcement
  About 45 minutes before OpenAI's announcement of GPT-4o, Google posted on X a demo of new Gemini capabilities where you show Google Gemini something on your camera via a live video feed and Google will answer your questions about it. Then OpenAI shortly after demoed its GPT-4o assistant features that blew everyone's minds away.
• Google Ads To Change Functionality For Suspended Accounts
  Google announced and emailed advertisers that they are changing the functionality of Google Ads accounts that are suspended. These changes go into effect in June 2024 and will limited what suspended accounts can do in Google Ads.
• Googler Makes May 4th Food?
  I have no idea what this is but it caught my eye. It is from the Google Chicago office where this Googler snapped a photo of what looks like lightsabers made of some sort of food.

Other Great Search Threads:

• Benefit from custom events that are tailored to your business and help you better understand the behavior of users on your website. You can also create custom dimensions to use for additional reporting., Google Analytics on X
• I'd recommend posting in the help forums, with the details like the URLs, the queries, the changes you've made over time. Without details, there's not much anyone can do, sorry., John Mueller on X
• It seems to work for me with "dataState": "all" - does that work for you?, John Mueller on X
• Massive Demand Gen Update towards more control!, Thomas Eccel on X
• Our new model: GPT-4o, is our best model ever. it is smart, it is fast,it is natively multimodal (!), and…, Sam Altman on X
• That looks like traditional spam, I'll pass it on. It doesn't help that @Delta uses robots.txt to block crawling of the official page :-/., John Mueller on X
• For my first-ever LinkedIn post, I thought I’d share a sneak peek of the Shoreline Amphitheatre stage, as we put some finishing touches on our keynote for Google I/O tomorrow. Can’t wait to see those seats filled with developers from around the world , Sundar Pichai on LinkedIn
• I'd try with dataState=all - which gets the fresher data too. I think it's catching up though., John Mueller on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

• Google limits functionality of suspended ads accounts
• 10 reasons to join us at online SMX Advanced next month
• Ad format preferences land in Google Demand Gen campaigns
• Search ad costs rise, conversion rates decline again in 2024
• 6 unpopular SEO opinions you need to consider
• Entity-oriented search: The evolution of information retrieval, explained
• 7 B2B content distribution strategies that work

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

• Set up Google Analytics 4: Step-by-step instructions, OMR

Industry & Business

• On With Kara Swisher: MKBHD, Walt Mossberg on Tech Reviews, NY Mag
• OpenAI Startup Fund raises additional $5M, TechCrunch
• Project Starline: Google and HP partner on 2025 commercialization, Google Blog
• Rumble sues Google, again, Axios
• US opens probe into Alphabet's Waymo over 'unexpected behavior' of self-driving vehicles, Reuters

Links & Content Marketing

• 14 Content Marketing Tools & Applications You Should Know, Built In
• Maximize Content Efficiency With These 7 Agile Practices, Content Marketing Institute

Local & Maps

• 7 Google Maps features I can’t live without, Android Police
• Apple, Google finally implement anti-stalking tracker standard, AppleInsider
• Challenge: Share information on Google Maps to win a Connect badge, Local Guides Connect
• Guidelines for Representing Your Business on Google, Sterling Sky
• Bing Maps vs Google Maps: Which App is More Convenient?, MSPoweruser

Mobile & Voice

• Apple now said to sell Apple Vision Pro overseas after WWDC, AppleInsider
• Google Pixel 8a review: The best midrange Android phone gets flagship AI features, Engadget
• Meta Quest gets 'Travel Mode' in beta for use on airplanes, 9to5Google
• Introducing GPT-4o and more tools to ChatGPT free users, OpenAI
• OpenAI releases ChatGPT-4o, a new chatbot to compete with Apple's Siri and Google's Alexa, Axios

SEO

• Gary Illyes Answers Questions About Google and SEO, SERP Conf
• Google Search is killing websites – will I/O bring any hope?, 9to5Google
• Google’s Surgical Strike on Reputation Abuse, Moz
• Over-Optimization in SEO: What It Is & How to Avoid It, Semrush
• Should You Include FAQs On Product Or Category Pages?, Search Engine Journal

PPC

• Google Ads Benchmarks 2024: New Trends & Insights for Key Industries, WordStream
• The Ultimate Guide to Click Fraud, PPC Hero
• How to Capture Your YouTube Ads Audience in 5 Seconds, PPC Hero

Search Features

• As Google AI search rolls out to more people, websites brace for carnage, Washington Post
• Gemini 'Memory' feature will remember info about you, 9to5Google
• Is Copilot not working for you? Here's how you can try to fix it, Android Authority
• Microsoft might be trying to sneak Bing into one of Windows 11’s apps – and some users won’t be happy, TechRadar

Other Search

• AI answer war heats up as OpenAI, Google, Microsoft ready new AI-powered search tools, Axios
• BuzzFeed Still Sees AI As The Savior Of Its Slumping Ad Business, AdExchanger
• OpenAI's newest model is GPT-4o, TechCrunch
• Hello GPT-4o, OpenAI

Feedback:

Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.