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:
- My First YouTube Subscriber Giveaway - Win Awesome SEM Stuff & Help Charities
I am doing a YouTube giveaway, where I give away free stuff for free based on if people subscribe to my YouTube channel. What am I giving away? Well, two main buckets; (A) up to $25,000 to charity and... - Google: Headings Won't Make Or Break Your Sites Rankings
Google's John Mueller said in a Reddit thread that while "headings on a page are great for SEO & accessibility, but they're not going to make or break your sites rankings." - Google Finally Responds To Paid Links Allegations On Apache.org
For years we have known Apache.org, the Apache Foundation, has been giving thanks to its big sponsors and donors with a thank you page with links that do not have the nofollow link attribute on it. Google's John Mueller, three years after I wrote about it, responded to these allegations. - Google My Business Guidelines For Practitioners Clarified
Google has made a small change to the Google My Business Guidelines explaining and clarifying the roles of practitioners. Joy Hawkins posted in the Local Search Forums that the line that was added was "Sales associates or lead generation agents for corporations aren't individual practitioners and aren't eligible for a listing." - Google Updates The Search Quality Raters Guidelines On September 5th
Google has updated the Google search quality raters guidelines handbook on September 5, 2019. That is 16-weeks after it last updated the guidelines, which was on May 16, 2019 and before that, it was about 10-months since Google updated that document. - Google Ads Bans Speculative & Experimental Medical Treatments
Google Ads is no longer allowing ads in its search network and other ad networks for products or services that promote speculative and/or experimental medical treatments. This includes Stem cell therapy, cellular (non-stem) therapy, gene therapy, and similar forms of regenerative medicine, platelet rich plasma, biohacking, do-it-yourself (DIY) genetic engineering products, and gene therapy kits. - Googler Cookie
Here is a photo of a Googler, a Google employee, printed on a Google cookie, eating the cookie or eating herself. She said she has become a "Google approved snack." Would you eat a cookie with your
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- If there's no specific mobile version, then the page, desktop-friendly or not, is the mobile version too. We wouldn't drop pages from indexing if they're not mobile-friendly. Mobile-friendliness is, John Mueller on Twitter
- Annie filed a copyright claim against herself, best we can tell. Not sure why we wouldn't have caught that, as I explained. It is something we're looking at. Maybe you missed th, Danny Sullivan on Twitter
- Hey John, I just noticed a site I've repeatedly reported for stealing my content reported ME for stealing MY Annielytics Dashboard Course. And Google took action against me and removed it from its index. This site has 7, Annie Cushing on Twitter
- Really, this has nothing to do with negative SEO. This was an unfortunate user mistake. It's good to catch these better, but personally I wouldn't call what you do with you, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- The old Google Search Console is no longer available
- Apple accused of favoring its own properties in App Store results
- Majestic’s enhanced tool now gives SEOs a lot more useful context about backlinks
- Change log: Google updated its Search Quality Rater Guidelines
- Lessons I have learned from adding FAQ schema: A test of 1,000 keywords
- Learn to think like an SEO developer
- Microsoft opens responsive search ads beta to all advertisers
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- Build a Google Tag Manager monitor with notifications using Firebase, Medium
- Why Your Property's Website is Getting Less Traffic From Google, Odysys
Industry & Business
Local & Maps
- Google is about to make Google Maps more like Waze, BGR
- Google Maps Is Still Directing Women Seeking Abortions to Pro-Life Clinics — and a Memorial for the ‘Unborn’, VICE
Mobile & Voice
- Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa could be next targets for child privacy laws, CNET
- Google is going to make Assistant respond faster in Android 12 by forcing device makers to use better hardware, Android Central
- 101 ways you can use the new Nest Hub Max at home, Google Blog
- How Apple Stacked the App Store With Its Own Products, New York Times
SEO
- The fuzzy boundary between Grey and Black Hat SEO, Search Metrics
- Contextual Knowledge Panels at Google, Go Fish Digital
- Google's Core Algorithm Updates and Copied Content: The Domino Effect of Negative Impact, GSQI
- Life in Grey Hat SEO -- Joe Sinkwitz // Digital Heretix, Search Metrics
PPC
- How to Thwart Competition in Google's New Ad Format, Location3 Media
- Product negative keyword conflicts report, Microsoft Advertising
Search Features
Other Search
- Enabling developers and organizations to use differential privacy, Google Developers Blog
