Daily Search Forum Recap: September 20, 2023

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.

It's been about six days now since the Google helpful content update started rolling out, it's been a weird one, here is what we're seeing. Google said quality affects every search system but then digs into how old large sites can deal with quality. Google raised its ad prices to hit revenue targets. Google site name issues for the news tab seems different/ Google said a compilation of ChatGPT output is not unique content.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Google September 2023 Helpful Content Update Current Impact & Volatility
  Google started to roll out the Google September 2023 Helpful Content Update last Thursday afternoon and I've been seeing mixed signals about how strong and widespread this update is. There are definitely site owners and SEOs claiming some of their sites were hit hard but the tracking tools are reporting relatively calm weather since the update started.
• Google: Quality Affects Everything In Google’s Search Systems But What About Large Old Sites
  There is a fun new Google Search Off the Record podcast to listen to with John Mueller and Gary Illyes from the Google Search team. The short is that quality impacts everything related to Google's search systems, from sitemaps, crawling, indexing, ranking and more. But they also go into large and old sites that may have had quality issues in the past or the quality bar is higher now than what it was 20 years ago.
• Google Raised Ad Prices To Hit Revenue Goals, Google Executive Said
  Jerry Dischler, Vice President and General Manager at Google, said under oath in 2020 that Google tuned its ad prices to meet its revenue targets. Ad prices went up 5% to sometimes 10% without communicating those changes to advertisers.
• Google Site Names Issues Continue For News Tab?
  Last week we reported that the Google site names issues, according to Google, has massively dropped off, after the last big upgrade to site names in Google Search. Well, that might not be the case for the Google news tab.
• Google: Compilation Of ChatGPT Output Is Not Unique Content
  Google's John Mueller said on X that a compilation of ChatGPT output does not make your content unique or worthy of outranking other content on the internet. He posted on X that a site should instead "focus on unique, compelling, high-quality content that adds to the web."
• Google Bikes On Google Wall
  Here is a photo from the Google Pier 57 office of two Google branded bikes hanging on a wall in that building. There are also an array of helmets hanging on the wall above it.

Other Great Search Threads:

• When optimizing content for SEO, everything comes down to:, Colibri Digital Marketing on X
• Google new test with top news section. Result are shows with grey background card carousel with change in image dimensions. Here is new and Older snap for ref, Khushal Bherwani on X
• Looks like the New @bing is using emojis more., Ethan Lazuk on X
• A webpage can be helpful for users without being a blog post. I imagine most pages on the web aren't blog posts., John Mueller on X
• Biggest Change In SEO in 25 years, WebmasterWorld
• Continuously improving the moderation system. It is still not where I want it to be, but the number of complaints did go down by a lot in the last couple of months., Mikhail Parakhin on X
• Do you also go straight to the negative reviews when evaluating businesses? Your customers do too:, Darren Shaw on X
• Hi, You can opt out of MFK content from by checking the "Content suitable for families" box in Content suitabilty under Tools & Settings. More on the content suitability center here, AdsLiaison on X
• Introducing the Checkout journey report! Get a clear picture of the number and percentage of users who begin to checkout on your ecommerce site or app and complete each of the subsequent steps in the funnel. Identify bottleneck, Google Analytics on X
• rip #PPCChat, Greg on X
• We've completed our experiment with the new @disqus ad-supported (Free) comment section that replaced the old zero-ads (Free) comment section and the results are a complete disaster. Organic Search Traffic losses between 23.57% and 4, Joe Youngblood on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

• Google search antitrust trial updates: Everything you need to know (so far)
• Google quietly increases ad prices to meet targets, claims exec
• Google AdSense adds new tools to make site verification faster and easier
• 8 new and updated Pinterest products for advertisers
• Are you being manipulated by Google Ads?
• TikTok rolls out new label for AI-generated content
• Trojan horse SEO: How to gain traction in new markets
• Google autocomplete: The silent threat to your online reputation
• Google Search can now validate responses from Bard

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

• How to Craft an Effective Data Analysis Plan?, PPC Expo
• The 3 Big Problems with Asking "How Did You Hear About Us?" | 5-Minute Whiteboard, SparkToro

Industry & Business

• Google Antitrust Trial: Google Lost Map Traffic with Apple’s iPhone Switch, Bloomberg
• Justice Department and Google spar over public access to antitrust trial files, The Verge
• Google Says Digital Ad Budgets Are Shifting to Amazon, Bloomberg
• Moz's Top SEO - Cyrus Shepard - Spills His Best SEO Tips And Experiments #62, SEOSLY

Links & Content Marketing

• 4 Must-Have Link Building Skills, The Upper Ranks
• To Gate or Not to Gate Your Content?, Content Marketing Institute
• 10 Business Benefits of Content Marketing, Semrush

Local & Maps

• Survey: The Ever-Growing Power of Reviews, PowerReviews
• Apple Maps Offline Maps: Everything You Need to Know, AutoEvolution
• Google Maps Just Lost One of Its Best Features, Google Must Bring It Back, Or Else, AutoEvolution
• Google wants to map more of the world’s roads with expansion of ‘Road Mapper’ volunteer community, TechCrunch
• On this day 11 years ago, Apple released its own disastrous Maps app, XDA Developers

Mobile & Voice

• Apple Releases HomePod 17 Software With Siri AirPlay Enhancement, New Mute Controls and More, MacRumors
• Top 10 AI Assistants Apart from Google, Analytics Insight

SEO

• 6 Tips to Make Your Press Release SEO Friendly in 2023, Semrush
• 8 metrics to track and measure your keyword performance, Wix SEO Hub
• SEO for Real Estate: How To Stand Out From Your Competition, Semrush
• SEO use cases for log file analysis, Oncrawl

PPC

• Google quietly raised ad prices to boost search revenue, says executive, The Verge
• How to Create an Effective PPC Strategy in 7 Steps, Semrush
• How to Use Google's New Brand Restrictions to Gain Back Control of Your Spend, WordStream
• How to Use PPC to Act on (or Respond to) Unplanned Publicity, Group Twenty Seven
• Performance Max: create listing groups using batch processing, Google Ads Developer Blog
• Twitter is leaning on Google for help with its advertising, QZ

Search Features

• Taylor Swift Easter egg word puzzles in Google Search, Google Blog
• What to expect from Microsoft’s ‘special’ Surface and AI event, The Verge

Other Search

• Announcing the DeepSpeed4Science Initiative: Enabling large-scale scientific discovery through sophisticated AI system technologies, Microsoft Research

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