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: There Are No BERT Values Or Scores
Danny Sullivan from Google said on Twitter that BERT does not assign values or scores to specific pages or web sites. It doesn't work that way. BERT is simply (well, not so simply) about Google understanding languages better. Danny wrote "BERT doesn't assign values to pages. It's just a way for us to better understand language." - Google Ads New Lead Form Extensions Beta
Google announced, ten days after it launched, a new beta called lead form extensions. This gives customers who click on your ads a faster way to give you their information, so you can follow up with them later with more details. - Google Maps Now Shows Business Short Names
Earlier this year Google added short names as an option for businesses in Google My Business. So if you wanted to give someone a quick way to see your business on Google Maps you would send them g.page/[yourcustomname]. Now this short name shows in the about tab in your Google My Business listing. - Google: No Plans To Add Google Discover Referrer
Google's John Mueller was asked if Google would add to Google Discover traffic a referrer that shows that click as coming from Google Discover versus Google search. John said no, Google has no plans on doing that. He said you can get to the data within Google Search Console's Discover reports. - Google Site Speed Video Starring John Mueller & Martin Splitt
Google posted another #AskGoogleWebmasters video, this one on site speed and this one is different. It is (1) much longer than the average #AskGoogleWebmasters video and (2) it has both John Mueller and Martin Splitt from Google in the video. - Googleween
Today is Halloween and Google calls it Googleween for some reason, I don't get it really, do you? :) In any event, here is a photo of a location around the GooglePlex where Google set up some props.
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- And yes, @MSFTAdvertising doesn't allow political ads either. Hasn't for 1+ year in the US, 6+ months in the rest of the world. https://t.co/u9I04plzRw, Frederic Dubut on Twitter
- Facebook Q3, 2019 $17.65 billion, Up 28pct YoY, WebmasterWorld
- No, there's nothing special you have to do (at least for Google). We try to recognize "spoken" (written?) language automatically too, you don't need a special attribute or meta-tag to let us know (lang=.. does he, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- SMX Advanced Overtime: Your questions answered about webspam and penalties
- Google doesn’t have an ‘ideal’ page speed
- Here’s how to leverage long-tail keywords for your SEO
- Protecting your ad spend from invalid traffic
- Achieving 3.7 Google My Business rating stars delivers highest conversion boost, study finds
- Google Merchant Center updates rolling out ahead of holiday push
- Video: Eric Enge on Google advice vs. real-world SEO experience
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- #GTMTips: Track Outbound Link Clicks In Google Tag Manager, Simo Ahava's blog
- First Touch vs. Last Touch Attribution With Google Analytics, V9 Digital
- Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager Naming Convention, Analytics Mania
- How To Correctly Implement Google Optimize, Merkle
Industry & Business
- A call for the next big ideas in news, Google Blog
Links & Promotion Building
- Disowning the Disavow Tool, DealerOn
Local & Maps
- How to Increase Business Visibility with Google Posts, Location3 Media
- Tales of Horror from the Dark Side of Google My Business, BrightLocal
Mobile & Voice
- Customers Can Now Order Starbucks Through Voice Assistants, PSFK
- Google testing drastically redesigned Assistant Updates feed, 9to5Google
SEO
- Publishers Report a Spam Exploit in Google, Search Engine Journal
PPC
- Get your products in front of holiday shoppers, Google Blog
- A Tale of Two Platforms: Yahoo & Microsoft's Tangled PPC History, JumpFly
Search Features
Other Search
- Halloween 2019, Google Doodle
