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 My Business Local Listing Update This Week
For the past couple of days I have been noticing changes to the local pack rankings in Google. The Google My Business local results are changing but the forums are pretty quiet about it. But Austin Holdsworth posted on Twitter about it and the Local RankFlux tracker is showing changes as well. - Google State Specific Knowledge Panel For Holidays
Valentin Pletzer spotted Google doing what I think might be a new knowledge panel, one that replaced a featured snippet. This is for a search on holidays. If you search for [holiday 2019] Google doesn't show you a featured snippet anymore, it shows you an answer based in the state you are in. - Google My Business Limits Businesses To 20 Service Areas
Google announced it is now limiting the number of service areas a business can list to no more than 20. Google wrote in the Google Ads Help page "service area businesses are now limited to having a maximum of 20 service areas per business." - Google Featured Snippets Are Impacted By Algorithmic Updates
Dr. Pete, Pete Meyers, from Moz, posted on Twitter "Any algo update that impacts query interpretation or relevance will impact Featured Snippets." This was retweeted by Google's John Mueller, so I guess that is a vote of confidence without passing DA ;-). In all seriousness, we've all seen it, featured snippets are very finicky and change a lot but algorithm updates can cause them as well. - Google Merchant Center Gets Multi-Country Feed Support & Redesign
Google has added some new features to the Google Merchant Center. First Google added multi-country feeds, which allow you to target multiple countries that share the same language by using a single feed in that language. Google also redesigned the interface with clearer workflows, simpler navigation, and more program insights. - GoogleBot Cookies
Here are the cookies being served during lunch at the Google Webmaster Conference from Monday. Dennis Goedegebuure shared this photo on Twitter of it. I have some video of it in my video below as we
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- It gets complicated with 2 languages. Everything more is black magic, and I'm always a bit in awe when folks pull it off well. Internationalization is hard., John Mueller on Twitter
- Nah, this is years pre-BERT. We're getting great stuff from BERT models, but our old, word-counting systems could also learn some interesting things., Paul Haahr on Twitter
- Ep. 2: Search for Beginners! Find out why it's important to track different types of metrics and how setting goals for your website can lead to success. Learn about tools that can help you track these goals and metr, Google Webmasters on Twitter
- If the content is essentially the same, we'll treat it as a duplicate. Usually we can still swap out the URLs with hreflang, if marked up properly, but we'll still often just index one of the version, John Mueller on Twitter
- Quick heads up: This means "build websites that don't make users wait super long while fans are spinning" & no infinite loops, please. More info at Chrome Dev Summit next week., Martin Splitt on Twitter
- We wouldn't remove a page from search just because of inappropriate structured data. Also, while I get that it would be cool to have all reports manually taken action on, we try to use these to, John Mueller on Twitter
- What's the most valuable and actionable SEO tip you've come across in your reading or conference attendance? Or, what's the best one you yourself have given?, MyCool King on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Uber Eats readies ad sales for restaurants
- Video: Aja Frost of Hubspot on the power of content structure in search rankings
- Search Marketing Expo is next week. Will I see you there?
- Senate bill seeks to compel tech giants to offer ‘unfiltered’ versions of their content
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- Data You Should Be Tracking Using Google Analytics Custom Events, Reflective Data
- Using Google Tag Manager to Increase Sales, Visiture
Industry & Business
- Alphabet board investigating inappropriate relationships by execs, CNBC
- Baidu results beat on strong video streaming growth, shares rise, Reuters
- JP Sherman - Open Dialog Podcast, DeepCrawl
- Google plans huge Fulton Market office expansion, Chicago Tribune
- How the Google employee walkout turned tech workers into activists, Los Angeles Times
Local & Maps
- 5 hidden Google Maps tricks you need to know, CNET
- How To Use Google Maps' New Incognito Mode, Lifehacker
Mobile & Voice
- Amazon Alexa and Echo Turn Five, Explode Out of the Home, Voicebot
- Google Assistant can now support bathtubs and faucets, 9to5Google
SEO
- Is Google about to shake up real estate SEO?, State of Digital
- 5 Ways to Avoid Website Redesign Failures, State of Digital
- JavaScript SEO: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Server-Side Rendering, Search Metrics
- The early bird Christmas campaign checklist 2019, Hallam
PPC
- 3 Ways To Maximize Learnings Between SEO & SEM, Metric Theory
- Why Isn't My Ad Showing Up on Google?, Seer Interactive
- Google Weighs Changes to Political Ad Policy, Wall Street Journal
Other Search
- Open sourcing Google Cardboard, Google Developers Blog
