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:
- Is Google My Business To Provide Its Own Booking & Reservation System?
Mike Blumenthal posted a screen shot on Twitter showing a possible sign that Google My Business may be experimenting with doing its own booking or reservation system or engine. He showed that under the booking tab, that Google was listed as a provider. - Vlog #27: Frederic Debut, Lead PM Of Bing's Core Ranking Team
I sat with Frederic Debut (CoperniX), the Lead PM of Bing's Core Ranking Team, who has been at Microsoft for about 12 years now. It was a pretty amazing year for him... - Google Rich Results Test Shows Google Home & Smart Display Previews
Google announced yesterday on Twitter that the rich results test can now show you how your recipe mark up looks not just in Google Search but also on Google Home devices and smart displays. Here is a screen shot from Google showing this in action. - Google Dictionary Search Results Add Images
It looks like Google is starting to add images in its dictionary results in order to not just define a word but also show in photos what that word means. You know what they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words." Well, I guess this is Google going by that. - Google: Links Are Between Indexed URLs, If One Side Is Gone, The Link Is Ignored
What happens if you cut the cord between the links, i.e. page A links to page B. If either page A or page B drop out of the Google index, that link is no longer counted. Basic stuff but John Mueller of Google put it simply this way on Twitter "links are between indexed URLs, so if one side is gone, the link is ignored." - Google Search Console Lost Image Search Click Data Between Nov 14 & 19
Google has documented that it lost or "dropped" data around image search clicks. Google wrote "Some image click data was dropped; as a result, you might see a dip in both click rate and CTR during this period. The issue has been fixed. This issue affected only Search Console reporting, not your performance on Google Search." - Photos Of Google Japan New Startup Office
Google posted photos of the new office the company opened in Japan for Google For Startups. Even Sundar Pichai, Google's CEO, was there on opening day to partake in the opening traditions.
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- True or false, based on *your experience* (not what Google has told us): Content hidden within tabs, accordions, etc. (but viewable in the HTML/DOM) is treated the same as exposed content for ranking purposes? Comment below. (Bo, Lily Ray on Twitter
- So according to Google search, @FastCompany is already posting articles from the future. Hey @rustybrick what kind of witchcraft is this?! https://t.co/e13QbSskYN, Ephraim Gopin on Twitter
- Has anyone seen anything like this? The data between Oct 22, 2018 and Dec 11, 2018 simply doesn't exist. Also, there's no gap in the chart. What might have happened here @googlewmc ? https://t.co/Acqzf3Ewef, Pedro Dias on Twitter
- New Category Section Seen in Product Post, Local Search Forum
- WSJ Article About Google Search.. and an SEO rebuttal, WebmasterWorld
- The last-modification date is useful if you want those pages recrawled / reprocessed, so if something significant changed, that sounds like a good fit. If you're just changing sidebar, styling, dynamic items, etc, John Mueller on Twitter
- There's no workaround for the captchas. Also, scraping our search results is against our terms of service and generally results in more captchas. https://t.co/1T8rh50AUF (but you know all of that already, I'm, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Performance marketing comes to television
- Google for Jobs: Everything you need to know to optimize for better ranking
- Google brings audio news aggregation to smart speakers, phones
- Rich answers in Google mobile search more than doubled since 2018, study finds
- Google testing car rental comparison ad unit in search results
- Soapbox: The compromise between UX and revenue is not so simple
- Bing says it has been applying BERT since April
- What does it take to be a winning team?
- 2020 SEO trends that will influence your work
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
- App + Web Measurement in GA360, DELVE
- Free Reporting Dashboard for Holiday Campaign Insights, Adswerve
- Google Analytics for Ecommerce: 14 Tips for Measuring Your Online Store, Databox Blog
- Using Measurement to Inform New Revenue Models for Publishers, Bounteous
Industry & Business
- Who Uses Bing, Anyway? 10 Surprising Ways You Probably Do, WordStream
- Google employees protested security team interrogation, memo says, CNBC
- Google requested a trove of documents from the Texas attorney general's antitrust probe, CNN
Links & Promotion Building
- How to Earn Links by Doing Something Truly Newsworthy, Search Engine Journal
Local & Maps
- Apple Maps Revamp Rolls Out Widely in Western and Midwestern United States, MacRumors
- Apple spent 'billions' on revamped Maps service, Apple Insider
- Google Maps makes foreign travel easier by pronouncing place names and helping with translation (Update: Rolling out), Android Police
Mobile & Voice
- Creating Delightful User Experiences Using AMP On Adobe Experience Manager, The AMP Blog
- Google Assistant on Android devices could be tricked into taking photos, videos, CNET
SEO
- How BERT can improve the quality of your traffic, State of Digital
- How to Analyze SERPs for SEO & Content Creation, Portent
- The Google BERT update - what it means for marketers, Vertical Leap
PPC
- Announcing v1.1 of the DoubleClick Bid Manager API, Google Ads Developer Blog
- Google plan to lock down user data draws fire from advertisers, Financial Times
- The Definitive Search Campaign QA Checklist, PPC Hero
Search Features
- Hey Google, play me the news, Google Blog
- Google Lens is now integrated in Chrome's image search, Android Police
Other Search
- Complex Search-Results Pages Change Search Behavior: The Pinball Pattern, Nielsen Norman Group
