Daily Search Forum Recap: November 20, 2024

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.

Google has updated its site reputation abuse policy to say that it doesn't matter that there is first party involvement or content oversight. Google also made it crystal clear that Google does use site wide ranking sigals. Google Lens has in-store searches features. We have some estimated numbers of ChatGPT's market share and potential growth figures. Bing is testing categorized video sections.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Google Site Reputation Abuse Policy Now Includes First Party Involvement Or Content Oversight
  Google has updated its site reputation abuse policy to expand what is included in abuse. It now includes third-party content that has first-party involvement or content oversight. Google also dropped a mention of the starkly different content algorithm but made no mention that site reputation abuse is enforced algorithmically—so it must still be only through manual actions.
• Google Makes It Clear It Has Both Site Wide & Page Level Ranking Signals
  Google has updated its guide to Google Search ranking systems to mention at the top of the page that it uses both page-level and site-wide signals for search rankings. There was a debate on this after the Google creator summit about Google possibly saying they only have page level signals, so this may clear things up a bit.
• Google Lens Updated For In-Store Shopping
  Google announced new shopping features through Google Lens to help with in-store shopping and local shopping. Google said, "Google Lens can quickly show you product insights tailored to the store you're in. Just snap a photo to find product information, similar products in-stock, whether a store's price is competitive and shopper reviews."
• ChatGPT's Search Marketing Share vs Google
  Is OpenAI, its ChatGPT service, taking market share from Google? Well, maybe. Rand Fishkin of Sparktoro posted his assumptions based on a mix of data from SimilarWeb and Datos that says ChatGPT's current market share is 4.33% - that is from October 2024 data.
• Bing Video Search Tests Categorizing Videos
  Microsoft is testing categorizing the videos within its Bing video search results. Bing's video search interface can show at the top a featured video for the query, then trending videos related to the query, then short videos, then a related category of videos, followed by the normal video thumbnails.
• Trees For Ireland At Google Dublin
  Here is a photo from the Google Dublin office, where Google had some sort of climate event. It is of the trees for Ireland group. They brought part of a tree into the Google office there.

Other Great Search Threads:

• Continuing this week’s focus on confidential matching in Google Ads: An update In September, we noted that “attestation” would soon be available for confidential matching. Now, advertisers also have the option to encrypt their, AdsLiaison on X
• I think this partnership between @perplexity_ai and @stripe to enable inline purchases directly from search results is very neat. (And, as a reminder, we launched an agent toolkit last week -- check it out if you want to enabl, Patrick Collison on X
• Looker is great, but not an excuse for everything. I think the toggle hasn't been added from the start because it affects 1 out 4 elements in that page, so it might look a bit weird - an, Daniel Waisberg on X
• Report: U.S. Justice Department Official to Ask Google to Sell Off Chrome Browser, WebmasterWorld
• Thanks for @ahrefs for integrating IndexNow, Fabrice Canel on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

• DOJ plans to push for Chrome sale after Google antitrust victory
• Google site reputation abuse policy now includes first-party involvement or oversight of content
• How to create article outlines with AI based on Google’s Top 10
• Google Lens for in-store and local shopping
• SEO for page titles and meta descriptions: How to win more clicks
• Topic clusters and SEO: Everything you need to know in 2025

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

• How The Conversion Paths Report GA4 Can Transform Your Google Ads Strategy, Hopskip Media
• Improvements to Google Analytics cost data import, Google Analytics Help

Industry & Business

• Alphabet's Life Sciences Firm Verily To Become A Standalone Entity, Disconnect From Google, Benzinga
• Google’s Anthropic AI Deal Cleared by UK Antitrust Agency, Bloomberg
• Near Media 2.0, Near Media
• Nvidia Is Helping Google Design Quantum Computing Processors, Bloomberg

Links & Content Marketing

• 21 Top AI Tools for Content Creation in 2025, Moz
• Are We Walking Backward Into the Future of Content and Marketing?, Content Marketing Institute
• June 2024 Google Link Spam Update: What It Really Did to Sites, BuzzStream

Local & Maps

• Foursquare Open Source Places: A new foundational dataset for the geospatial community, Foursquare
• How to Build Local Citations & Get Seen Everywhere Online, WordStream
• The Incident Reporting Feature Google Maps Needs but Will Never Get, AutoEvolution
• These Are the 6 Best Google Maps Alternatives, Make Use Of

Mobile & Voice

• Google could copy iOS 18's Vehicle Motion Cues feature to Android, Android Authority
• Ultra-wide Mac display mirroring is Apple Vision Pro's killer app, AppleInsider

SEO

• Calculating SERPs Compression Ratio With Python, Sara Taher
• How To NOT Recover From An Algorithm Update, Hall Analysis
• How to Optimize for AI Overviews: Patent & Research Insights, Rich Sanger SEO
• How To Perform A Web Accessibility Audit, Screaming Frog
• Maximize Your SEO Potential with Yoast Semrush Integration, Yoast
• Optimizing Product Variants in eCommerce for Better Search Rankings, WordLift Blog
• SEO for brand visibility in LLMs, Wix SEO Hub
• What is search intent?, STAT Search Analytics

PPC

• 6 Ways Small Businesses Can Leverage AI to Level the Playing Field with their PPC Campaigns, PPC Hero
• Ad Grant vs. Paid Ads? Google’s Transparency Tool Reveals Who Pays, PPC News Feed

Search Features

• Holidays 2024: New products and tips from Google, Google Blog

Other Search

• Apple is selling Apple News ads directly for the first time, Axios
• ChatGPT search: what businesses need to know regarding OpenAI’s latest update, Hallam
• You can now ask Gemini to remember with memory feature, 9to5Google

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