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 Holiday Doodles Throughout All Of December 2020
Google will have a new holiday Doodle on its home page, Google.com, throughout all of December 2020. I guess for 2020 the company is looking to spread the holiday cheer as it does best, through its Doodles, special Google logos. - Google: We Don't Differentiate Search For Travel In X vs Live In X
So let's say you are searching for pizza stores in Saint Moritz, Switzerland - does that mean you live there or you are about to travel there. Google's John Mueller said while Google does try to understand where you are searching from, it does not differentiate between "living in X" from "traveling in X". - Google: We Do Not Support Nested XML Sitemap Index Files
Ryan Siddle, an SEO, asked John Mueller of Google if Google supports nested XML sitemap index files. The answer is no, Google does not support it. But Google does have a help document on how to split up your large sitemap files. - Google Local Panel Adjusts How To Suggest An Edit To Store Hours
Google has made a small tweak to the "suggest an edit" feature in the local panel results. Yes, you can still suggest an edit but now if you click on the arrow to expand the hours of that business or store, Google will let you suggest an edit specific to the hours of the local business. - Google Merchant Center: Build Your Own Performance Reports
Google Merchant Center seems to be rolling out a new reporting feature that lets you build your own performance report. You should be able to access this in the Google Merchant Center under the "Performance" tab. - Gary Illyes, Martin Splitt & Aurora Morales From Google Zurich Have Dinner
So here is a photo that Gary Illyes from Google shared of him and a couple of his colleagues from the Google Zurich office having dinner together. You can see Martin Splitt and Aurora Morales with hi
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- I so enjoyed working with @jubileemedia on this video to talk about Google Search. Great questions from those who asked. Thank you! Hope people find it informative., Danny Sullivan on Twitter
- I can't comment on the legality of a threat like this, but with regards to Google, you can definitely ignore it., John Mueller on Twitter
- Google Ads testing some sort of callout - it didn't allow me to click on it #ppcchat is this new? https://t.co/0E6tuJnz8t, Andrea Cruz on Twitter
- Normally not., Martin Splitt on Twitter
- I don't see a problem with that - some sites use multiple CMSs. Google doesn't do anything special by CMS type. I'd just watch out for the usual technical issues when changing backends, but that's unrelated, John Mueller on Twitter
- While wild speculation is fun, I'm sometimes worried that folks read more into it... Back in the early days, I'd track how my test sites got indexed, it was weird to see some get more, some less indexed. Look, John Mueller on Twitter
- Hah, time will tell if people swtich from wrapping the whole page in a h1 to wrapping it all in a link :), John Mueller on Twitter
- It's normal to see somewhat different search results on desktop and mobile. Users sometimes have different expectations, and some of our factors only apply in one or the other mode (for example, mobile fri, John Mueller on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
- Ultimately you decide what you want to publish on your site, what you want to be known for -- regardless of where it originally came from. If comment spam isn't your niche, it's a good idea to, John Mueller on Twitter
- Google isn’t removing a link. Paying an agency to do it, Reddit
- Bing Removing Many Sites For no Reason, Microsoft Community
- Content What? A Beginner's Guide To Content Marketing, Koozai
- December 2020 AdSense Earnings and Observations, WebmasterWorld
- I agree we can look to improve here. But we're directing them with context to what we think might be helpful, just as a human might. What year did Tom Hanks land on the moon? You know, he didn't land o, Danny Sullivan on Twitter
- I can confirm that's still the case. A sitemap isn't like a web page that can get indexed or that has links on it. Serving a sitemap with an x-robots-tag noindex, nofollow, etc does not, John Mueller on Twitter
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
- Building Communities and Promoting Diversity in SEO with Areej AbuAli, Traject
- Facebook, Google to Face New Antitrust Suits in U.S., Wall Street Journal
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
- 9 HomePod Mini tricks that use Siri for productivity, Fast Company
- ‘The Voice’ Voting 2020: How to Vote for Season 19 Performers, Heavy
- Google TV is perfect for one, but terrible for multiple users, Android Police
SEO
- How to Create an SEO- Friendly Website Navigation, Botify
- SEO for Nonprofits: 5 Best Practices for Charities to Improve SEO, SEM Rush
- Brand SERPs - Jason Barnard // Kalicube, Search Metrics
- Don’t Sit On The Fence When It Comes To Gated Content, State of Digital
Other Search
- 2020’s top-trending videos and creators, YouTube Blog
