Industry News

A couple of weeks ago, we spotted Google testing large thin fonts for the search results. Now I am seeing Google testing large thick and chunk fonts for its search results.

Two years ago, we saw Google playing videos, mostly YouTube videos, in an overlay that really gave almost zero incentive for the searcher to click over to the YouTube page. The issue is that you don't get the subscribe or like buttons, or even the ability to comment, on the Google Search video overlays - you do get views and ads in the videos but not the other engagement signals.

Google has slightly updated its Google crawlers and fetchers documentation to say that it will pick the protocol, HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2, that "provides the best crawling performance" for Googlebot. In fact, it may even switch protocols between sessions, if it needs to.

Google is testing swapping out the blue buttons within the local pack with gold buttons. In this example, the blue call phone icon is now in a gold color, on dark mode.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...

The Google November 2024 Core Update launched two weeks and a day ago, and it should be confirmed as done rolling out any minute now but starting yesterday, we are seeing a spike in Google search ranking volatility. It was unusually calm for the past several days but now Google Search is heating up, in a big way.

Google announced it will be testing more changes for the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in Europe to try to help airlines, hotel operators, and small retailers and not just "large online travel aggregators and comparison sites" the search company said. Google will be testing removing map features from hotel listings as part of this.

Two and a half years ago, Google added a portal-like feature to the Google Search results named "Explore." It showed up after you scrolled through the Google Search results page and then scrolled a bit more. Now, with continuous scroll no longer, even on mobile, it seems the Explore feature went away with it.

A few months ago, Google Search Console added the ability to control your Google Merchant Center and product shipping and return policies. Well, it seems like Google will be removing that feature from Search Console and tell those looking for it to go to Google Merchant Center.

Google is testing showing Local Service Ads directly in the Google local pack. They are labeled as sponsored, but they can now show at the top of bottom of the local pack.