Industry News

This week in search we covered the election day Google Search ranking volatility. We also had a status update on where those helpful content update victims are currently sitting. There is this spat going on between content creators and SEOs now, what did Google say. ChatGPT Search is powered...

We have covered examples of Google selecting the wrong canonical URL from within your domain, but what about when Google shows you a domain name that is not yours? What if the Google URL inspection tool shows a domain name that you do not own as the Google-selected canonical?

Google will stop supporting the Google Local Service Ads app starting on January 6, 2024. An email sent to advertisers said, "On January 6, 2025, we will be turning down the Google Local Services Ads mobile app."

Google seems to be testing the ability to have a conversation with the Google Search app, where it Google Search continues to adapt and refine the search query, as you add follow up statements. It is like how Google Gemini or other AI Chat features work, but in Google Search.

Google's Gary Illyes and John Mueller, along with Bing's Fabrice Canel and probably other representatives from these search engines spent time in Dublin this week to attend the IETF 121 Dublin event with the goal of submitting ideas on how to improve the Robots Exclusion Protocol.

Microsoft Bing has these AI-powered buying guide that can show up at the top right section for some e-commerce related queries. Microsoft spoke about these buying guides back in June 2023 but they now seem to be rolling out more widely.

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

Google Ads is rolling out new brand guidelines for performance max campaigns, which was originally announced back at Google Marketing Live. Google said then, "advertisers can share their font and color guidelines in Performance Max, as well as provide helpful image reference points to generate new asset variations."

Google is testing showing AI Overviews and generative AI results directly in the people also ask section. People also ask generally are featured snippet powered but now Google is testing using AI Overviews instead of featured snippets.

Google Search can show who wrote the review directly in the search results snippet. Google has this "reviewed by" rich result element next to some search results that names the author of the review.