Industry News

The Google Search App stopped working last night for a few hours. Google was quick to fix it in the middle of the night but by then, hundreds, if not, thousands of complaints flooded the support forums and social media.

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 Ads is launching confidential matching...

For the original iTunes version, click here.

Well over a week after the Google August 2024 core update finished, we still have a ton of volatility. Apple Visual Intelligence was demoed at the Apple event this week...

Google Ads announced what it calls "confidential matching." Confidential matching is a "way to securely connect your first-party data for our measurement and audience solutions," Google said. And it will be used on Google Ads in numerous areas.

Google is testing removing the large "show more" button and replacing it with a small "more" link at the bottom of the AI Overview snippet. Also, the AI Overview header and Gemini logo at the top left is being removed, or at least being tested being removed.

I am seeing a spike in complaints from the PPC community around there being an increase in fraudulent traffic from the Google Ads Search Partner network. Many have seen an unusual spike in fraud from that network in the past week, say some advertisers.

Google is testing a new search box named "for reference" which is placed under a set of search results and contains more news articles related to the query. This seems similar to some other features Google has tested over the years.

Google is testing showing search results snippets without the breadcrumbs in the URL section of the snippet. Google has tested removing URLs and breadcrumbs completely before, but now Google is testing removing just the breadcrumb and leaving the URL.

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.

I covered some old statements from former Googlers on Navboost from Hacker News...

Over the years Google has been wishy-washy on if they use or do not use Exif (Exchangeable image file format) data for rankings. In 2014, Google's Matt Cutts said Google can parse the data and reserves the right to use it. But in 2019, Gary Illyes from Google said it was not used for rankings. Now in 2024, Martin Splitt of Google said it is not used for rankings.