Industry News

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.

Yandex sued Google...

Google Search seems to be testing a new search box that is titled "from your notifications." I assume this works for Android devices only, where Google Search can detect the Android notifications, and show them when the query may be relevant to the notification?

Google emailed some local businesses saying it will begin "unifying" booking on Google Business Profiles (GBP) and Local Services Ads (LSA). Google said this will create a "more seamless experience for your clients and their customers."

We know Google has told us for many years that word count is not a thing, Google doubled down on it last year. Google's John Mueller reiterated that over the weekend saying not just words on a page but also links on a page are not counted by Google.

Google announced what it is calling "strengthen your first-party data strategy with new tools." These new tools are Tag Diagnostics and a new consent management setup within Google Ads, Google Analytics, and Tag Manager.

Yelp has officially filed a lawsuit against Google for allegedly using its monopolistic powers to give Google an unfair advantage in local search and local search ads. "For years, Google has leveraged its monopoly in general search to pad its own bottom line at the expense of what's best for consumers, innovation, and fair competition," Yelp's General Counsel, Aaron Schur said.

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

Last week, a reader here asked if I would poll the audience to see how the last Google search algorithm update impacted them, the Google August 2024 core update. So, I am asking you to take the poll below or on X to see how SEOs, in general, were impacted by this core update.

In the past couple of days, Google has issued a number of manual actions around Google Discover policy violations. Just to be clear, you may have seen your Google Discover traffic drop with the August core update, and this policy violation notice would be unrelated to that. Google issued manual actions manually (but in batches) and Google never sends notices like this for algorthmic updates.

Google has posted a notice that the old customer reviews links in Local Service Ads will expire and the Google Business profile link will be what you should use going forward. The notice is in the reviews section within Local Service Ads.