Industry News

Catch up on interesting new discussion and industry news.

    Daily Search Forum Recap: January 7, 2025

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Today at 7:00 AM
    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.

    Microsoft is trying to trick Bing users to thinking they are using Google...

    Google Search Console Performance Reports Now Exports Hourly Data

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Today at 4:51 AM
    Google now added the new 24-hour hourly data from the performance report in Google Search Console to the export functionally. So now you can export hourly data, the most recent data, from Google Search Console's performance report.

    Report: Google SPN Placement Have A 37% Lower ROAS vs Google Search

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Today at 4:41 AM
    Google Ads SPN, search partner network, has a 37% lower ROAS, return on ad spend, for shopping campaigns on Google Ads when compared to Google Search ads, directly. Mike Ryan wrote this on LinkedIn, saying, "SPN is a budget buy. It doesn't convert as well, but it also doesn't cost as much. I crunched the numbers for you, and the Shopping via SPN has a ROAS 37% lower than Google Search."

    Google Vehicle Ads Gains Date First Registered Attribute

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Today at 4:31 AM
    Google has added a new attribute to its vehicle ads product attributes. The new attribute is [date_first_registered], the date of when the vehicle had its first registration date with the public authorities or government.

    Google Tests People Also Ask & People Also Search For Refinements

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Today at 4:21 AM
    Google is testing new search refinement options to let users expand their queries for the people also ask and people also search sections of the search results. We've seen numerous variations of this over the years but here are new ones.

    Microsoft Tricking Bing Users To Thinking They Are On Google

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Today at 4:11 AM
    About a month ago, a reader sent me a screenshot of Bing showing this weird search box on its page after you search for Google. I thought it was some weird Microsoft Rewards promotion and took it at that and moved on. I was wrong, tons of publications are now saying this is Microsoft's way of tricking Bing users to thinking they are using Google Search.

    Daily Search Forum Recap: January 6, 2025

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Yesterday at 7:00 AM
    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.

    There may be a large Google local search ranking update going on right now...

    January 2025 Google Local Ranking Update (Unconfirmed)

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Yesterday at 4:51 AM
    There are reports of a major local search ranking change with Google Maps and Local Search results. The reports of this local search algorithm update started to funnel in over the weekend, with some saying they saw local listings rankings drastically change from its previous position.

    Google Discover Feed Showing More Sources For Stories Within Cards

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Yesterday at 4:41 AM
    Google is showing now sometimes showing more than one source for a story in the Google home page, Google Discover, feed. This can show up in a carousel format or a stacked format, just beneath the main story in your Discover feed.

    Google: URLs Provide Minimal Additional Signals For Search Engines

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Yesterday at 4:31 AM
    The topic of URLs for SEO and ranking is one that has been around since search engines first existed and 25+ years later, it is still a popular topic. Google has said time and time again that keywords in URLs don't offer a significant ranking boost for SEO and ranking purposes and Google said it again in 2025.