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.
Seems the “things to know” section in Google is not showing up for most queries now. Google is testing blue highlighted text for normal search result snippets. Google is testing EU energy labels on products. Bing Search is testing lock icons for secure search results. Google AdSense improved its verification process. And I have another vlog with David Iwanow.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Report: Google Search Things To Know Rarely Showing Now?
It seems like the Google Search feature for “things to know” has significantly dropped and is rarely showing now both on desktop and mobile. I am personally not seeing things to know boxes for my test queries and according to RankRanger, Things to know is no longer showing up for most, if not all, search result pages. - Google AdSense Gains Real Time Verification & Meta Tag Verification
Google AdSense has improved its site verification methods with a real-time site check, meta tag verification method, and Ads.txt improvements. - Google Tests Blue Highlighting Text Within Search Result Snippets
Google seems to be testing highlighting portions of text in the search result snippets. This seems different from the highlighting of featured snippets, people also ask, things to know or sections of the explore feature. This is Google using blue highlight on the normal search results snippets. - Bing Tests Lock Icon In Search Results For Secure Websites
Bing is testing showing a lock icon in the Bing Search results for snippets from secure websites. Previously, Bing tested secure site labels and HTTPS labels in those positions but now Bing is testing showing a lock icon. - Google Search Tests European Union Energy Labels On Products
Google is testing displaying the European Union energy labels or icons on some product search results. The energy efficiency of the appliance is rated in terms of a set of energy efficiency classes from A to G on the label, A being the most energy efficient, G the least efficient. - Vlog #241: David Iwanow On Big Companies With Google Algorithm Updates & SEO Agencies Tactics
In part one, we got to learn about David Iwanow and why it is important to reinvent yourself in this space, over and over again. In part two… - Renegade Dalek Working At Google
Here is a photo taken by Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, at the Google UK office. You can see a Renegade Dalek working at the Google office there.
Other Great Search Threads:
- We do have a few features that are only in use for a small number of sites (usually this is until we’re sure of how it should work, and the markup/settings are more stable). I don’t know the plans for that in particular, some of these remain limited for a, John Mueller on X
- If you’re looking for new things to play with, we posted about some new Bing features today, Michael Schechter on X
- In case you think we were all kicking back, doing nothing over this Summer: this is our user Like ratio (% of 👍) on Bing Chat over time, Mikhail Parakhin on X
- It’s been over two months since Google Bard pushed out any updated, Barry Schwartz on X
- Look how many results are displaying in the local SGE Carousel results (21)…the carousel on the right ends with the results found in the 5 pack below, Andy Simpson on X
- Curious what people thought about the past of SEO a decade ago? Here’s a look at the “history of SEO” as seen in 2013, John Mueller on X
- Hey look, it’s HowTo snippets. 🙂 I typically would have added HowTo markup for my latest post, but since Google removed HowTo snippets completely, I held off. But SGE returns the steps, and the featured snippet does too. I think we’ll s, Glenn Gabe on X
- How dangerous is it to sell links re: penalties, Reddit
- It has a very, very low usage, but is super-expensive to support: a long tail of rare bugs eat a lot of bandwidth 🙁, Mikhail Parakhin on X
- Some new parasite sites for SEO, BlackHatWorld
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Search Features
Other Search
Feedback:
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