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’s September 2023 helpful content update completed rolling out and it seemed to hit SEO-first content in a big way. Microsoft Advertising is testing not labeled search ads in Bing Search. Google said it will keep providing SEO help and documentation despite some trying to use it to manipulate Google Search. ChatGPT’s browse with Bing is back after being disabled for 12 weeks. Google Ads tests expiration dates for email alerts. Google Ads updated its prescription drug services policy.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Google September 2023 Helpful Content Completed Rolling Out – Targeting SEO-First Content
Google, at around 3 am ET this morning, announced that the September 2023 Google helpful content update has finished rolling out. It took about 14 days, starting on September 14, 2023, and completing today on September 28, 2023. This update really went after SEO-first content, which is why the SEO community is so heated about this specific update. - Microsoft Advertising Hiding Search Ads On Bing Search Again?
A few months ago we reported how it was nearly impossible for a trained SEM to spot the ad label on these Microsoft Advertising search ads on Bing Search. Well, now, Bing is testing not showing an ad label at all on these ads in Bing Search. - Google Ads Gains Share Alerts With Expiration Dates
Google Ads seems to have added a new feature to the account alerts section that lets you set up alerts to go to email addresses but now lets you define when those alerts may expire. So if you want to share alerts for a short or defined period of time, you can now do that. - Google: We Won’t Stop Giving Advice To SEOs Despite Some Creating Made For Google Sites
Google’s John Mueller defends Google’s position of helping SEOs by providing documentation, video content, and responses to questions on multiple channels. This comes after some are upset that Google is targeting content and websites that are overly SEOed based on that feedback. - Google Ads Prescription Drug Services Medicines Policy Updated
Google will update the Google Ads Healthcare and Medicines policy from Prescription drug sale policy to Prescription drug services. “The Healthcare and medicines policy page will be updated to reflect the new language on October 10, 2023,” Google said. - ChatGPT Relaunches Browse With Bing Respecting Robots.txt Protocols
OpenAI has relaunched the browse with Bing feature in ChatGPT which lets users use ChatGPT leveraging the index of Bing Search. This was after Open AI turned off the feature after it was caught accessing content behind paywalls. - Google Search Central Swag – Water Bottle, Hat, T-Shirt, Notepads, etc
It is rare to see swag from the Google Search Central team but at one of the latest Google Search Central Live events Google gave out swag to attendees. The swag included water bottles, cups, hats, t-
Other Great Search Threads:
- It wasn’t a placebo, and I think especially in the early days of link manual actions, it was useful to clean things up. Sites didn’t realize what they were doing. To the best of my knowledge, I don’t think it was ever used as a way of self-declaring as a , John Mueller on Mastodon
- I myself find that often I need something quickly – time in Tokyo right now or navigate to Netflix – and Search is better in those situations. But for anything serious, any real research it’s all Chat by default for m, Mikhail Parakhin on X
- No plans to change the current approach., Mikhail Parakhin on X
- “I’m excited to share that @Meta is integrating Bing web search into the Meta AIs available within WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram. If a request requires fresh information, Meta AI will automatically ask Bing to get the chat answ, Jordi Ribas on X
- New category in GBP for “hotel Attributes”, called popular services. Google is encouraging you to complete these fields with a warning: “Your hotel is appearing in fewer searches because you are missing these services. Add, Lluc B. Penycate on X
- There is no fixed time. It just gets less-frequent over time, especially if all the references are removed. It doesn’t cause issues with crawl rate, we just want to make sure not to miss anything good., John Mueller on X
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Feedback:
Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.