Industry News

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

Google's John Mueller said that if Google is not convinced that there are new and important content to index on your site, then it won't use the sitemap file on your site. Just because you have a sitemap file, it does not mean Google will index all the pages in that file.

Google's John Mueller said a spike/increase in impressions within Google Search Console does not cause any specific problems within Google Search. There are a number of posts where some users are seeing a surge in impressions within Google Search Console but clicks and traffic have not changed.

Microsoft is testing a new user interface for the Bing Copilot AI responses. The new interface shows these link and references cards both inline and on the right.

We've seen Google use AI for local panel descriptions, menus and more. But now Google is also using AI to generate a list of services a local business offers.

Google is now (past few weeks?) sending out emails when it detects fake or incentivised reviews on your Google Business Profile. Google also says it has removed the fake or incentivised reviews that were identified.

The Google Search Console page indexing report seems to be missing a chunk of data. The missing data is from December 15th and earlier, but we do have data from December 15th (14th) through today.

Some are wondering when the Google Search ranking volatility will begin to cool down a bit. While many of the tools continue to show heated volatility over the past weeks, some are starting to show signs of cooling.

Paul Ford writes about vibe coding for the NYT (gift link) and what happens when software suddenly becomes cheap and fast to ship:

There are many arguments against vibe coding through A.I. It is an ecological disaster, with data centers consuming billions of gallons of water for cooling each year; it can generate bad, insecure code; it creates cookie-cutter apps instead of real, thoughtful solutions; the real value is in people, not software. All of these are true and valid. But I’ve...

Isabel Woodford has a research-heavy essay in The Atlantic about why dads and daughters crave closeness but struggle to find it. The research is striking: 28% of American women are estranged from their father, and even where relationships are intact, they tend to be thinner—more transactional, less emotionally honest—than daughters want.

The core diagnosis:

At the root of the modern father-daughter divide seems to be a mismatch in expectations. Fathers, generally speaking, have for...