Industry News

Google announced that it will stop serving the Google URL Shortener, so any URL that was set up to redirect using goo.gl, which Google stopped supporting adding new ones back in 2019, will also stop serving.

Gary Illyes from Google said in the latest Google SEO office hours that using a ccTLD and the localized language on your page and website does help you rank a little better in the localized/regional version of Google. So if you want to rank better in Google in Korea, using a ccTLd such as .kr helps a little and using Korean text on your page helps even more.

Google's John Mueller laid out a few ways to determine if your SEO team is doing the actual work they promised to deliver. While trusting your SEO team is important, John said you can also do the following to ensure the SEO team is doing their job.

Google Merchant Center Next now finally supports supplemental feed/source support. Google promised us this would come early this year, but it didn't happen until early Q3 of 2024. That being said, feed rules still do not seem to be supported yet by Google Merchant Center Next and that was also promised by now.

Google is testing showing a button in some local panels, some Google Business Profiles, that reads "Search Products With Camera." This seems to be related to Google Lens and the new multisearch features.

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...

We may be seeing the start of a Google Search ranking algorithm update, as I am starting to see volatility spiking in the Google Search results and a spike in chatter within the SEO community. I know we are expecting the next core update to touch down in the coming weeks, so maybe Google is testing/evaluating something now?

Google AI Overviews are only really live in the United States, for personal Google accounts (not Workspace accounts) and on Chrome browsers. Well, Google seems to be showing AI Overviews to some Workspace accounts in the UK.

Google is testing bolding the query in the search box when you click your cursor outside of the search box, otherwise the query is in normal plain font text. This is a weird one - don't you think?

Google announced that Google Merchant Center Next, the updated version of Google Merchant Center it announced at Google Marketing Live in 2023, is now coming to all merchants this month. Google has already begun notifying merchants and advertisers of this via email and will continue to do so over the month.