Industry News

Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, posted again about the timing around recovering from the helpful content update. He essentially repeated what Google said back when it first was announced, that the classifier is always running to check if content is helpful but it takes time to prove to Google that your efforts are long-term.

When Google first launched SGE, the Search Generative Experience, it would only work in Chrome or the Google Search App on Gmail accounts opted into the search labs experiment. But now when I try accessing SGE while on mobile Safari, the native Apple iPhone browser, it works as well.

Late last week, Google began to roll out those branded Local Service Ads, but it surprised many businesses without a way to opt out of the feature. I am told that Google will provide a way to opt out and will send more details to advertisers this week.

The Culture Map by Erin Meyer is a great book about how to improve communication between different cultures when you work at a company with a global workforce. Recently I’ve been thinking about how these concepts apply not just at a (geographical) global level, but within the systems of a single organization. What are the norms of how people communicate with each other in meetings, in email, over Slack? What type of confusion/misalignment might happen because of those norms, and how can it...

This essay on How Group Chats Rule the World (NYT Gift Link) is really great, and I agree with all of it.

The group chat can sustain indefinitely this thin wire of connectedness. Some might argue that this feeling is a deception, another screen-based way to stave off loneliness; I would say instead that it glows with potential. Because there is no practical end to the group chat, it can be a means of keeping the lights on, constellating a set of people who would otherwise be entirely...

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

For the original iTunes version, click here.

This week we covered a new possible Google search ranking update that started brewing on Wednesday, February 7. Google's Danny Sullivan said again...

Google has updated its Web Stories documentation to explain where Web Stories can show in search. Google said Web Stories no longer will show up within Google Image Search, the carousel view and made some changes to where these Web Stories show within Google Search.

Google has made an update to its Google crawler (user agent) search documentation to change the references of "Bard" to "Gemini" because of the product name change. Google also clarified that Google Extended has no impact or effect on Google Search.

Google has added the ability to add activities and events to the Google Business Profiles dashboard. This is a quick form to add upcoming events or activities to your business quickly.