Industry News

Google has posted a notice within the Google Business Profiles performance report that it will stop sharing as much data under the driving directions report. Google said, "Starting in January 2024, you might see fewer direction requests."

Google is testing a "Chat with a live agent" button in the search result snippets. We have seen Google place the "Chat with a live agent" button in the local pack and local panels before but I don't believe we have seen it in a search result snippet.

Microsoft is testing two new changes to the Bing Search interface. One is a bubble style for the search bar menu and the other is using bullets for the sitelinks in the search result snippets.

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

Ever since December 2019 when Google removed the requirement for publishers to manually apply for inclusion into Google News, publishers have been pretty upset about the lack of transparency around Google News inclusion. Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, said on Mastodon that he would like to this process get better.

Google has updated its Search Console performance reports to change how it evaluates impressions and clicks metrics with job listing and detail pages. Google said nothing has changed with how it ranks or displays job listings and detail pages, but the metrics within these reports may change because Google has changed how it tracks clicks and impressions.

Google is now sending emails to publishers, app owners and others if their sites and apps are not compliant for GDPR EU User Consent Policy. The email says, "We may take action, including suspension, if the Policy violations have not been resolved."

60% of SEOs are worried about the impact that the new Google Search Generative Experience will have on their jobs and performance. About 30% are not worried about Google SGE and the rest are just not sure yet.

Google is showing a "viewed" label on product results that you recently viewed or visited within the Google Search results. Google has also launched the "you visit often" label a month or so ago, so it is not surprising to see something similar on product listings.

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 search ranking volatility was pretty calm this weekend, which is unusual...