Industry News

Yesterday, Google announced it made some changes to its guidance around what makes content considered helpful, including adding in good page experience to the equation. Google also made some other changes to this document, which I will detail below.

In the coming months, Google will deprecate the page experience report within Google Search Console, the mobile usability report, and the mobile-friendly testing tool. The core web vitals and HTTPs report will remain in Google Search Console.

On April 12th at noon, while I was offline, Google released the April 2023 reviews update that expanded the product reviews update to go beyond just products and also impacted services and things. It has been just under a week since it launched, and so far, while the sites that did see an impact saw a significant impact, I am not seeing massive widespread impacts like you would see from a core update.

The New York Times reported yesterday that Google is working on an "all-new search engine" while also working on Project Magi, aimed to add AI-based features to the existing search engine.

On the heels of the March Broad Core Update rolling out, Google is now rolling out the April 2023 Reviews Update. And you're reading that correctly. 'Product' has been removed now that the system covers 'reviews about products, services, and things'.

Google's John Mueller was asked about his feelings on the Google March 2023 broad core update and if he can honestly not say that the "update messed the SERP a bit up." John responded saying, "I've seen a ranking update landing as "oops, everything is wrong." There's always room for improvement, I don't think the team sees it as having "messed up the search results."

Did the Google March 2023 Broad Core Update impact local search rankings? That is the question many local SEOs are asking in the Local Search Forums.