SEO
Google page experience update for desktop now rolling out
As expected, Google is now rolling out the desktop version of the page experience update. This update should be fully rolled by the end of March 2022.
Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.
SEO
Google’s Pirate Update can cause 89% drop in search traffic for offending sites
A recent document Google sent to the U.S. Copyright Office shows just how much being hit by the Pirate Update can sting.
Google testing questions and answers in the Google Maps interface
This feature first launched in 2017 in the local panel and Google appears to be testing it in Google Maps.
Local
Google dropping follow and welcome offers in local listings
Soon, you won't be able to follow local businesses in Google anymore.
Google launches Google Business Profiles calls API
Businesses can pull call history data from this API and into their CRM software.
PPC
Google denies mass search ad disapprovals or bugs with ad policy enforcement
There are widespread reports of Google Ads disapproving ads and accounts in the past 24-hours but Google says nothing is out of the ordinary.
Google Search Console
Google crawl stats report is missing a chunk of data
This seems to be just a reporting issue, as everyone seems to be impacted by this Google Search Console bug.
Google Search Console
Expect more messages in Google Search Console
Google said it finished the migration of all the messages into the new Search Console interface.
SEO
Bing News PubHub moves to Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing News PubHub launched in 2016 at its own location but has now been migrated into Bing Webmaster Tools.
Google News
Google Search Console performance reports data issue may impact analytics
This issue was between February 1st through February 3rd and did not impact your rankings.
SEO
Google says Shopify sites are in a good crawling state after reports of stalled crawling
Google Search Console's crawl stats report showed Google stopped crawling many Shopify sites last week.
SEO
Microsoft Bing adds automobile and car search features
This is powered through the listings in the MSN Autos Marketplace.
SEO
How Google uses artificial intelligence In Google Search
From RankBrain, Neural Matching, BERT and MUM - here is how Google uses AI for understanding language for query, content and ranking purposes.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console snapshot in search results now can show domain properties
You may start seeing this snapshot show up more often because Google now supports more verification methods.
Commerce
Auto-tagging added to Google Merchant Center free listings
Tagging adds URL parameters to your tracking URLs for better analytics and measurements.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console error reporting for Breadcrumbs and HowTo structured data changed
This change may result in seeing more or less errors in your Breadcrumbs and HowTo structured data Search Console enhancement and error reports.
SEO
Google releases URL Inspection Tool API
You can now programmatically access the data you'd request from the URL Inspection Tool within Google Search Console.
SEO
Google merges its SafeSearch help information into a single new document
Google expanded the document to explain how SafeSearch works, added some troubleshooting but the overall guidance has not changed.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console logging issue may cause drop in image search performance data
The issue started on January 24 and is still ongoing, so please note this in your reports.
SEO
Google adds new robots tag indexifembedded
This new robots tag lets you define if you want your content indexed when it's embedded through iframes or other means.