I am a week late with the monthly Google webmaster report because I was on vacation and these are a pain to put together. But it is important and I wanted to catch you all up on the changes with Google SEO, webmaster, and organic search over the past month.

The big news is obviously the helpful content update from Google that I thought would be massive but after it started to roll out, it proved to be not a huge shakeup at all. I have a ton of stories below just on that topic, so check them out below. We also saw the fourth product reviews update complete and Google say a fifth version will come soon.

Google had some serious issues with Google Search, including an outage, indexing issues and pages dropping out – it was wild. Google launched new featured snippet stuff including callouts, false premise improvements, MUM additions and more. There was also an unconfirmed update earlier in August. And did you know that no search algorithm update focused on links in a long time and that Image Search now uses Google Lens.

Google improved the Search Console errors and thus fixed the validate fix outage. New Search Console video indexing reports are fully live and much more. Plus we had a lot of Google SEO, user interface, local and other topics this past month.

If you missed last month’s report, check out the August Google webmaster report here.

Here are the more important stories I pulled out for you all:
Google Helpful Content Update:
New Google Helpful Content Update To Change SEO Much Like Panda Did
Google Helpful Content Update Is Now Rolling Out
Google Helpful Content Update Feedback Form
Google Helpful Content Update Seems Weak & Slow To Roll Out So Far…
Google Isn’t Done Rolling Out The Helpful Content Update
Poll: Only 20% Noticed Ranking Changes After Google’s Helpful Content Update
Poll: Many SEOs Say The Content They Produce Is Helpful & Not Concerned
Danny Sullivan: Google Helpful Content Update Is Big But Not A Huge Shake-Up
Google: Crawl Rate Spikes Not A Sign Of The Helpful Content Update Rollout
Google Helpful Content Update Movement? Yes But Not Widespread.

Other Google Algorithms:
Google Search Is Very Broken Now: Outages, Indexing Issues, Pages Missing & More
Google Featured Snippet Callouts, False Premises, MUM & More
Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On Saturday, August 6th – PRU Tremors Or Something Else?
Google To Launch Fifth Product Reviews Update Just Weeks After The Last Update
July 2022 Google Product Reviews Update Finished On August 2nd & No One Said Anything
Are Not Happy With The Last Google Product Reviews Update? Tell Google.
Google’s John Mueller: No Recent Search Algorithms Focused On Links Outside Of Webspam
Google Image Search Now Uses Google Lens

Google SEO:
Google Can Crawl Site Sections More Frequently & Determine Quality By Section
Google: Noindex On One URL In An Hreflang Cluster Can Impact All The URLs In That Cluster
Google Provides Examples Of How To Improve Your Meta Descriptions
Google: Soft 404s Do Waste Crawl Budget
Google May Remove Word Count From Search Console News Article Content Errors
Google: Growth Of Microdata Is Fairly Stagnant
Google Adds Content Guidelines To Education Q&A Structured Data Docs
Google Now Supports Pros and Cons Structured Data For Reviews Pages
Google Learning Video Structured Data Docs Breaks Out educationalLevel
Google Local Business Structured Data Doesn’t Support additionalType; Instead Use An Array
Google: Adding Video Structured Data Won’t Make Your Video More Prominent
Google: Don’t Noindex Pages With Comments, Keep The Good Comments Only
Google: Quality Raters Guidelines Are Not A Collection Of Ranking Tips
Google: No SEO Benefit For Either Dynamic Rendering Or Server Side Rendering
Google: Dynamic Rendering Is A Workaround and Not A Long-Term Solution
Google Merchant Center Policy For Missing Return/Refund Policy Or Insufficient Contact Info Updated
Google: What To Do With Old Event Pages
Google: Sitemap 50,000 Limit Based On Location URLs, Not Alternative URLs

Google Search Console:
Google Search Console Validate Fix Now Back
Google Search Console Video Index Report Now 100% Live
Google Core Web Vitals Report Adds URL Level Data For Examples URLs
Google Fixes Search Console Bug Labeling Pages As Indexed When Not Indexed
Google Search Console Coverage Report New Source & Unsubmitted Pages
Google Search Console Performance Report For Discover Reporting Issue On July 26

Google User Interface:
Google Search Tests Showing All Of The Menu Bar Options
Google Tests Quick Read & 5 Minute Read Label In Search Results
Google Search Conversations & Discussion and Forums
Google Search Tests Explore Brands With & Without Product Images
Google Search Image Preview Overlay Now Fully Live In Web Search Results
Google Expanded From Sources Across The Web Feature
Dual Google People Also Ask Results In Different Languages
Google Tests Larger Live Stream Box In Search Results
Google Tests Expandable Maps In Search & Tabs In Map Results (Again)
Google Tests More New Sitelink Designs

Google Local:
Google Business Listings Test Photo Overlay Interface In Web Search
Google Adds “View All Business Profiles” In Web Search Results
Google Adds Products Section To Business Profile Guidelines
Google Local Spam Now Includes Duplicate Photos, Posts, Videos, and Logos
Sub-Reviews: Google Local Reviews By Category & Attribute
Google Search Browse Places Feature With Swipeable Cards
Did Google Remove The Maps Review-Gating Policy?
Google Business Profile Tests Captions On Business Photos
Google Maps: Your Review Isn’t Posted Email
Google Adds Asian Owned Business Attribute For Business Profiles

Google Misc:
Google Search Timer & Stopwatch Started Ticking Again
Google Tests New Format For SEO Office Hours – Do You Like It?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.