It is time for the March 2022 Google webmaster report, where I look back at the past 30-days of SEO news related to Google and highlight the most important changes over that time period. This month we had a confirmed rollout begin of the page experience update for desktop, we learned about an update to the Pirate update, a new shopping ranking factor and more.

Like I said, Google said it began rolling out the desktop version of the page experience update last month, it will continue to roll out through the end of this month – no need to panic over this update. Google also supposedly strengthened the Pirate update from 2012, that impacts sites with a large volume of DMCA takedown requests. Google added a new ranking factor for Shopping search, the shopping experience scorecard. We also learned that MUM is barely used much in Google Search to-date and we had a number of unconfirmed Google algorithm updates.

Google quickly processed the Google News and Google Discover manual action penalties. Google added more messages to Search Console going forward. And we had another data loss with Search Console. There was also a Google crawling issues that was resolved.

Google Maps is now an interactive map in the local pack – which is very cool. Google is dropping the business follow and welcome offers from local listings. Google is testing buyer guides in search and testing messaging in Google Shopping for merchants and customers.

There is a lot going on, but honestly, it was not an insanely busy month like we had in the past. To catch up on last month, see the February 2022 Google Webmaster report.

The ongoing WebmasterWorld thread is still buzzing about that last unconfirmed update.

Here is a summary of the more important stories over the past 30-days:

Google Algorithms:
Google Page Experience Update For Desktop Rolling Out
Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On February 24th (Unconfirmed)
Is Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update Coming Soon?
Some Google Algorithm Tracking Tools Are Reporting An Update But Results Are Mixed
Google Strengthens The Pirate (DMCA) Penalty Algorithm
Google Shopping Experience Scorecard Will Promote Merchants In Search That Provide Excellent Customer Service
Google Doesn’t Use MUM For Ranking Or Much Of Anything In Google Search

Google SEO:
Google Fixes Shopify Crawling Issue, Calling It A Temporary Drop In Calculation
Google: There Is No Snippet Wide Ban
Google Shopping Adds Short Title Attribute
Google: No EAT Score But EAT Is Important & Indirectly In The Search Ranking Algorithm
Google On Pagination & The Value Of Showing Newer Content First
Google: Web Stories Performance Not Indicative Of Overall Site Performance In Search
Google: CTAs Above The Fold Is Not Bad For Google Search Or SEO
Google: Using The Indexing API Not For Jobs Or Livestreams Won’t Hurt Or Help
Google: Code To Text Ratio Is Not & Has Never Been An SEO Factor

Google Search Console:
Google Quickly Processing Discover & Google News Manual Actions
Google Adds More Message To Search Console’s Message Panel
Google: URL Inspection Tool Referring Page Not Really Important
Google Search Console Performance Report Suffered A Data Loss Again

Google Maps & Local:
Google Search Local Pack Is Now Interactive (Not A Static Map)
Google Business Profiles Follow & Welcome Offer Going Away
Questions and Answers In The Google Maps Interface
Google Business Profiles May Require Additional Verification
Google Business Profiles New Business Calls API

Google User Interface:
Google Buying Guides In Search Results
Google Testing Messaging For Google Shopping & Google Merchant Center
Google Tests Search Bar Filters & Options On Top Right Side
Google Tests Double Site Name & URL In Search Snippets
Google Search Asks Do You Own This Product Before Reviewing It
Google Image Search Tests Rounded Corners On Images
Google Tests Larger Fonts In Desktop Search Bar
Some Recent Weird Google Search Interface Bugs

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.