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 CEO Sundar Pichai confirmed Google’s plans to release a ChatGPT feature in search using LAMDA. There may have been leaks of the Microsoft Bing ChatGPT search feature in the wild. Google revamped its help documentation on canonicalization. The new BingBot might go fully live today. Google’s earnings report is out and it is not good, ad revenue was down 3.5% and profit down 34%. And I posted my weekly SEO video recap.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai Confirms New Chat Based Search Feature Coming Really Soon
Last night I reported on Search Engine Land, based on the earnings report and earnings call, that Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai has confirmed the search company will release a chat based search feature based on its own AI, LaMDA, in the coming weeks and months. Plus, there is a big new search event this Wednesday – so maybe we will hear about it there?
Is This The Microsoft Bing ChatGPT Search Interface?
Owen Yin shared some screenshots of what he said he saw on the Microsoft Bing website. It looks like the beta version of the upcoming ChatGPT features that we are all expecting Bing to announce in the coming weeks (maybe even this coming Tuesday).
Is The New BingBot Now Fully Live Today For Microsoft Bing?
As a reminder, since April, Bing has been slowly testing a new BingBot user agent, slowly rolling it out to more percentages of crawls over the year. It should have rolled out to 100% of all crawls last month. But now Fabrice Canel said this week that it is near 100% and an announcement is coming sometime today from Microsoft.
Google Does Major Refresh Of The Canonicalization Help Documentation
Google has updated its search help documentation around canonicalization this morning. The Google Search Relations team split in three distinct sections and updated a lot of the content to provide clearer details around how Google Search and canonicalization works.
Google Ad Revenues Down 3.6% Year Over Year, Working On Cost Structure
Google reported earnings last night and their ad revenue not only slowed but was technically lower year over year. Google’s ad revenue was down about 3.6%, while total revenue was up just around 1%.
Daniel Waisberg Hosted Lizzi Sassman & Martin Splitt At Google Tel Aviv
A couple months before John Mueller visited Daniel Waisberg at the Google Tel Aviv office, Lizzi Sassman and Martin Splitt of Google did as well. Here are the three smiling on the streets of Tel Aviv.
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Algorithm Update, Yandex Search Factors Leaked, ChatGPT Craze (Bing/Google), Bing Lastmod & More Yahoo Search
In this week’s recap, I covered the unconfirmed Google update that seemed to impact product review sites but maybe more on January 26th. Yandex had a huge leak…
Other Great Search Threads:
Do you have product review content on your site? If so was your traffic significantly affected last week? Barry is reporting a possible unannounced product reviews update on the 26th., Dr. Marie Haynes on Twitter
Google added a new authors section to the Google Search Central blog, Barry Schwartz on Twitter
Probably would work, easy to try. The opposite (changing a noindex to “not noindex”) wouldn’t work., John Mueller on Twitter
Rumor has it I’ve been already laid off. Rumor is false: we, the search relations team, still don’t know what’s gonna happen, when, or to whom, so we’re working normally, focusing on projects that we think we can deliver fast and will help the most extern, Gary Illyes on Mastodon
The folks behind web.dev have put together an awesome resource about images on the web. If you’re working on a website with images, check it out. If you’re working on a website without images, uhm, interesting., John Mueller on Mastodon
I think that’s an awesome idea & a great practice. Header hierarchy is not just useful to Google, it’s also important for accessibility. (Google still has to deal with whatever, John Mueller on Twitter
Meta Reports Q4 and Full Year 2022, WebmasterWorld
Search Engine Land Stories:
Report: Microsoft Bing’s ChatGPT feature to be faster and richer with GPT-4
ChatGPT Plus launches, it costs $20 a month
Google Maps removed policy-abiding reviews from Local Guides
Google testing new search design with AI answers over organic results
Microsoft Bing to rely more on lastmod date in XML sitemap files for crawling
Google Search Console Video indexing report gains video impressions overlay and sitemap filter
Search Engine Land’s updated What is PPC guide is now available
Brands’ guide to effective mobile game advertising
ChatGPT for PPC marketers: 15 strategic prompts to use today
Is Google using a ChatGPT-like system for spam and AI content detection and ranking websites?
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Campaign tracking in GA4: How to ensure your links are properly tagged, MarTech
Industry & Business
Back At Google Again, Cofounder Sergey Brin Just Filed His First Code Request In Years, Forbes
How we achieve privacy through innovation, Google Blog
Google ‘rater’ contract workers rally at Mountain View headquarters to demand higher pay, CBS San Francisco
Links & Content Marketing
Digital Content Creation: What It Is And How To Excel at It, Semrush
Ran Out Of Content Ideas? How To Find Additional Content Opportunities Using Search Console, Keyword Insights
Why AI Content Tools (Probably) Won’t Help You Rank, Siege Media
Local & Maps
An update on how we moderate Google Maps reviews, Local Guides Connect
Should Google location data be a tool for cops?, The Register
Mobile & Voice
Apple’s iOS 16.3 update may fix unannounced location privacy bug, AppleInsider
Google says Lens and Maps Live View are ‘prelude to [its] long-term vision’ for AR, 9to5Google
Samsung looks beyond the Galaxy S23 to make “extended reality” devices, Washington Post
SEO
How to craft your brand voice for better content marketing and SEO, Wix SEO Hub
JavaScript page performance problems, Google Search Central YouTube
What Is Technical SEO? Basics and 10 Best Practices, Semrush
Five Reasons You Shouldn’t Sleep On Your SEO Strategy, DealerOn
PPC
The Google for Games Developer Summit returns March 14, Google Blog
Search Features
ChatGPT is about to get even better and Microsoft’s Bing could win big, Semafor
Other Search
Do search engines matter as much as they used to?, SERP’s Up SEO Podcast
Feedback:
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