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.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
Google My Business Dashboard Unlock Your Plan & Complete Your Tasks To Reach Your Goals
A few weeks ago I spotted a thread at the Local Search Forums where someone shared a new user interface for the Google My Business Dashboard or a newsih business being verified in GMB. Now Google kind of gamifies the process of completing your Google My Business profile with incentives.
Google: We Want To Do Better With Dates In Snippets
Yesterday, as we covered, Google posted helpful information around how, when and why Google shows dates in the search results snippets. They provided best practices and tips. But Danny Sullivan of Google came in later to explain they didn’t simply post this without the intent that they want to do better with these snippets.
Google Increases Number Of Image Thumbnails In Mobile Search Results
It appears that Google has increased the number of times they are showing image thumbnails in the mobile search results snippets. A report by RankRanger, which I covered yesterday at Search Engine Land, shows that 75% of the search results they track have at least one image thumbnail in the results – which is up from 40%.
Google Tests Portrait Mode Tall Top Stories Layout
Google seems to be testing a portrait mode, i.e. taller mode, for the top stories in the mobile search results. Valentin Pletzer shared some screen shots with me on Twitter and you can see, some are videos and some are just tall images as opposed to square or wide images.
World Wide Web Google Logo For 30th Anniversary
Today on Google’s home page is a Doodle, a special Google logo, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web. You have a pixelated Google logo with an old fashion desktop computer from 30 years ago as the Doodle.
Wonder Woman Pixel Art In The Google Dublin Sky Bridge
Check it out, this is from within the sky bridge at the Google Dublin office. Someone put up Wonder Woman pixel art. How cool is that. There are a few photos of it on Instagram already.
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
Crawl Control is one of my favorite features in @Bing Webmaster Tools! Most folks have a fixed, constant amount of server capacity, so it makes sense to let crawlers roam free when your users are asleep and limit crawl activ, Frédéric Dubut on Twitter
Getting stuff into the index for most sites isn’t really that much of a problem; we crawl & index, there are sitemaps, feeds, PSHB, etc. Where do you see problems that you’d be willing to use another API for?… https://t.co/i, John Mueller on Twitter
K-12 artists, there’s just one week left to submit your #DoodleForGoogle ideas! Show us what you hope for and have the chance to be featured on our homepage → https://t.co/aXCsT7s8gj… https://t.co/hZUM8AoOLu, Google on Twitter
New mobile friendly📱 SEO audit in the @____lighthouse Chrome extension and on https://t.co/kzkvJE0pUI – tap target spacing! Tap targets (links, buttons) need extra space around them so taps don’t accidentally hit neighbor, Google Webmasters on Twitter
To me, it should be something that adds value to my life, especially information, guidance, a product or whatever that I wouldn’t get elsewhere. To Google, our raters are given a giant document on how to identify good content., Danny Sullivan on Twitter
Google testing for index types?, WebmasterWorld
In this case, the hreflang isn’t set correctly. The US version points at /en-us/ but canonical is /en-us (no slash). There’s also no link back from the GB version. FWIW to check, I use https://t.co/VBsEWVHyMo & https://t.co/im, John Mueller on Twitter
Sure, links are important but have you heard of having a website that actually functions., EJ Barnes on Twitter
Search Engine Land Stories:
Making the leap from automatic….to intelligent marketing automation
Report: 65 million US smart speaker owners, smart displays quickly gaining traction
Google launches marketer-friendly Google Ads API query builder
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
How to Set Up GTM Cookie Tracking (and Better Understand Content Engagement), Moz
Industry & Business
Cutting Down on Conferences – Preventing Saturation & Preserving Sanity, Polemic Digital
Google Approved $45 Million Exit Package for Executive Accused of Misconduct, New York Times
Google’s Page Allegedly Awarded $150 Million Rubin Payout, Bloomberg
Google must be broken up due to its ‘overwhelming’ power, News Corp says, The Guardian
Links & Promotion Building
The stale cornerstone content filter: keep your core content fresh!, Yoast
Local & Maps
Google’s New Hotel Booking Site Threatens Expedia, Airbnb and Others, Skift
Mobile & Voice
Announcing the AMP Conf Lineup!, Accelerated Mobile Pages Project
Prioritizing mobile speed & accessibility, Think with Google
SEO
Google Discover: 3 Implications for Organic Search, Seer Interactive
Google Webmaster Hangout Notes: March 8th 2019, DeepCrawl
My Search Results were Hacked (How to Detect and Fix it), Chris Garrett
New commenting plugin option, a book release, and a WordPress milestone, Yoast
Why Conversion Mapping and SEO Go Hand in Hand, Street Fight
In Search SEO Podcast 18: How to Effectively Create & Utilize Content Pillars, RankRanger
Yoast SEO 10.0: Meet the new SEO analysis, Yoast
PPC
Introducing the Google Ads Query Builder tool, Google Ads Developer Blog
New Update for Google Call-Only Ads Allows for Additional Lines of Text, Seer Interactive
The Definitive Guide to Ecommerce PPC on Google, Amazon, & Bing, WordStream
Learn what’s trending in travel searches, Bing Ads Blog
