Daily Search Forum Recap: April 21, 2021

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:

Daily Mail Sues Google Claiming Organic Ranking Drop Due To Not Selling Google Ads
The Daily Mail owner has filed an antitrust lawsuit in a NYC federal court against Google alleging Google punishes publishers, like the Daily Mail, in its search results if they don’t sell enough ad space through Google’s marketplace, like Google AdSense.

Google Ads Target CPA and Target ROAS Bundled With Maximize Conversions and Maximize Conversion Value
Google Ads announced Target CPA and Target ROAS will be bundled with the Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value bid strategies. So Maximize conversions will have an optional target CPA and Maximize conversion value will have an optional target ROAS. But this is not always easier for advertisers, as Google suggested.

Speed Link Building: Google Says It Doesn’t Count Links Like That But…
Google was asked if building links too fast, let’s call it speed link building, is a bad thing. If you get too many links, too fast, is that something that can count against you in Google Search.

Google Fixed The Soft 404 Bug – I Think…
A week or so ago, I reported that there was an issue with Google Search labeling real content pages as soft 404s, and thus not ranking those pages in Google Search. This bug directly seemed to have caused traffic issues for these sites. Well, that bug seems now to be mostly, if not fully, resolved.

Google Tests New Local Finder Design & Push To Use Chat Button
Google is testing some new local features in Search. Specifically, Google is testing a new local finder design and Google is also testing a new method to push users to use the chat button in a business local knowledge panel.

Google: Abbreviations (abbr) Tag Does Not Help With Rankings
Google’s John Mueller was asked if using the abbr tag – the HTML abbreviation markup – if that can help you rank higher in Google Search. John said no.

Tinikling Philippine Folk Dance At Google
Here is a photo that was recently shared on Instagram from the Google office, the GooglePlex, of some folks doing the Tinikling, a traditional Philippine folk dance which originated during the Spani

Other Great Search Forum Threads:

How is it nobody has noticed that star-only ratings no longer show up on mobile GMB listings?, Jason Brown on Twitter
Yes, that’s a big difference. One quirk is that JS can sometimes run on the cached page (it depends on how it’s embedded if a browser will accept it), so it sometimes *looks like* the page is rendered with JS. T, John Mueller on Twitter
It doesn’t seem reasonable (to me) to provide feedback on a per-sentence level. The web is full of mystery, chaos, and wonder – it doesn’t all have to be uniform to be useful, but also, just b, John Mueller on Twitter
We differentiate between generic & country-specific top level domains. Country-specific TLDs automatically do geotargeting for you (so .in would target users in India), with generic TLDs you can set that yourse, John Mueller on Twitter
Anecdotally, as a user, I don’t care why a site improves it’s usability :). Business-wise, theoretically you waste less energy having a long & steady march towards a goal, but in practi, John Mueller on Twitter

Search Engine Land Stories:

Social listening for brands and agencies: What, why and how?
Health insurance advertisers in the U.S. now required to pass Google Ads certification
Target CPA and Target ROAS will be bundled with other Google Smart Bidding strategies
SEOs rejoice: Core web vitals release moves to June; plus WordPress might block FLoC; Tuesday’s daily brief
Google product reviews algorithm update was big but not like a core update, say data providers

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