Daily Search Forum Recap: April 29, 2024

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 March 2024 core update completed on April 19th, Google just didn’t confirm it until a week later. Google said its spam reporting tool will add site reputation abuse after May 5. Google responded to concerns over the Chrome IP masking and how it will impact advertisers. Google Knowlwdge Panels has translated sections. Apple Business Connect gains actions with links. Google AI is writing some knowledge panels. I am offline today, all these stories were pre-written and scheduled, including this newsletter.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google March 2024 Core Update Finished April 19th (A Week Ago)

The Google March 2024 core update finished a week ago and Google did not tell us until today. It finished officially on April 19, 2024, and took 45 days to roll out after starting on March 5, 2024. Google also said this helped reduce low-quality and unoriginal content in search results by 45%, which is up from their estimate of 40%.

Google Spam Reporting Tool To Gain Site Reputation Abuse

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, said that the search company will add the upcoming site reputation abuse policy to the spam reporting tool when the policy begins to be enforced. So sometime after May 5, 2024, the report spam form will gain a new option to report site reputation abuse.

Google Responds To Concerns Over Chrome IP Masking

A week ago, Anu Adegbola wrote a fabulous piece on some new privacy changes that may be coming to Google Chrome in the future named Chrome IP masking and how that may impact advertisers. Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, responded to those concerns, saying, “Chrome has not made any recent updates to its IP protection proposal.”

Google Knowledge Panel With Auto-Translated Texts

Google is auto-translating some of the content within the Google Knowledge Panels and blocks. So if you are in a location where you don’t only speak English, Google may show you your local language as an additional block of text in the knowledge panel.

Apple Business Connect Actions: Add Links To Apple Maps Local Listing

Apple Business Connect now lets you add links to your local listings that show up in Apple Maps. This is under the “actions” section that enables customers to order food, buy tickets, schedule an appointment, and more.

Google AI Writing Some Search Knowledge Panels

Google has for a long time used AI to write some knowledge panels. But now Google is labeling some of these AI written knowledge panels with “Al overviews are experimental” as a disclaimer. This may show up for both SGE and non-SGE results, I believe.

Google Maps Pigeon People

I am not sure where this first started but in Japan there is this group of people who dress up as pigeons when the Google Maps street view cameras drive by.

Programming Note: Offline For Last Days Of Passover

This is a programming note that I will be completely offline for the last days of the Passover holiday. The last days of Passover are on Monday and Tuesday, April 29th and 30th. Any stories published here will be scheduled and written beforehand and not posted live.

Other Great Search Threads:

I don’t always respond to everyone publicly but I do share feedback and am very aware of the concerns., AdsLiaison on X
I’m going through the Google News Initiative (@GoogleNewsInit) and today’s session was about ad revenue. Took a few minutes to offer some thoughts on how Google’s HCU was hurting small publishers, and express concerns over their d, Matthew Keys on X
An interesting topic on indexing .pdf documents. In an e-commerce we sometimes post original documents from the manufacturers (https://myecommerce.com/docsended.pdf) to offer expanded information about the product., Rafael Martin on Mastodon
I see a lot of information floating around related to HCU this, HCU that. It’s really important to know when you’re talking about a website actually affected by the HCU, and when you’re talking about a website that lost traffic l, Lily Ray on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

Google March 2024 core update rollout is now complete
Google Search revenue increases 14% YoY to $46 billion
Google CEO says AI overviews are increasing Search usage
6 things you should do after a Google core update rollout completes
How to launch a product-led SEO strategy

Feedback:

Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.

Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.

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