Daily Search Forum Recap: November 24, 2023

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 has no estimate for when the November 2023 core and reviews updates will be completed. Google emailed Google Ads advertisers right before Thanksgiving that their ad accounts were suspended and their ads were not running, it was a bug, Google apologized on Friday morning. Google Merchant Center may automatically create promotions based on your website content. Google is testing new flight price rich results. Google is testing shading and coloring favicons. Google dropped the robots FAQ documentation. Google had a Thanksgiving Doodle. And I posted the weekly SEO video recap.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google: No Estimate For Completion Of November Core & Reviews Updates
Many of you are wondering when the Google November 2023 core update and Google November 2023 reviews update will be completed. Normally these updates finish about two weeks after they start but now the core update is 22 days since it started and the reviews update is now 16 days since it rolled out.

Google Ads Bug Sends Notice To Some Advertisers That Their Ad Accounts Were Suspended
Right before the Thanksgiving holiday season and right before the big holiday shopping season, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Google Ads sent emails to some advertisers telling them their ads are no longer running and their accounts were suspended. This was a technical issue, a bug, with the Google Ads system and Google said they can be ignored.

Google Merchant Center Automatically Creating Promotions Based On Your Site
Google Merchant Center has been automatically creating and applying promotions to some of your products over the Black Friday holiday season. The truth is, Google has been doing this for some time, but more are noticing this now because there are a lot of discounts going around this season.
Google Tests New Flight Prices Rich Result?
Google may be testing a new type of rich result for flight prices. This test shows a section under the flight search snippet that contains the dates, trip details and price.
Google Tests Shading Colors Of Favicons – Altering Your Official Favicon
Google is testing shading and adding color and depth to favicons that they display in the search result snippets. This was spotted some time ago but it seems to be more broadly being tested now, including the shading experiment.

Google Removed The Robots FAQs Document
Earlier this week, Google removed its Robots.txt FAQ help document from its search developer documentation. When asked, John Mueller from Google replied to Alexis Rylko saying, “We update the documentation from time to time. Feel free to submit feedback if you feel something’s missing. Robots.txt is definitely still a thing.”

Mock Alligators At SEO Conference
There have been a number of conferences in the SEO space since the Verge’s piece came out and of course, SEOs are brining alligator props to various conferences. Kelvin Newman even dressed up as one a

Happy Thanksgiving: Google’s History of Thanksgiving Doodle
Happy Thanksgiving everyone and to celebrate the holiday, I will not be posting news today. Don’t worry, a lot of news will be posted tomorrow, including the weekly SEO video recap (subscribe!).
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Core & Reviews Update Not Done, Google Simple Search, Date Issues, Follower Counts & More

This week was much slower than the previous weeks, and yes, the core and reviews updates are not yet completed…