Daily Search Forum Recap: December 6, 2019

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:

Search Buzz Video Recap: Google Local Update Confirmed, Core Search Tremors, Quality Raters Guidelines Update & Larry & Sergey Step Down
This week, Google confirmed the November local search update and said the reason for the changes were because Google added neural matching to local search for the first time. Google may have also done a small Google…

Google Tests Package Tracking Directly In Search With Opt In
Google is testing an early adopter program to let shipping companies like UPS, FedEx, DHL, USPS and others integrate their tracking data with the search company. This would allow Google to show the status of the package directly in search, as opposed to just showing a link to go to the shippers website to check the status.

Google Ads Explanations Beta; Explains Large Performance Changes
Google Ads launched a new beta feature named “explanations.” Explanations gives you clear insights into large changes in your Google Ads account performance. Google said it helps you with “understanding why your performance changes is critical when optimizing a campaign.”

Google Updates Search Quality Raters Guidelines On December 5th
Yesterday I spotted that Google updated its Search Quality raters guidelines. George Nguyen from Search Engine Land dug into the changes, you can read the details over there. In short, Google added a page to the guidelines, bringing it up to 168 pages. Google added an introduction page and not much else.

Google: Not Having A Manual Action Does Not Mean Your Site Is Good
Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter “not having a manual action doesn’t mean that the website is good overall.” Simple but true – there are algorithms that judge the quality of the site and if your site is not ranking well, and you don’t have a manual action, that means your site is probably not all that good?

John Mueller Discovers Halva In Israel
Here is a photo of John Mueller, taken by Google co-worker, Daniel Waisberg, of him discovering halva in an Israel shop. Halva, derived from the Arabic word halwa, meaning sweet, is one of the tastie

Other Great Search Forum Threads:

I mean, it seems pretty straight-forward that you would already block a staging server from being seen by anyone much less a search engine. But if not, robots.txt seems pretty sufficient., Danny Sullivan on Twitter
in 2018 we made something you didn’t like… so in 2019… #YouTubeRewind https://t.co/c71moMNmOd https://t.co/L0dP80SJmI, YouTube on Twitter
The only "rollback" I know if was noindex in robots.txt which I think was considered pretty weird & @methode could expand on that as well as how he & Google have been working to make robots.txt, Danny Sullivan on Twitter
Welcome to Google, @mustafasuleymn! I’m looking forward to working with you more closely. https://t.co/E6fYl0hkoh, Jeff Dean on Twitter
Well, for the cookies: We kinda said that before. The painting: Makes sense & doesn’t have as many implications as people might assume, but I’m no longer be surprised, Martin Splitt on Twitter
Google Beginning to Push Ads More in the GMB Dashboard, Local Search Forum

Search Engine Land Stories:

Google search quality guidelines update emphasizes users of diverse backgrounds
Google extends optimization score to Display campaigns
4 ways to get started with agile marketing
Package tracking on Google’s search results page is coming to more carriers

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