Extra Google Rating Volatility, Native Openness Sign Confirmed, Some Indexing Points, Lengthy Google Ads & Extra

As we approach the end of the year, it just seems Google is getting more and more volatile with its search results. Google also confirmed that “openness” as a local ranking signal was strengthened. On Thursday morning, Google had delayed indexing issues for some sites, but Google confirmed it hours later. Google’s Danny Sullivan collects and submits reports of low-quality and problematic search results. Sullivan also wants Google to use licensed images instead of sourcing and attributing publisher images in some cases. Google explains why spam reports don’t lead to immediate penalization in search. Google also explained when to use hierarchical site structure versus flat. Google said double slashes in the URL can cause crawling confusion. Google also explained what to do when you use special characters. Google said no SEO is ever perfect. Google Ads is testing headlines in ad descriptions, which is leading to super long, ugly ads. Google Search Ads for publishers will enforce consent management requirements. Google Merchant Center is testing browsing experience beta cards. Google Merchant Center identifier exists won’t lead to listing disapprovals. Google is testing site snippet overlays on hover over. Google has removed the December 2023 end date for the SGE labs experiment. Bing is on a holiday lockdown for new features. Google launched its Christmas decorations in search. And if you want to help sponsor those vlogs, go to patreon.com/barryschwartz. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

SPONSOR: This week’s video recap is sponsored by Duda, the Professional Website Builder You Can Call Your Own.

Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your favorite podcast player to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed For the original iTunes version, click here.

Search Topics of Discussion:

Please do subscribe on YouTube or subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don’t forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!