Google Replace Brewing, High quality Enhancements Nonetheless Coming, Rating Confusion & Bing Deep Search

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This week we covered a new possible Google search ranking update that started brewing on Wednesday, February 7. Google’s Danny Sullivan said again, search quality improvements are coming in the near future. Google said it will clarify E-E-A-T and its search quality raters. Google explained the differences between ranking systems, ranking factors and ranking signals. Google said core web vitals are not a ranking factor. Google no longer shows Web Stories in image search. Google has a popular product spam issue in search. A blogger said a legit guest blog post was penalized by Google. Google revised its SEO starter guide, as expected. Google said its dynamic search ad crawler crawls less frequently now. Google may have a Sitemaps bug with hyphenated sitemap file names. Sullivan and Mueller both have internal newsletters they write for Google. Google is testing a “web results” button in the search menu. I saw Bing’s Deep Search in the wild, and it was blah, and shortly later, Microsoft pulled back testing Deep Search. Copilot got an upgrade code-named Deucalion. Google is testing an up-and-coming store carousel in search. Google Business Profiles has new activities and event forms. Google Business Profiles can be wiped out through a Local Services Ads loophole. Google Ads has a bug with confusing text and updating credit cards. Google Ads to drop its support for commission bidding for hotel ads. Microsoft Advertising expanded enhanced conversions, updated RSA, and much more. Google AdSense seems to be switching all publishers to CPM bidding. 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.

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