Google will now show how busy a business in in the local business knowledge panel within the Google search results. The new feature is an addition to the “popular times” feature that shows how busy a specific business is on various times and days of the week. The new feature adds a “live” tag to […]
Archives for November 2016
Google Brings Home Services Ads Carousel to Mobile Search Results
Google has launched Home Services Ads in the mobile search results. While they have been showing for quite some time on desktop, there had only been brief tests on mobile. You can see each listing also shows a service area on the map within the listing in the carousel, to help users see if each […]
Google Adds “Google Guaranteed” to Home Services Ads
Google has made many changes to the look of their Home Service Ads since they initially launched. But the latest change is probably the boldest and most noticeable one yet. Google has added a green checkmark shield to individual Home Services Ads, along with “Google guaranteed” next to each listing. Here is what it looks […]
Google Showing Local Packs at Bottom of Search Results
Google has been testing different positions for the Google local pack. While it normally shows at the top of the search results, above the organic listings but below AdWords ads, it has sometimes appeared after 1-2 organic results or even in the middle. But Google is now testing it at the bottom of the search […]
Google Returns Sitelinks to the Search Results
Earlier this month, Google removed sitelinks from individual search results, meaning sites lost the row of sitelinks at the bottom of their listing. While this didn’t affect branded site’s sitelinks, a huge number of sites lost them for more generic queries. Gary Illyes commented at the time, asking if they had returned yet, which made […]
Google Search Console Adds New AMP Reports in Search Analytics
Ever since Google launched AMP in the “ten blue links” of the Google search results, the reporting in Google Search Console’s Search Analytics would not track it properly. But they have now launched new AMP reporting that allows site owners to get detailed AMP reports. Site owners can switch between two AMP specific reports. The […]
Google Fixes Date Bug From Embedded YouTube Videos
Google has fixed the date issue that caused many sites to show wrong publish dates directly in the Google search results. Sites that had embedded YouTube videos were showing publish dates that were actually taken from embedded videos on the page, rather than from the page’s publish date. Here is an example from this site. […]
Google Indexes Desktop Page for Mobile First Index, When AMP Only Mobile Friendly Version
There has been some confusion about how Google’s mobile first indexing change would be affected by sites that have a traditional desktop page, but the only “mobile friendly” page is the AMP version. I asked Maile Ohye from Google about this, and we got some clarification on the issue. If the only mobile version page […]
Google Showing Wrong Article Publish Dates When YouTube Videos Embedded
Google has an interesting date bug issue right now in the search results – when there is an embedded YouTube video, Google will show the date from the YouTube video, rather than the date the article was actually published. Here is an example from this site. The Google Panda guide was published in 2016, but […]
Google AdSense & Facebook Ban Their Ads on Fake News
Google AdSense announced yesterday that it would no longer allow fake news sites to monetize their sites with Google AdSense. Facebook later followed suit and announced that fake news sites would not be permitted to use the Facebook Audience Network on fake news sites either. “Moving forward, we will restrict ad serving on pages that […]